There's a party going on in room 509

This day has put all other "crazy" days in my life to shame.

So to start where I left off, Elliott took a 3 hour nap yesterday.  Clue number one.  We decided to go for a walk along China (Zhongyiang) Street again last night to do some exploring and some window shopping.

 Interesting sales tactic.

Chinese Bloodmobile.  These people were donating today, assisted by nurses in dresses with starched white hats.

 Elliott likes Baba to carry him, but instead of being alert and observant, he was laying his head on Baba's shoulder and just seemed to be much more passive than usual.  Mind you, this little man behaves like a prince in public.  He may be a wild man back in our hotel room, but he has yet to make a scene in any public area.  But he just seemed so lethargic compared to his curious little self.  So we cut the walk a little short and decied to skip dinner out at a restaraunt.  By the time we got home, and got his coat and his sweatshirt and his ball cap off, I realized that our poor little man had a fever.  Axillary temp read 101.5 farenheit.

Needless to say, dinner for us was going to be snack bars and juice (again), but our concern was for our son.  Matt snuggled with him (he wanted only Baba) and I found some reruns of "Pleasant Goat and Big Bad Wolf" on television, which is very popular with the young children.  Think of it like a Chinese version of Tom and Jerry.  The Big Bad Wolf and his mate are always trying to think of clever ways of catching and eating the goats, but the goats always outwit them.  Elliott tried to get comfortable, but was not able to get to sleep for the next couple of hours.  The acetaminophen I brought along for him brought his temp back to normal within an hour, and he seemed to perk up a little bit.  I was able to encourage him to keep drinking water, though he refused to eat.

Last night he slept with Baba.  He is such a restless sleeper!  We start out with him on the pillow next to us, but within a couple of hours he has flipped and flopped so much that he ends up at the foot of the bed.  Three times last night he slipped off.  Luckily it's only a few inches to the floor (short beds).  He would wake up, crawl back in bed, and do it again in a few hours. 

This morning we all slept in late, about 7:15.  I woke up a few times last night to the sound of screeching tires and loud music.  The third time I got up to look out the window and it was like a scene from "Fast and Furious".  There were three little sport cars all decked out from bumper to bumper with flashing neon lights with loud music playing, doing burn-outs at the base of the flood control monument, about 50 yards from the lobby of our hotel.  When I woke up and looked out, there were tire marks everywhere.  Whoopsie!

Elliott woke up without a fever, like his normal self, only at this point I was starting to really get concerned that he has not had a bowel movement since we got him.  He has a special medical need which makes having regular BM's difficult, and for him to go for so long is concerning.  We have been following the instructions given to us on Gotcha day, but that has not helped produce results.  So we got dressed, Skype'd again with our kids, and headed to WalMart for some early morning shopping.  Luck for us, the street vender selling the meat that smells so horrible (honestly, it smells worse than anything I have smelled before, and I am a nurse if that gives you any inclination of the variety I have been exposed to) was not open yet, so we had a nice stroll to the store.

Can you imagine shopping for pediatric enemas in a foreign country using only your acting skills?  I did not learn any medical words, so I had to get my point across by other means.  It was hilarious.  I finally found what I was looking for, and headed back to the room.  Little man was NOT happy with me when we were done with that procedure, and it didn't do much for him.  When Lin came to the hotel at 10:00 I asked her to take me to the pharmacy again and to call Elliott's caregivers at the Harbin CWI for some advice.  Their advice was to do what I had already done, and had nothing to offer past that.  Knowing that we were getting ready to travel to Guangzhou tomorrow, and that this type of problem only compounds itself with time, I wanted to get it taken care of today.  I needed to get it taken care of today.

We decided to go for a visit to Zhaolin Park (think "Central Park" in NYC) to give the first medication time to work, and to see about visiting a physician if we still had no luck.  The park was nice, and the day today is absolutely gorgeous.  It's about 65 and very sunny.  The nicest day since we've been here.  Elliott was so funny!  With room everywhere to play, he was running everywhere, laughing, and having fun.

The Chinese government, in an effort to promote. heatlhy lifestyles, puts exercise equipment in the public parks.  There is usually a crowd of older folks around using them.  Especially on nice days, like today.

