DEAR GOBO

Moving Day

2010-06-25T21:27:00.004+07:00

During graduation on Thursday, much of the talk among the various teachers was of summer vacations and impending flights. Some people were leaving the following day or over the weekend, while a few, like us, were leaving early the following week and some, not leaving at all. Those who had upcoming flights were mostly packed and ready to go, others had lots of last minute plans to pick up clothes at tailors, have those last meals at favorite spots and say goodbye to friends made over the past year or two. Steven and I had all of those plans as well, with a flight leaving the following Tuesday evening at 11 p.m., but when Tuesday morning came around, we found ourselves yet unpacked and with more than a few last minute items to attend to.

We spent the day cleaning out drawers, packing up suitcases, figuring out future bills, arranging to final payments all while caring for a three week old baby. In the midst of all of this, our landlord brought someone by to see the house; The, the guy who had helped us find our house came by to say good-bye; and our neighbors were in and out to say goodbye and alleviate us of all of the things we had decided to leave behind. Finally around 9 o'clock, two hours before our flight, the couple we had rented our motorbike from showed up to collect the bike. Because we were running behind, they helped us by getting a cab in the alley and transporting our many suitcases on their bike from our house to the cab. "Grandma" from next door and her son where there to see us off with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. As they walked us to the cab, I thought about how neat it was that we had developed such a positive bond with our neighbors in the time that we were in our house without having spoken the same language. It made for a bittersweet ending to our second year in Vietnam, both of us glad to be moving on to something new, but sad to be leaving the country that had been our home and the people that had been our friends for the past two years.

We will miss Vietnam.

The Grandma Gauntlet

2010-06-09T10:54:00.006+07:00

If we weren't conspicuous before as a white, westerners living in a Vietnamese neighborhood, having a tiny baby with us whenever we went out made us even more so. In Vietnamese culture, after giving birth mothers are expected to rest while the rest of the family cares for the newborn. This period of rest for the mother typically lasts a month, while the corresponding period for the newborn, during which he or she is to be kept inside lasts a bit longer, with most children not making a public appearance until three months of age. Unfortunately, we did not have the time, nor the available family, for such luxuries, and Hazel and I were out and about the day after she came home.

Because of this breach of custom (one of many I'm sure), we received a lot of attention from the local grandmothers on the block each time we left the house. Each one would come out when they saw us coming and stop us to look at Hazel and dispense some sort of advice, much of which I couldn't understand, but with one continuing theme among them - Hazel was under-dressed.

In a country where woman cover themselves from head-to-toe in 90 degree heat, it should nto have surprised me that this would be the case for babies as well. But while I was free, as a westerner, to go out "under-dressed," it was not at all looked upon well for Hazel. Each time we were stopped we would inevitably be told, via sign language, that Hazel should have a hat, socks and gloves on - the hat to protect her head, the socks to keep her warm and the gloves to keep her from scratching her face. While we owned all of those items, we didn't put them on her because, in our minds, no sane minded person would dress their baby in a hat, socks and gloves in 90 degree weather. So each day, out we went, frightfully under-dressed, through the barrage of well-intentioned advice with an understanding nod and a gesture to my bag to show that, yes, I indeed had all of the necessary articles of clothing, even though she wasn't wearing them at the time. After two days of admonishments from little old Vietnamese women, I caved.

For our morning outing on the third day of bureaucratic paper gathering, I dressed Hazel in a onesie, matching socks, a hat and little pink gloves. As we walked down the alley way, inquisitive glances turned into approving smiles. I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I neared the end of the alley towards the main road,when I was stopped by a young Vietnamese man. He said hello and then asked, sounding surprised, "Why do you have your baby all bundled up like that? It is way too HOT for all that!" Incredulously, I countered, "Where are you from?" "Canada," came the reply. Once in the cab, I immediately removed all Hazel's extra clothing and learned to live with disapproval for the next three weeks.

All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train

2010-06-08T13:36:00.000+07:00

(Warning - This may be as painful to read as it was to experience.)

Finally, armed with a baby, and a birth date for all the forms, Steven and I were able to begin the process of getting all the documents that Hazel needs to leave the country. The first of those forms was her actual birth certificate, which would be issued by the Vietnamese Department of Justice.

