Gardens of Dalat - Day 2 (May 22)

The next morning, we walked the few blocks to the market, then around downtown to Xuan Huong Lake. We had a mango juice at a restaurant built on the side of the lake. However, there is no lake right now! It has been drained for some construction. The lake originally was created by a dam in 1919 and has a path around the shore about 7kms in length. I'm sure it is beautiful when there is water...

In the afternoon, Loan arranged for a driver to tour us around. We went out into the valley where the whole landscape is planted with fruits, vegetables and flowers. Dalat is known as a town that is cooler in the hot season, but also it's very agricultural - maybe like the Okanagan, but with much more diversity in crops. There are wall-to-wall greenhouses for miles in some areas, and we stopped briefly to look inside one. It was planted with flowers.



Here's a gerbera daisy for you Lori!

Next we went to Thung Lung Vang garden, a forest of pine trees that had been landscaped with beds of flowers, bonsai trees, rockeries, a waterfall and a lake. It was a large property, and very beautiful. It was wonderful to walk around in the peacefulness of it. The weather was like a nice summer day in Vancouver, warm, but with a pleasant breeze.

The Hydrangeas were beautiful, and huge! This one is for you Janel, it's about 12 inches across:

Next was a stop at a weaving workshop owned by a family of the Lat ethnic minority people. The family wove cloth from cotton and silk, and sold their products. I bought a few small gifts from the children, but the mother showed me some larger pieces. The work was good quality, a good price, and oh, so beautiful. I also bought a bedspread for Molly and a table runner.

We spent a fair bit of time there talking to the family, so then the Mother offered to show us a home in their village where a typical family lived a generation ago. It was just one long room, no windows, thatch roof, a fire pit in the centre, and hooks for jugs and musical instruments on the walls. There was a pole at the end wall, which she explained had various parts to it. The items attached and hanging off of the pole represented the families spiritual values, for luck, good harvests, health, etc. There was also a couple of large musical instruments in the room. They were made of bamboo pipes and struck with a mallet. She played one to show us what it sounded like. It had notes typical of our scale. After I blew my budget we were driven to Lang Bian Mountain, a mountain with 5 volcanic peaks. There is a 3 - 4 hour hike up the highest peak, but we were not up to that. Loan, Molly and I walked slowly up for about 30 mins - it's harder for me to hike with a baby in the snuggly! Kinh came with us. But Kinh was much faster. Here is a picture of him waiting for us:

And this is the view of the valley, from part-way up the mountain. There are fields of vegetables, and greenhouses, and the whole valley is planted with agricultural products. Only the tops of the far mountains are still green with jungle.

At the base of the mountain is a Lat village. We hung around until 7pm, and took part in a performance that the village offers. Performers dress in traditional clothing, play traditional musical instruments, sing and dance. Spectators are encouraged to join in. The place was packed, and the music was too loud. And Molly slept through it all without even twitching! She was an angel all day. I worried about dragging her out all afternoon and evening, but she didn't seem to mind at all. She's pretty happy riding in the snuggly.

The experience with the Lat people was a highlight. I'm glad I have some of their handicraft work to take back to our home.

Weekend in Dalat - Day 1 (May 21)

So, I had casually mentioned to Loan one day that after our adoption ceremony, if I could find another family to join me, I'd like to visit Dalat before we fly home. A few days later, she said she would come with me to Dalat, so that I would have the chance to see it. That's Loan - extremely generous and kind hearted.

She invited friends, Kinh and Ngoc to join us, and we had a blast! We left the day after our adoption ceremony and hopped a bus for an 8 hour ride to the central highlands. This part of the country is really beautiful! Its the image of thick green mountainous jungle and sleepy villages that I had in my mind of what Vietnam looks like, before I got here. Molly is a fantastic traveller! She was content and happy for 8 hours on the bus, no complaints from her, or anyone sitting near us. In fact, she was flirting with all the men sitting near us, and charmed everyone she could.

Loan made all the arrangements. She chose a wonderful 4 star hotel - The Blue Moon - and got a very good price for the rooms for us. Then she started arranging the tours.

We arrived about dinnertime, so I put Molly to bed in the brand new, beautiful baby cot the hotel put together for her, and ordered room service. The others went carousing around town for the night.

Coming Home

I've booked us a flight home. We will land in Vancouver on the 5th of June.

Molly is looking forward to meeting everybody!

Life in the Orphanage - Vignettes

This is a playground inside the orphanage grounds. Behind the trees are the buildings where the older kids live.