Elliott thinks Baba hung the moon.   :o)

It has been a bit of a role change for us.  I'm used to being the primary comforter, the one who nurses the babies and rocks them to sleep.  I am usually the one who rubs backs at bedtime and gets up with the girls when they have bad dreams. This time, it's Matt.  I love seeing how sweet and tender he is with Elliott.  It has been quite inspiring to watch him really take the lead parenting role and run with it.  He is such an excellent Daddy, and I am so proud.  I can't imagine being with anyone else on this life journey.  It's weird, though, being on the second string.  Elliott needs to have me within eyesight or he panics a little, but wants Baba to carry him and play with him.  I know that a month from now, it will be much different.  I just need to keep perspective, and I am so happy that he has bonded so well to us so quickly.  He won't even go to our interpreter, Lin, without a fuss.  He loves Mama and Baba, and we love him too!

We passed a group of people practicing martial arts in the park and Lin asked the master if I could give it a try.



While walking around yesterday and today, people stop Lin and ask her what's going on that an American couple is holding a Chinese baby.  Harbin, although it's a pretty big city with a pretty big orphan population, only does about 40 adoptions a year.  There are far more kids looking for homes than there are homes to give them.  Adoptions in China are usually foreign; domestic adoptions are rare because the cost is so high and the typical financial incomes don't often allow it.  Lin is such a good representative for us adoptive families, and explains to them what we are doing.  Almost everybody smiles at us and tells her that they are happy to see Elliott in a good home, that he is so lucky.  But then she explains to them that WE are the lucky ones, too.  Not to forget how happy the child makes the parents.  :o)

Charlotte and Madeline: Elliott loves to play in the leaves, too!  We're going to have fun when we get home!

 

I finally got a picture of a Chinese magpie bird.  They sing so pretty, but don't sit still for pictures!

Right before we left, we climbed these stairs to hear some live music, traditional Chinese style.

After lunch, we went to another dumpling house with our guide and driver.  Two of the most fantastic people we have met so far in China.  We have loved every restaraunt we have been to so far.

After lunch, we drove to the Harbin Children's Hospital.  They open at 1:00 for walk-in clinic appointments.  Walking up to this establishment from the parking lot, there was a street vendor selling pet turtles in tiny little capsules.  It made my heart hurt, those poor little animals.  And I was confused as to why they were selling these outside of the hospital.  There were a few kids inside the hospital walking around with their new pets, too.  Not sure how that works for sanitation purposes.

It was so different than any American hospital I have ever been to, and I have seen quite a few across the country.  Walking in, there are triage nurses sitting behind a round desk, wearing face masks with microphones attached to the outside.  All nurses there were wearing light blue starched caps with light blue scrub-type outfits that buttoned just right of midline down the shirt.  Lin, of course, handled all of the arrangements.  We got assigned to a doctor by the triage nurse, then took our ticket to the cashier so we could make pre-payment. It only cost us like $30 yuan (less than $5 USA) to see a physician.

We rode an escalator up to the second floor.  There were masses of people heading every which way, vendors selling balloon animals and other treats.  And without going into detail, it was not as clean as I was expecting it to be.  Lin helped us to find the room that we were supposed to be, and we waited outside of the room for the physician to finish with the previous patient.

We did not wait long.  That was a pleasant surprise.  I have never been to see a doctor that quickly in the USA, or anywhere for that matter.  He took a quick history of our son, reviewing his special need briefly with details of our present situation with the help of Lin, who is so compassionate and so helpful I cannot say enough good about her.  The doctor took a look at his distended little belly, which I have to say was probably partly because of a large lunch, and said that he was full of stool.  I explained what I have tried and what I thought Elliott needed, and he agreed.  I also asked him to take a peek at his ears because I wanted to make sure that he did not have an ear infection after dealing with his fever last night. He took a peek, literaly, over his shoulder, and said that they were fine.  Gee, thanks.

He wrote down his presciption, and told us to go see the nurses' room which was across the foyer and down another hall on the second floor.  But before we went there, we had to stop at a different cashier to pay for his treatment.  $35 yuan.  (one US dollar is 6.31 yuan)

I found it amusing that this scrolling board outside of the cashier windows was listing the current prices for the services provided.  Talk about transparency in healthcare!  Wow!