On Thursday morning, the day after we'd been discharged from the hospital, Hazel and I set out to the US Consulate to get a stamp on the form that stated that she would be accepted as an American citizen. After the hassle of getting the baby bag packed, getting the baby ready, getting myself ready, getting out of my neighborhood with the least amount of tongue clicking from all the Vietnamese woman who think I should a) not be leaving the house and b) have Hazel bundled up like a Himalayan Sherpa in 90 degree heat, getting the form stamped was a breeze.

The following day, Steven had arranged for one of his friends at the school, Ms. Nga, to meet us at 8:30 at the Department of Justice to help with any Vietnamese translation we might need. Before we could meet her, we needed to complete one last step - to have the form I had just had stamped "authenticated" by the office where I had caused a big scene over our marriage certificate. Steven left early on the bike to get the "authentification," while I got the baby ready and took a taxi to the Department of Justice to meet Ms. Nga.

On our way, I got a call from Steven telling me that he has been informed that our form cannot be authenticated because the consular stamp is a round stamp and we needed a particular square stamp with the name of the consular officer. He was shooed away and told to go back to the Consulate for the square stamp. A few minutes later, I got another call from Steven informing me that the US Consulate is closed on Fridays. We decided to risk submitted the form as is and he left to join us.

Once we were all together at the Department of Justice, Ms. Nga took over. She gave all our forms to the man behind the counter; translated messages between the man and Steven and I as the first, second, and third version of the application we submitted were rejected one by one - the first because under "place of birth" we put "Ho Chi Minh City" instead of the name of the company that owns the hospital where she was born as we should have..., the second because Steven wrote the company name too big and couldn't fit it all on one line, the third because after all that we were informed that the form had to be filled out in Vietnamese; and kept pushing her way back to the counter each time we had to submit a corrected form without waiting at the end of the line. After about an hour and a half, we were told that our application had been accepted and that we could pick up Hazel's birth certificate the following Thursday.

I immediately went home and emailed my contact at the US Consulate and informed him that we wouldn't have the birth certificate until June 3rd and asking if that would be time enough for us to come in, apply for and receive Hazel's CRBA and passport and be out of the country by June 15th, when my visa expired. He replied that it shouldn't be a problem and we made an appointment for the following Thursday afternoon at 4:30.

The following Wednesday evening Steven and I realized that we had yet to get Hazel's passport pictures which we would need for our appointment the following day, so we took a taxi down to the tourist district where we knew a "passport picture guy," whose tiny street side shop doubled as a laundry service and copy shop. We got there and laid Hazel down on a blanket on top of the printer and tried to get her to wake up for her picture. Passport pictures have pretty strict guidelines and the subject has to be facing front with eyes open against a white background. We tried to rouse her by talking to her, playing with her hands and feet, tickling her belly, but she wasn't having it. Steven left to get an ice cube, but even rubbing an ice cube on her leg only elicited a quick frown and she was back to sleep. The copy man told us that we could just take a picture of her at home and bring it to him in the morning and he could doctor it up with Photo Shop and print it the correct size. Once at home, when Hazel finally roused, we spent a few minutes taking various shots until we got one we thought would work.

The following morning, I went to pick up the Birth Certificate and to request additional official copies and English translations, both of which we would need, in addition to the original, for our appointment that afternoon at 4:30. When I went to get the official copies, I was told to pay 30,000 VND (less than $2) and to come back the following Thursday. At the translation counter, it was the same thing. Pay 100,000 and come back next Thursday. I argued a bit, telling them that I needed them by that afternoon for an appointment at the US Consulate, to no avail and I had to leave with only the original. Then I took a taxi back to the photo shop, gave the woman there the pictures and was told to come back at 3:00 to pick them up.

Once home, I emailed my Consulate guy again and told him the situation and he again assured me that it shouldn't be a problem and asked me to come in at 4:00 to get the process rolling.

At 3:30, I bundled Hazel up again and she and I headed to the Consulate while Steven left school for the photo shop for the pictures. We all met up at the Consulate at 4:00, where we were greeted warmly by the Consular staff, who by then were all too familiar with my face and were happy to finally meet Hazel and Steven. By 4:45, all of our paperwork had been accepted and we were told that we could have her CRBA and temporary passport as early as the following day - with one hitch. The photos that we took weren't regulation size and we would have to take them again and bring new pictures back first thing the following morning with a copy of our flight literary that showed we were leaving on the 15th. We thanked them and made our way home to book our plane tickets home and try to get our 10 day old baby to look wide-eyed straight into the camera.