Early morning, the babies are starting to wake up. The floor has just been washed. For now, it's quiet.

This is the courtyard. The door to the baby room is in the top right hand corner. The plaque in the middle says that the building was built in 1997 by an organization of Australian veterans from the Vietnam war. Australians and New Zealanders were stationed in the Ba Ria area during the war.

An Australian gentleman was here in Ba Ria during the war, and has since spent much time and effort on charitable works in this area. He has recently come to Vietnam with a container full of supplies for orphanages all along this coast. He has a blog: dennisedwardsvietnam.blogspot.com chronicalling his trip. At the bottom, he has posted pictures from 1969, plus a few pictures of the baby room from a trip in 2006. If you poke around his postings, you will also see a picture of Molly and I.

In the afternoons, we often sit in the corridor. A breeze flows through, and feels cool. A nanny will bring the toddlers out for some fresh air. They love getting out - they are always trying to escape out the door!

There is lots of laundry to do every day. Hoang said that she would miss us when we go back to Canada, because we helped fold baby clothes with her.

Here is the entrance to the orphanage grounds. It is surrounded by a wall, and there are two caretakers that man the gate. Sometimes babies are left at the gate, so the two gentlemen are often the ones who find them first.

Uncle Nathan sat down on the mat one day, and got MOBBED by babies. They love him. Molly loves him.

This is a picture from nap-time. Hanh relaxes against the wall, while rocking one crib with her foot, and pulling on a tether attached to another crib. Molly is in the crib under her foot.

An afternoon Vietnamese lesson with Thuy and Merel. Nhan is just auditing the class.

One day in early April, some volunteers showed up and took everything out of the baby room, washed the floor, and scrubbed all the cribs down in the courtyard. We moved all the babies to a meeting room next door for the morning. Spring cleaning!




Often, some of the older girls will come into the baby room to help out. Other times, both girls and boys will come in just to hang out and play. The babies love the attention.

Six Loads of Laundry

Another family, Merel and Nathan, came to Ba Ria in mid-March to adopt their son from the same place as Molly. They stayed in the same hotel as us, and came with us daily to the orphanage to visit their little boy. After about 2 weeks, they had their adoption ceremony and moved back to the Somerset Hotel in HCMC.

While they were in Ba Ria, they were really good to me. Nathan had a spare laptop, which he gave me so I could communicate with home. They would go out for dinner in the evenings, and bring me back some of their food. They ended up feeding me dinner most evenings for the two weeks. When they left, they had a gift for Molly - the dress she wore to our adoption ceremony - and a care package for me. They left me a kettle, some instant noodles, granola bars, and a couple of tupperware containers.

The kettle made my life so much easier at the hotel! Instead of asking the hotel for a thermos of hot water every day, I could boil my own water for Molly's bottles, to wash the dishes in, and wash our clothes. I felt a little foolish not picking one up for myself a lot earlier, but, of course, I was expecting to only be there one or two more days, not for 7 weeks. Little things make such a difference.

So after they left Ba Ria they still had a couple of weeks in HCMC before they could fly home. And they were at the Somerset! And, they invited Molly and I to come and visit them for a weekend.

We left on a Saturday afternoon and arrived a couple of hours later to settle into our spacious 2 bedroom apartment. I started a load of laundry right away. Remember, I had been hand-washing everything in the evenings after Molly went to sleep. So I saved up all the dirty laundry that week, and brought it all with us. We met up with another family and their adopted baby, and the group of us went out to the Refinery, a really nice restaurant downtown, which was very accomodating for the 3 babies, strollers and highchairs. The food was great, and we shared a nice bottle of red wine.

Molly and Nhan at the dinner table.

Another load of laundry or two before bed, and we were up to have breakfast then a swim in the pool. Molly seemed to like the swimming pool, but she got splashed in the face with water too many times, and eventually wanted out. Another load of laundry, then we walked down the street to the Botanical Gardens. There is a zoo there, and we saw a white rhinocerous, a tiger, an ostrich, and finally, I saw some storks! I really wanted to see storks in Vietnam while I was here. Sadly, I saw some pathetic looking birds in a cage in a zoo.

After more laundry, naptime and lunch, we had to say our goodbyes, wrap up some still wet clothing and travel back to Ba Ria. But oh, what a nice break it was. Extravagant, but very much needed return to civilization for me.