Here's where the fun starts.  We went to the nurses' room and pulled his pull-up down, to find that he had a small BM (must have scared it out of him at this point).  At the urging of the nurses, I packed it up and carried it back across the way to our physician to ask him if it was enough.  He said to go ahead and have the nurses administer the medication, that there should be more doo-doo coming.  Back to Elliott at the nurses' room, standing naked on an uncovered table and crying, clinging to Baba, and we had to lay him down and have the nurses administer the medication in a very uncomfortable manner (no gloves - bare hands), and I was almost in tears trying to comfort him, with the door open to the hallway for anyone and everyone to watch.  After what seemed like forever, they told me they were done, and that I needed to take him to the bathroom to massage his belly for five minutes and then let him do the duty.  So I took my half-naked son, holding an extremely large amount of fluid in his tiny little booty, and ran down the hall, holding his cute but tiny little butt cheeks together with my bare hand and a wad of napkins that I happened to have handy in my back pocket.  The whole time I am muttering 'this is not happening.... this is not happening...!!!' and praying that none of the magic starts to happen on my shirt sleeve.

I bust into the bathroom and find not only is it very very dirty, but it was all squatty pottys.  Not a single western style toilet in the joint.  And the smell was bad enough to kill a camel.  With poop on the floor and who knows what else, I squatted over the potty and held Elliott in the functional position, still crying his eyes out, and waited.  And it came.  And came again, and again, and again.  What nurses know as a "code brown".  With Lin in the background, teaching me the words to encourage him to push, and Matt standing behind me to hold me up so I don't fall, we spent the next ten minutes experiencing something that will live forever in my brain and my olfactory receptors.  We cleaned our poor little man up, and went to the sink to find that only the cold water worked and there was no soap to be found.  And no towels or air dryer.  And I couldn't find a garbage can.  We used the couple of pieces of Kleenex I had left in my pocket to clean and wipe up, and headed back to the physician, who told us that his belly still had stool in it because it was still a big large-appearing.  He gave us a prescription for medication, and told us to discontinue the stuff that the orphanage gave us.  

Back down to the first floor, back to the cashier to pre-pay for the medications, and then next and last stop was the hospital pharmacy.  The kid in line in front of me I am pretty sure was being treated for scabies so I took a step back and waited my turn, which meant being pushed back by others waiting in line behind me.  In China, I am finding you have to be more aggressive or you'll be waiting forever.  After thrusting my prescription through the hole in the glass, I was handed enough pills for four days, after which I will resume my own regimen brought with me from the good ol' USA along with a strict bathroom schedule.

Back in the van we go, with one last look at the Harbin Children's Hospital as we drove by.

In front of our hotel we were passed by an ambulance.  Interesting enough, the driver was wearing a camoflage winter coat and a ball cap.

The medication has been continuing to work for hours, so we are spending the rest of the day in the hotel room.  Elliott took a healthy two hour nap after all of that excitement, laying on Baba's chest like a little panda bear, and we had to take yet another trip to Wally World for extra diapers and wipes, and another round of ramen noodles for dinner because there is no way we were going to make it to a restaraunt for dinner.  Parenting out of a hotel room in a foreign country is really, really hard to do!  I was able to take an hour break to go out for coffee with my new friend, Isabel from Spain, and that was so very nice.  Elliott is on his 18th or 19th diaper now and I can't find the Desitin I know I packed.  He is happy and smiling again, and we are enjoying the light show outside at the flood memorial for the last time, as tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou in the afternoon.  Despite the obsurdity of the day, I am still falling more and more in love with this little boy, and I can't imagine my life without him in it.  And Matt's stamina and ability to stay calm when things get crazy is something I admire.  I am sad that tomorrow we are leaving Harbin, not only because this is such a cool city, but because we will be taking Elliott from his hometown, and we probably won't be back to visit for at least another 10 to 15 years.  But to see his transformation from a terrified and withdrawn little boy to an affectionate and happy son has been nothing short of a miracle.  Sure, we still have little hiccups, but he is easily corrected and tries hard to please us.  He is the tidiest little kid I have ever met, too!  He will pick up every scrap of food that falls off of his fork and throw it in the garbage, and he washes his hands and brushes his teeth really well on his own.  He is such an amazing child, and I am so truely thankful tonight that he is a Beresford, today and forever.  I can't wait for him to finally meet his jie jie (big sisters) and we can finally be together as a family of five.

So with that, I end my blog for today.  Tomorrow I may or may not be able to post, depending on what time we finally get to Guangzhou.  I am assuming that it will be late, as our flight isn't scheduled to leave the ground until 5:00pm and I do believe it is about a 4 1/2 hour flight.

Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers and kind messages!