That evening, Steven went back to the photo shop and was told to come back at 9:00 the following morning to pick up the pictures. We also booked our tickets home on American Airlines leaving Saigon at 11:40 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15. We were informed that we would have to go to the airport to pick up a paper ticket for Hazel because they did not issue electronic tickets for an "infant-in-arms." Because American Airlines does not have a desk at the airport, we were told to go to the Japan Airlines desk, because we would be on Japan Airlines for the first leg, and ask them to issue the ticket.

Friday morning, Hazel and I set off again. We went by the photo shop, picked up the pictures, and headed straight to the Consulate. It wasn't until I arrived that I realized that I had forgotten to print out our itinerary, so I called Steven, who printed it out and left school to bring it to me at the Consulate. Once inside, less than 30 minutes later, Hazel had been officially recognized as a passport holding citizen of the United States at 11 days old.

Now, armed with a birth certificate, CRBA and passport, the last steps were to pick up her ticket and to get a Vietnamese exit visa so that we could take her out of the country. I went home, had lunch, fed Hazel and headed out again to the visa office to find out what we would need to do to apply for her visa. The man behind the counter was very helpful and, luckily for me, spoke conversational English. He explained exactly what I would need and said that if I came back and applied on Monday, I would have her visa by the following Monday. He then admonished me for bringing such a young baby out and told me to send my husband to apply for the visa.

Saturday afternoon, Steven drove to the airport to pick up Hazel's ticket, but found that Japan Airlines only has two flights a day, one at 5:30 a.m. and one at 11:40 p.m. and the rest of the time, the desk is closed, so he came back empty handed. That evening at 10:00 p.m he went back, but forgot to bring our itinerary, so had to come back again with no ticket. The following morning, he got up at 4:30 a.m. and left for the airport making sure he had all the paperwork he needed. But on the way, he was pulled over by the cops and had to pay a bribe to get out of a ticket for "starting a right turn before the light turned green" and by the time he got to the airport, the Japan Airlines desk was closed again.

On Monday, having learned that there was a Japan Airlines ticket office downtown, I went to the office with Hazel to see if I could pick up her ticket. At the JAL offices, I was informed that there was also an American Airlines Ticketing Office and that I should go there for the ticket, an office of which the AA offices in the US are apparently unaware. Back in a taxi, Hazel and I were off again. Once at the AA office, 20 minutes, and first public diaper change and second episode of breast feeding in public, later, I had Hazel's tickets.

Meanwhile, Steven had been able to arrange for his school administration to handle Hazel's visa along with his paperwork and was told that we'd have everything we needed by Monday, June 14th.

So now we wait. If this final step in the process goes smoothly, we'll be boarding a plane bound for the US at 11:20 on Tuesday, June 15th. If not, I'll have another story for you.....

Our First Night Home

2010-06-08T10:53:00.039+07:00

Wednesday evening was our first night alone with the baby. I was looking forward to being able to relax, or at least be able to get through the night without the fear of having a nurse come in and snatch our baby, but i found that the flip side of not having a nurse to snatch up your baby is that there isn't a nurse to come in and snatch up your baby...

As on previous nights, Hazel made it to about 11 before dissolving into inconsolable crying. I began the nightly feeding, diaper change, dance routine, but an hour later, it was obvious that something else was wrong. Exhausted and dejected, I handed Hazel off to Steven and went downstairs to make a bottle of formula. Not having planned for this possibility, I had yet to open the pack of baby bottles I had brought back after Christmas and found that once I did, I couldn't figure out how to put them together. The bottles had a body, top and a nipple, but the plastic ring that is supposed to hold the nipple on was missing from the first bottle. I opened the second - no plastic ring. The third one had no ring either. I was at a loss. How was I supposed to feed our baby with no bottles and no milk? I brought the bottles up to Steven and finally between our two sleep deprived brains we figured out that the ring was under the cap and came out when you turned the top a certain way.

Bottles fixed, I went back downstairs to mix the formula. Five minutes later, I was back upstairs to Steven and our crying baby, with a formula container all in Vietnamese. I had no idea how much water to mix with how much formula. In the hospital, I was so adamant against giving her formula, I had never found out what they were giving her. Steven joined me in the kitchen with Hazel and together, we boiled the bottles, heated the water, mixed what we thought was the correct water to formula ratio and watched as our now pacified daughter guzzled two ounces of formula - and then another ounce - before falling asleep. I was as bad as the nurses. But at least out daughter wasn't starving - or screaming - and we could get some sleep.