Merel, Nathan and I had met previously in Vancouver at a Vietnamese language class, but hadn't kept in touch much. The two weeks in Ba Ria, and the adoption of our children from the same orphanage really cemented our friendship. I look forward to a life-long camaraderie of our families, and the friendship that Molly and Nhan will have as they grow up.

Oh Happy Day! May 20, 2010

Molly and I are now a family. Forever.

Molly is 1 Today

Happy Birthday to my beautiful sweet daughter!

Mommy loves you.

We Have a Date!

I got the call from Loan this morning. Our Giving & Receiving Ceremony will be on Thursday morning May 20th, 2010.

I will officially become Molly's Mommy!

Happy First Birthday Party, Molly! (May 16)

Molly turns 1 year old on the 19th, but I held a birthday party for her this morning at the hotel in Vung Tau.

The Menu:

Salsa and Baguette

Cha Gia (Vietnamese spring rolls)

Cheese and crackers

Fruit plate

Chocolate chip cookies

Birthday cake

Iced tea

The Venue:

The patio on the roof of the hotel

The party was quite nice, but it's much harder to be a good hostess with a baby in your arms! In fact, I was an awful hostess, but I just told my guests to help themselves.

Thuy and her husband Thanh arrived with a birthday cake decorated beautifully! It had Happy Birthday Minh Sanh, March 16, 2010 written on it in Vietnamese, and there was a water buffalo made out of icing on it! (Molly was born in the year of the water buffalo in the Vietnamese calendar) Unfortunately, the writing had started to melt before they got here, but I didn't mind. Thuy is a teacher from the orphanage. She has become a very good friend to me, and she and Molly are very close.
Sadly, none of the other people from the orphanage were able to come, but we will visit them again soon.
I had also ordered a BIG birthday cake, so I'll take it down to the lobby later and share it with everyone. My instructions to have 'Happy 1st Birthday Molly' written on it didn't happen, but it looks really good anyways.

Loan came with a family from Quebec that had just picked up their daughter from Tra Vinh orphanage. She also brought Ms Hue, the woman who schedules and completes our adoption ceremonies here in Vung Tau. She came with her daughter and husband. It was kind of scary to meet her, as it feels like my life is in her hands, but she is very nice. I think she will be scheduling our adoption ceremony this week.
The other guests were 2 other families from France, both with their little girls, newly adopted from Vung Tau 1 orphanage, and Gina, the woman who runs this hotel.
The generousity of the guests was amazing! Molly was given many beautiful dresses and some stuffed animal toys.
We are truly blessed!

Beach Baby (April 4th)

With Loan's help, we were able to arrange our weekends off from the orphanage during the last few of the 7 weeks we were stuck there. A weekend in Vietnam is Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

This one weekend started out with the intention of being lazy and relaxed. Molly and I were lounging around in bed about 8am, still in our pajamas, when we heard a knock on the door. Thuy was there, with a written invitation she had translated into English (with help of the internet). She was inviting us out for an adventure for the morning.

I rushed around getting both of us dressed, fed and ready for the day. When we went downstairs, Khuyen, one of Molly's nannies, was waiting for us. We hopped onto the back of Thuy's motorbike an off we went!

A half hour drive later, we were in Phoung Long, at Thuy's house, where I met her husband Thanh, her son Dac and her mother. She lives down what we might call a country road, lined with properties that seemed to be banana orchards and small farms. Thuy lives in a lovely home with land around it, and she grows orchids! Not many were in bloom at this time, but she showed me pictures of her greenhouse in full bloom - it's fantastic!

Thuy served us breakfast and Vietnamese coffee, she and Khuyen fed Molly some cereal, then Thanh jumped on the back of Khuyen's motorbike, and the 5 of us carried on. We cruised for a while down some highways. I saw salt flats, farms and shrimp ponds. Then we drove through Long Hai, a town I knew was about 30kms from Ba Ria, also on the ocean, but much quieter than Vung Tau. We stopped at the beach.

So, while I was asking about buying a hat for Molly, Thuy bought a straw hat for me and plunked it on my head! I didn't see anyone else wearing one on the beach - I felt conspicuous, but it did the trick.

We sat under a gazebo in beach chairs that you pay to 'rent', then Thuy grabbed Molly, and the 3 of us walked down to the water. We took off her diaper and plunked her into the waves. I think it took her a while to take it all in, but she seemed to like the water and the sand. The water was very clear and warm. It was the first dip into the South China Sea for both of us!

A quick photo-op, and then it was back to the shade - the sun is brutally hot, and I didn't have sunscreen for Molly. (Oops!).

