Trip to China
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Saturday, December 12, 2009 MEDICAL EXAM DAY Today was a very long trying day. We got up, ate breakfast and Ava and I met our guide and the other BAAS families at 10am for the medical exam. Katelyn and Kiah stayed back in the hotel room to watch movies since we expected the process to take a couple of hours. Well, it didn’t take a COUPLE of hours. We arrived at 10am and left at 2:30pm. 4.5 HOURS!!! It was a long drawn-out CROWDED process. This is the craziest I have ever seen the medical exam building. It was packed with families and pretty much everyone was doing the Hague process. You must fill out forms, pay the fees, visit 3 stations for medical exams and then get the required immunizations. It appeared we were the last group for each of these processes. Ava screamed and cried at every exam station. They didn’t even have to touch her… she screamed as soon as we entered each room. I can’t explain the level of exhaustion that each member of our group was experiencing as we left the building. The Gov’t is requiring all Hague families to get their child immunized prior to getting their Visa to enter the US. The immunizations are determined by the orphanage shot record. Ava had to get 5 shots today. That was the average number. Ava was not going willingly and it took me, our great guide Elvin and 3 nurses to hold her down. It would say that the whole process was barbaric. There were no pleasantries. The metal tray with the immunizations was set up, the kids are called in, the shirt and pants come off and the immunizations are carried out one right after the other. And with no gloves. However, all the doctors and nurses are wearing face masks. We made it back to the room at almost 3pm. We headed out for lunch and some time at the park. Kiah found another little girl to play with that had been adopted in 2005 as well. They were quite a team flipping off the bars, running up the slide, swinging upside down. By the time we left the park it was around 5pm. We stopped to talk to my bloggy friend Amy and then headed up to the room to order Papa John’s pizza for dinner. Ava is not too keen on “American” food and I don’t think she felt much like eating after all those immunizations! We are just hanging out here in the room anticipating bed time after a long day. We will be doing some touring with our group tomorrow. Each member of our BAAS travel group is lovely! It was so great to meet everyone and their new children. 4 beautiful girls have been united with their families through Xiaoqing Cai at BAAS!

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