A few hours later she was up again, this time with a wet diaper - a relatively easy fix, when you have a fresh diaper, but we were out. Steven and I planned to use cloth diapers and had stocked up on both econobum diapers and diaper covers from home and a stack of "cloth nappies" that we'd picked from a family leaving Saigon, but we'd never quite learned how to fold them. Knowing this, I'd asked Steven to pick up an extra pack of diapers while we were at the hospital, but we'd worked our way through that one and Steven's two successive trips to the store for diapers had increased our stock of diaper liners to put in cloth diapers, while doing nothing for our supply of actual disposable diapers. As with the formula, all of the diaper packages are in Vietnamese except for the size and the word "nappies," British-English for diaper. Steven figured, logically, that a package that said "newborn nappies" would be just that, but apparently that isn't the case, leading to his two frustrating trips to the store. So for the next 10 minute, without a disposable option, Steven and I tried futility to wrap our squirming daughter in a two-foot square of cloth and pin it up without stabbing her. Once we had the diaper on and the cover pulled up over it, it was pretty obvious that it wouldn't be holding anything in, and that Hazel didn't seem to like it much either. But once we'd finally resolved the feeding and diaper issues, we settled down for what I hoped would be at least a good three hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Some unknown amount of time later, I woke with a start to the sound of Hazel screaming from outside on the patio. Torn from a deep sleep, my brain didn't question how she could have gotten outside, but simply registered sheer terror when I reached for where I thought Hazel was sleeping and found she wasn't there. I screamed for Steven, who startled awake, jumped out of bed, half asleep, eyes wide open, poised for action. It only took us a few more seconds to realize that Hazel was sound asleep right where we'd left her and the screaming outside was just two cats fighting on the roof, but it took us a bit longer to get back to sleep for the remaining precious minutes of our first night at home with our baby.

Hospitalized

2010-06-07T17:01:00.001+07:00

As part of our Labor and Delivery Package at the Franco-Vietnamese Hospital (FV) we paid for a five day, four night stay in the Maternity Ward. Steven was sure I'd be ready to leave before the five days were up, but sitting in my air conditioned hospital room, with meals coming in on a tray on a regular basis, I wasn't quite so sure I'd be ready to head back to our hot house where I'd have to figure out how to feed myself and take care of this baby any sooner than I had to, but it turns out – he was right.

Hazel was born at 2:14 on a Saturday and by 2:14 on Sunday, Steven and I weren’t feeling any more like parents than we had the day before. Since they had whisked Hazel away to NICU, Steven and I had been down to see her five times and each time we took her out of her little plastic bassinette and held her, but the nurses were providing all of her care, so we didn’t feel any sense of real responsibility to this little person. We were ready to have her up in our room with us, so we could start feeling like a family.

We had met with the pediatrician that morning, who had said that Hazel’s lungs were fine and that she should be ready to be discharged from the NICU around 6:00 that evening. Steven had a basketball game at 5:00, so we thought we’d head down around 3:30 to see if we could get her out any earlier, but when we met the doctor again, she said that she had reconsidered and wanted to keep Hazel another night. When I asked why, she said that Hazel had been throwing up and they wanted to continue to observe her to be sure that she could keep her food down.

When I heard her reasoning, my immediate thought was of the marble that the midwife in our prenatal classes held up to show us the size of a newborn’s stomach, a thought which immediately led to another of all of the mothers I had talked to who had had children at FV and their stories of babies being force fed formula even when the parents had specifically stated that their child be exclusively breastfed. In my first act of defiant independent mothering, I explained to the doctor that we wanted our baby to be exclusively breast fed and that we did not want her to remain in NICU, but wanted her in our room that afternoon. After a bit of back-and-forth the doctor finally backed down and agreed to let us have her, saying that we should go back to our room and the midwives would bring her up in an hour. At this point it was 4:30.