On the way back home, Molly was tired and hungry, and was thrashing around in the snuggly on the back of the motorcycle. Thuy signalled Khuyen, who had my diaper bag. We did a hand-off of a bottle while we continued cruising down the highway. I grabbed the bottle with one hand while holding onto the hat that Molly was ripping off her head, and also holding onto a blanket wrapped around her to shade her arms from the sun. The bottle finally found her mouth and she calmed down. That's when I realized I was multi-tasking on the back of a motorcycle with a baby in my arms, cruising down the highway in Vietnam. I wasn't even hanging onto Thuy. What an incredible moment!

So, they dropped us off at the orphanage, which I wasn't expecting, and Khuyen said that she would come back at the end of the day to take us back to the hotel. I didn't argue, communication is difficult, and we were just fine there.

But Khuyen came back mid-afternoon. Again, communications failed. I thought she was taking us back to the hotel, but she took a different route, then turned down this very narrow lane, and stopped at her home!

We had a lovely visit for a couple of hours. I met her two daughters, and some of their friends were over as well. The girls all spoke a little bit of English, so they did some translating for me. They too, live in a lovely home with land, a garden and fruit trees all around them. Khuyen also grows some orchids, although on a smaller scale than Thuy.

When she dropped us off at the hotel afterwards, I bathed Molly and put her to bed, then melted into the mattress beside her. It wasn't the relaxing Sunday I had planned, but what a day! These memories will last a lifetime.

Thank you Thuy and Khuyen!

Visit to the Orphanage

Molly and I went back to the orphanage this afternoon for a visit. It was so nice for me to see everyone again, but others had lukewarm reactions for me!

Molly suddenly was whiny and clung to me. She didn't want to be held by her nannies, and I couldn't put her down without her screaming. I guess she thought that I might leave her there again. It took a little while, but eventually she gave them some cuddles, and I was free to play with the other kids a little bit.

The older toddlers used to run towards me with smiles and excitement when we arrived in the mornings. Today - lukewarm. It took a couple of balloons and a couple of swings upside down before they liked me again.

Thankfully, the younger kids aren't quite as fussy. I got smiles, a wiggle and even a short cuddle from the little peanut I love so much. I had brought a pocketful of balloons with me, so some of the others were chasing them across the mat. I noticed that some of those kids have grown in the last 2 weeks! It was really nice to sit and play with them again. I took lots of pictures to send to waiting parents.

So, there is a bit of news from the baby room. There were two wooden bed frames in the room that have been replaced with these 2 huge crib/beds. They have high sides and a gate on them, and sit off the ground, so when the 3 toddlers are put inside, they can't climb out! Man, do they hate that! It looks like they are in prison and it probably feels that way too. But I'm sure the nannies love them. The three little boys created a lot of havoc, and it was a challenge to keep all six little hands out of trouble at times.

It was nice to see the nannies and the teachers again. I brought a watermelon to share with them, and we were back to our usually gestures, Vietnamese/English dictionaries, and making do with whatever words we knew, in order to communicate.

We plan to go back again next week.

Good News!

I just got a call from Loan - my file is signed off, and the next step is to schedule the adoption ceremony date! Yayyy!

Chances are it will be next week.

Yayy, I'm so happy I sat down with Molly and cried.

It's All About Molly

• When Molly sees a tree swaying in the breeze, she waves back at it
• She loves the washing machine we have here in Vung Tau. She sits and watches the clothes spin in circles and laughs
• She can make the sign for 'more'. She hasn't learned the sign for 'milk' or 'all done', but we are working on those
• She clearly said 'Bow-wow' one day, playing with a toy dog. She is also trying to say 'Cock-a-doodle-do' to the toy rooster
• When I sing to her, she hums along
• When she wakes up in the morning, she lays in bed for a long time talking and cooing. She giggles at me when I wake up and look at her
• She prefers to play with the plastic lid from the formula can, rather than all the organic, all-natural, educational/developmental toys I brought from Canada
• She is happiest sitting on my lap on the floor, playing with the plastic lid
• She loves to dance. It makes her giggle
• She likes to eat ice cubes
• She smiles at me and takes my breath away

We have been singing the Rubber Ducky song at bath-time. In honor of Mother's Day, I changed the words:

Molly baby, you're the one. You make my life so much fun. Molly baby, I'm awfully fond of you.

Molly baby, you're so fine. I'm so lucky that you're mine. Molly baby, I'd like a whole life time. Molly baby, I'm awfully fond of you!

