We're Home - Well sort of...

Well, we arrived home as scheduled on Sunday morning but about 6 hours later had to take Gracie in to the emergency room. Before we left Guangzhou, we were nervous about taking Gracie on the plane because she had been throwing up so much and we were worried about dehydration. Thanks to Dr. Davies in Seattle (an overseas adoption specialist on call for us during our stay in China) and his encouraging support, we got on the airplane with the pedialyte and the plastic Ziploc bags to catch everything. (I really felt sorry for the passengers near us.) The flight to Tokyo was full and that was difficult but that was only 3 hours of difficult. I was especially worried about the 10 hour flight from Tokyo to Portland and whether that flight was full or not. But thank the good Lord, there were 50 available seats on that flight and we were able to get two seats in between us so Gracie could lay down and thrash around on the seats instead of on our laps. She could also have a little more privacy while she threw up and there wasn't the risk of hitting other passengers. It was getting a little scary though because she seemed almost delirious at times. I didn't realize until later that that was a sign of dehydration.

When we finally arrived in Portland, we were welcomed by not only our very excited boys, but a handful of very dear friends. There were lot's of tears and hugs as people finally got to meet Gracie for the first time. Poor Gracie slept through the whole thing, but we were able to capture it on video tape, so we can show her later.

When we got home, she was not happy to see the boys and continued to sleep away most of the day. Finally around 6:30 while we were eating dinner, Michael said that he was really worried about Gracie, so we decided to call the Dr. After describing her symptoms, he suggested we take her in to the ER. We thought we were just going to spend the evening in the ER getting her re-hydrated, (afterall, I had already been up at least 60 hours and needed to get home and get some sleep) but one evening turned into 3 days! She just would not stop throwing up. She was diagnosed with RSV which made sense - since she was coughing and sniffling, but we were still perplexed that she was vomitting so much as that isn't usually a symptom of RSV. That still remains a mystery. They had us quaranteened in the hospital too because they were afraid she might have the measles. They gave her a measle shot in China but since it was given to her before her first birthday, it was no good. That was a strange experience, being quaranteened. Now every time Gracie sees someone with a mask on, she's going to think they are going to poke her with a needle or something.

She is starting to feel a little better today (Thursday afternoon). So far today, she has kept her pedialyte and about 5 spoonfulls of rice down (knock on wood) and seems to be perking up a little bit. She seems to also be going through the anger stage of her grieving, because she has been crying a lot and not wanting anyone to comfort her. We are just trying to be patient and love her through it. It can be challenging at times though when we are still trying to recover from our jet-lag and losing so much sleep through the whole thing.

Here are some pictures:

We really miss her smile. Sure looking forward to seeing it again

Pedialyte popcycles.

Gracie & Austin just moments before - well, you know what I mean.... Poor Austin

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYs2Lho3aM2L7I&notag=1