Steven and I parted ways at the elevator, him to his basketball game, and me back to our room to wait for our baby. At 5:30, I walked down to the nurses’ station and politely reminded them that a midwife was supposed to be bringing me my baby from NICU. At 5:45, I was heading out the door back to the nurses’ station, when a midwife wheeling Hazel in her bassinette stopped me mid-way, saying, “Your baby.” Before she left, she handed me a bottle of medicine and explained that it was to prevent Hazel from throwing up and that she should be given three drops every six hours. I decided immediately that, as long as Steven agreed, not another drop of this medicine was going anywhere near our child. After keeping her medicine-free throughout nine months of pregnancy and the whole labor process, we weren’t about to pump our newborn baby full of medicine. Steven heartily agreed.

Steven returned after his game, fresh from our apartment with snacks and fresh clothes and we enjoyed our first evening together as a family. Because overnight guests were not included in the package, Steven had to pay $12 each night for the use of a hospital cot, pillow, blanket, towel and complimentary breakfast in the cafeteria in the morning. His cot was brought up around 8 and around 10 o’clock, Hazel in her bassinette, Steven and I in my bed, the cot against the wall, Hazel began to cry. I got up and fed her, danced around the room a bit and put her back in her bassinette. And she began to cry again. I changed her diaper, danced around the room a bit and put her back in her bassinette. And she began to cry again. Not wanting to keep Steven up all night because he was going into work the next day, I wandered out into the hall, where miraculously she stopped crying. We walked around and around until her little eyes seemed sufficiently shut and then went back into our room. And she began to cry again. Back out into the hall. Around and around; back into the room; down in the bassinette; feed; diaper change; crying again. At about 2:30, I was practically walking into walls, yet having fended off two nurses telling me to “give me the baby” and “get some rest,” I was determined to make this work. The third nurse broke me. “Baby is hungry, you need rest, give her to me.” I caved and handed over my child, but not before bluffing to the midwife that Hazel had already had her last dose of medicine and that she didn’t need any more until the morning. Feeling like a complete failure, I crawled back into bed to get some rest.

The following day was much better. We still didn’t have the breastfeeding thing down, but I had managed to keep her happy all day, feeding, changing and sleeping. I spent my down time napping and answering emails. But that evening, Hazel was restless and the nurses were back.

Having read everything I could about breastfeeding, I knew that one of the common ways to derail your own efforts was to offer the baby a bottle of formula. Not only is formula sweeter than breast milk and therefore more appealing to babies who are partial to sweet flavors, but it is much easier for them to suck formula out of a plastic nipple which is designed for faster flow, than to get milk from a breast. These two factors combined can cause a baby to refuse to be breastfed after too many bottles and one too many refusals a mother’s milk can dry up and dreams of a yearlong diet of nutrient and antibody rich breast milk are shot to hell. This was my greatest fear. So every time the nurses said, “Give me your baby,” I felt I was one bottle closer to having a formula fed baby – while granted, not the worst thing in the world, also a big deviation from the healthy start Steven and I wanted to give our child.

The second night was no different than the first, although she did sleep from 8:30 to 10:40 a feet of which I was immeasurably proud, given that she did it under our supervision. But after 11:00 it was a repeat performance of the night before: cry, breast, diaper change, hall, walk, room, cry, breast, diaper change, hall, walk, room. At midnight, I was determined to calm her down and get her to bed. At 1:00, I was determined to get her to calm down long enough to get at least an hour’s rest. By 2:00 I was determined to keep her calm at least until I was supposed to give her another dose of medicine to assure that the nurses didn’t give her any. By 3:00 a.m., I was wheeling her down the hall, dejectedly passing her off to the nurses

The following morning, as the morning before, the nurses wheeled Hazel back into our room around 6:00, bundled up like a little worm, snug in her bed and sound asleep. Their secret – a bottle of formula. I felt awful. Here I was, a mother for only three days and already failing my child. I had tried to breastfeed her and had managed to get through each day to early evening, a painful process that left me in quite a ragged state. I was obviously doing something wrong because 1) it wasn’t supposed to hurt and 2) she wasn’t getting enough to eat. I wrote desperate emails to my mom and close friends with kids, scoured the internet, sought advice from the midwife who had led our prenatal classes, but nothing seemed to help. Everything I read said to consult the hospital lactation consultant, but my doctor, who had proven less than helpful on other matters in the past, simply replied, “Your nipples are too short.” I tried to get help from the nurses, but they just repeated what they had heard the doctor say and suggested that I continue to try and if it didn’t work, “give her a bottle.” By the fourth day, I was in tears and ready to go home, where I could figure out how to care for my child without a nurse rushing in to whisk her off for a bottle.