Happy Mother's Day!

I am happy and proud to celebrate my first Mother's Day! We are in Vietnam where there is no Mother's Day, but I took us out for brunch to a local cafe called the Blue Note, where there is good Vietnamese coffee. Later, I treated myself to a mani-pedi. Molly's gift to me today was to be absolutely angelic and patient both at brunch and while I was getting my nails done. She's so sweet!

The hotel where we are staying is owned by the Director of the Vung Tau orphanages, so many the families that come into this area end up staying here with their children until the travel documents are ready. Right now, all the families that were here are from France, but a couple of them spoke English, so I have had a bit of a social life! Sadly, they all left this morning. So Mother's Day was celebrated by just Molly and myself, 14 hours earlier than the rest of you.

So Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Happy Mother's Day to all my friends and family who have children. And a very special Happy Mother's Day to all the first-time Moms who have brought their adopted children home in the last year.

Molly or Minh Sanh?

I decided a long time ago that I would name my daughter Molly. Before I knew who she was, and before I got her proposal, I decided on Molly. Any other parent gets to name their child, and I decided that if the orphanage Director named her, then I could choose my own name, and keep her Vietnamese name as her middle names.

So then I came to Vietnam and unexpectedly spent 7 weeks at the orphange with her, where she was Minh Sanh. The Vietnamese pronounce the two names quickly, with the emphasis on the last syllable. They also pronounce an 'S' as the 'sh' sound, but in this case, it's almost a 'ch'. So it sounds like 'Min CHAN'.

So in the early days, I was sitting on the mat with a nanny and a bunch of kids, and Molly was nearby, and getting into something she shouldn't. I cried out "Minh Sanh!" and she ignored me. The nanny called out THE SAME THING, and Molly turned around to look at her with a guilty look on her face. I did it again when Molly turned away - no response. I couldn't pronounce her name properly, and she didn't recongnize it as her name. The nanny and I had a good laugh about it.

But after many weeks at the orphanage, I started calling her Minh Sanh instinctively. That was/is her name. Is it right to change it? She's almost a year old.

Now that we are no longer there everyday, I am calling her both names. Minh Sanh is instinctive and Molly is deliberate. I have decided that it's OK to use Molly as her first name. Changing the pronounciation of Minh Sanh is just about the same thing as changing the name completely, to her. So, Molly she will be.

Memories of Ba Ria

I haven't posted much about our 7 weeks in Ba Ria, because I didn't have internet access at the hotel or the orphanage. I'll post some stories in the next few weeks.

Our days in Ba Ria took on a regular routine. I'd get up at 5:30am to shower, eat and dress before Molly woke up. I had to wake her up about 6:15am to get her ready to go. We would catch a taxi to be at the orphanage by 7am.

Molly was fed cereal as soon as we arrived, as she was usually starving by then. The other kids were waking up and getting fed, and we all played on the floor. 10am was bathtime. It was quite an event! The two nannies would take one child after another, strip them, hose them down, soap them up, rinse them off, then dry them off, dress them, put them in their cribs with a bottle for a nap. I always offered to help, but all I did was dry, dress and lay them down for a nap. By the time all 20 kids were bathed and napping, I had only helped out with 3 or 4 of them - the nannies are fast and efficient. I'm not!

Most of the kids don't wear diapers - just the older ones with messier poops. The kids pee their pants, and we just wipe up the puddle and put clean clothes on them. Baby pee is supposed to be pretty clean, but it took me a little time to get used to it. There is a lot less diaper rash, and a lot less disposable diapers going into the garbage too. So when I say we play on the floor, the 3 toddlers that can walk, will run around creating havoc. The kids Molly's age 'commando' crawl all over the room, and the younger babies lay on a reed mat in the middle, and learn to roll over. So when I see wet pants, or I sit in a puddle, or the baby I'm holding pees on me, I deal with it and put clean pants on the kid. However, when a kid poops, for the longest time, the nannies didn't let me clean it up. Nice huh? Not even Molly's poop. They take the baby - clothes, poop and all into the washing room, and hose them down under a tap. So play time did consist of playing, but a lot of it was just a constant changing of pants, feeding of bottles and rocking of cribs.

Molly's schedule was always off, because I woke her up at 6am, instead of her usual 8am mornings, so when she slept, the nannies always made sure I laid down for a nap too. I grabbed a pee-stained pillow and layed on a bedframe covered by a pee-stained reed mat. This is where the scabies, ants and mosquitos ate me. I always woke up scratching.