That last day, I was dreading another evening in the hospital. More than once I had told Hazel, “If you cry, they are going to come and take you from me,” and that is how I felt. Rather than try again and again to get her to latch properly, when she cried, I would just latch her on, painful or not and let her feed, just to keep the nurses out. Both my mother and many friends had assured me that supplementary feeding in the initial days wasn’t going to completely ruin my efforts at breastfeeding, but I was still feeling quite dejected. I knew what was in store for me that evening and had decided early on that I would just give her up early, too tired to fight. But that night around 1:00 a.m. when I gave in and was wheeling her down the hall, she looked up at me with the saddest little face, milk drooling out of the side of her mouth and I thought, “I can’t give up this baby. She doesn’t need to be pumped full of formula. She just needs some TLC from her mother.” So I wheeled her back in and danced up and down the hall for another hour before finally giving in to exhaustion and frustration.

The next morning, we were visited by my doctor and the pediatrician who gave us both a clean bill of health and we checked out and headed home for the next phase of our adventure in new parenthood.

Hazel's Birth Story

2010-06-07T14:38:00.007+07:00

On the evening of Friday, May 21, Steven and I had plans to go to the End-of-Year AIS school play at 8:00, but before we went, we decided to go on one of our now regular evening walks around the track in yet another attempt to induce our baby, now almost 42 weeks, to join us outside of the womb. I had been walking regularly for months at this point, running having become a bit too much for my overstretched stomach and the baby that I pictured bouncing around on her head every time I took a step, but this evening, I felt like having a run. One of my former college roommates had put herself into preterm labor by running too late in pregnancy and while in her situation, labor was stopped and she continued to term, I figured that if she could do it, I could do it!

After our walk, which included a four lap run around the track, we left for the play and arrived around 8:30, twenty minutes into the show. Soon thereafter I began to feel what I thought might be regular contractions, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up because I’d thought the same thing about six times in the past two weeks and nothing had come of them. But by 10:30 that night, when they were still coming regularly, I decided that I should probably tell Steven. As I was walking up the stairs to our bedroom, I called down to him, “Could you bring your phone?” When he asked, why, as it was a weekend and we don’t usually set the alarm on weekends (we don’t have any clocks in our house), I explained that he might need it to start timing contractions. The excitement in his voice when he replied made me smile.

For the next few hours we stayed up watching “Office” episodes and timing contractions that were coming about 10 minutes apart. Knowing that we wouldn’t be going anywhere until they were less than four minutes apart, we finally called it quits around 1:00 a.m. and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the contractions were still there, regular, but not at all painful. As we timed, we found that they were four minutes apart, three minutes apart and then two minutes apart. I still wasn’t sure that this was real because there wasn’t any pain and I had been expecting pain. I called my parents and asked my mom her opinion. She said that she didn’t remember feeling any pain until she went to the hospital, so we decided that it must be the real thing. Then as I watched, my normally calm, laid back husband because to run around the house making sure we had everything, insisting that we should be leaving – right then – to the hospital. I still wasn’t in any pain and wasn’t in any rush to get to the hospital, but he convinced me that two minutes apart was too close to keep waiting at home, so I got myself ready to go and we both called our parents to let us know that their grandchild was on the way.

Because I still wasn’t in any pain and time seemed to be of the essence, we opted to take the motorbike over waiting for a cab, which would take longer if there was any traffic. As we drove, we recorded a quick video to show Hazel later on as her "Ride to the Hospital."

We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 and went straight to the maternity ward on the fifth floor. When we entered the ward, we found five nurses standing around the nurses’ station and no other patients in sight. They all looked at us a bit strangely – or so I thought – so I began to explain that I thought I was in labor and that my contractions were two minutes apart. The nurses all looked at us and then at each other and then one of them looked down at a file down on the desk and said, “Ms. Sharon Patricia Brown?” and I said, “Yes.”

She replied, “That patient is not here yet.”

Confused, I explained, “I am Sharon Brown.”

The nurse looked at the file again and said, “You’re not supposed to be here until Monday” – the date of my second scheduled induction (having been pushed back from Friday at our request).

“Yes,” I agreed, “but that is for a scheduled induction. I think I am in labor now.”

She looked at me again and said, “You were supposed to be here on Friday.”

At this point, I looked at Steven incredulously and asked him if he thought he could deliver our baby.