Lunch was about 11am. The nannies would bring me the same food that was served to the older kids at the orphanage. It was always a bowl of rice, with a serving of meat and a serving of vegetables in pork broth. This was the best Vietnamese food I have eaten here. I loved the chicken curry, and there was often a vegetable dish that had bean sprouts, okra, shrimp and onion stewed in broth. These were my favorites.

After lunch, most of the kids were napping, and the nannies also napped as best they could until about 2pm. The afternoon nap is pretty common in this country. (Vietnamese tend to start the day at 5am, sleep in the afternoon when it's hot, then head for bed about 11pm.) So Molly and I were always awake by then, and I tried to tend to all the kids so that the nannies could sleep.

The afternoon consisted of "an dua hau" which means "eat watermelon" and a Vietnamese language lesson. I found early on that watermelon was a big hit with the nannies. I often went out in the mornings to a nearby fruit stand to buy myself bananas and other fruit, and I almost always brought back a small watermelon to share with everyone. Some of the teachers would visit, and communicating with them meant bringing out the Vietnamese/English dictionaries and slowly trying to understand each other. It was a bit of a struggle, but I really enjoyed it - I have picked up a lot of Vietnamese vocabulary.

Molly was free to leave about 5:30pm, so I would put a diaper on her, grab a couple of bottles, and we would take a taxi or motorbike back to the hotel. A bath for Molly, a bottle, and I'd play with her until she fell asleep. Then I was able to eat, shower, wash dishes in the bathroom sink, handwash some clothes in a bucket, then lay down beside my baby and sleep until she woke me for the 2am feeding.

Ok, so I'm whining a little bit. It was a grueling 7 weeks, full, exhausting days covered in sweat, pee and sometimes feces. But what made it all worthwhile was Molly. I was with her everyday and it was this time in Ba Ria where we first got to know each other, and started to attach to each other. I wouldn't have done it any other way.

Freedom! (April 27th)

The investigation was done today! Molly and I are now free to live full-time together in a hotel in Vung Tau, and spend our days as we choose.

Monday morning the Director poked her head into the baby room and said: "Canh sat, hom nay" which means: "police, today". Of course, the police didn't come that day. But again, Loan got busy, tracked the investigator down, and ensured that he came out the next morning. He spent almost 2 hours going over the file. I was hiding out in a teacher's office the whole time, and the Director came in at one point to give an update. When she left, she said "truc trac" in a disgusted tone, and walked out. I asked what it meant - it translates to the word malfunction, but in context, she just meant that the investigator was being too picky and wasting her time. Anyways, I heard later that when he came into the baby room to take a picture of Molly, they had to wake her up, and her picture was of her wailing. Good girl!

So here is the whole story of this delay, as I currently understand it:

The Director of Adoptions ("DOA") in Hanoi had my file Feb 6, but Tet celebrations started that weekend, so he didn't process anything until the beginning of March. He sent the file back to the Provincial Justice Dept for further investigation, because Molly had been abandoned, not relinquished. On March 10, Miss Hue at the Justice Dept sent the request to a higher level of Provincial police for the investigation, as the local police had previous done the original report. At this stage, the request was lost in space. Loan has a good working relationship with Miss Hue, and found out the she had just recently found she had cancer. So when nothing happened with the file, at the 3 week mark, Loan asked her to send a 2nd request. But the 2nd request was simply a letter asking to trace the original letter, which was never found. Then Miss Hue was in and out of the hospital in Saigon for cancer treatements. Loan worked hard for me - she had lunch with a consultant, she spoke to the Director who runs the other 3 orphanages in the Vung Tau area, and my story got spread around. It seemed that everyone involved in adoptions knew about me and my plight. I credit the Vung Tau Director with coming up with the solution. She told Loan that the Justice Dept should send the original request out again. Simple? Yeah. Sigh. So lucky for me, Miss Hue's surgery was delayed, she was in the office working the next week, and Loan was able to convice her to send out the request as suggested. If not, there is nobody else to do her job when she's absent.

Within a week, the investigation was done. One day short of 7 weeks.

So, what's next? The investigation report has been sent back to the DOA in Hanoi. He has to sign off on it, and send it back to Miss Hue at the Provincial Justice Dept. Then she will schedule the adoption ceremony date with Loan. If all goes well, it's reasonable to expect the ceremony date in the next week or two. After the ceremony, I have another 2-3 weeks to wait until Molly's travel documents are ready, and then we can come home. I estimate 5 weeks, give or take.