Finally one of the nurses seemed to figure it out and motioned for us to follow her. We gratefully followed her out of the maternity ward, to the elevator and down to the second floor to Labor and Delivery where we should have gone in the first place. Once I realized my mistake, I understood the 5th floor nurses’ confusion, as women don’t usually go up to the Maternity Ward until after they have their babies, but I still found the whole situation quite comical.

Once in the correct place, we were led into a double room where I was asked to lie down and was hooked up to a machine that monitored the baby’s heartbeat, movement and any labor contractions. The machine immediately began recording a heartbeat and movement, but, to our surprise, no contractions. I laid there for about half an hour and the contractions did come back, but only at the rate of about one per ten minutes and still not at all painful. After another thirty minutes, they were coming a bit more strongly and were accompanied by somewhat of a sharp pain, but were still not more than eight minutes apart. After another thirty minutes, a doctor came in and told us that we could go home. Both the doctor and the midwife told us to come back one they were coming at a rate of three in ten minutes, or otherwise, just come in on Monday for my scheduled induction.

As I was walking out of the room I felt a strong contraction that made me pause in the hallway. Another one came on down in the lobby. By the time the next one came on as we walked out to the parking lot, I voiced my concern to Steven that perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing for them to send us home. I reminded him that my mother had told me that she had relatively quick labors and that maybe I would be the same. Steven agreed, but also suggested that it might be better for me to labor a bit at home where I was more comfortable and where we could get something to eat and drink and move about. I agreed and we headed home, with a quick stop at the store for a box of pancake mix – after all, I was still pregnant and craving some pancakes.

Because my contractions were now much stronger and all a bit painful, the ride home couldn’t have gone fast enough and once we arrived home, I was even more sure that the hospital, even if just the lobby, was where I should be. I walked back into the back bedroom while Steven called his mom to let her know that we had been sent home. I called my parents and gave them the news as well, hanging up, only to call them back five minutes later to let them know we had decided to go back after only about 30 minutes at home.

Back on the bike, we shot our “Ride to the Hospital Video – Take Two,” as Steven retraced our original route from earlier that morning. Once at the hospital we decided to sit in the lobby for 10 minutes to make sure my contractions were indeed coming three in ten minutes and that the ‘hospital fear’ hadn’t set in and put a stop to them. Eight minutes and three painful contractions later, I was ready to go up.

When we walked back into the Labor and Delivery Ward at 11:30, the midwives seemed a bit surprised to see us, but once she checked my cervix, she saw that I was already dilating and effaced and that my contractions were much stronger and closer together. She brought me a birthing ball and suggested that I sit on it and hold on to the end of the bed, hooked me up to the machine again, and left us alone, telling me to let her know when the pain got worse.

While I labored, Steven went down to pay the bill and arrange for a room. By the time he got back, I asked him to let the midwife know that the pain was worse and that she should come and check. At that point it was about 12:30 and I was 80% effaced and about 3 cm dilated. They had me lay back on the bed and continued to monitor me as the contractions came in increasingly painful waves. When I had planned for this event, I had stressed that I had wanted to do everything naturally – no drugs, no machines, no IV, and no stirrups, but as the contractions came longer and stronger and infinitely more painful, all of my preplanned ideals became less important than getting through the ordeal alive.

I’ll spare you the detailed blow by blow of the culmination of my rather rapid 2 hour labor process, but will say that it included a lot of shameless screaming on my part mostly about the fact that I couldn’t do whatever they were asking me to do: a) breath, b) don’t push, c) push, e) not scream; a room full of Vietnamese woman repeating, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry” and “You try, you try, you try;” Steven’s reassuring hand on my arm and voice in my ear counting down the dilation reports and telling me how good I was doing; and a small Vietnamese woman standing on my bed pushing down on my stomach to “help me get the baby out. “ After what was undoubtedly the most painful experience of my rather painless life, Hazel was born at just under 8 pounds.

Our natural birth plan, had also included a ‘post birth’ plan, which specified that we wanted to be with Hazel for the first hour after birth, allow her to breastfeed immediately, etc., but none of that was to be. When she was born she was whisked off to another room to pump the fluid out of her lungs and Steven went with her, leaving me to the continued poking and prodding of my doctor and the midwives who had to stitch me up and do all those other post birth tasks that I was glad I wasn’t privy to, laying down as I was. As much as I wanted to see my daughter, I was still in a bit of a daze from the pain and wanted the doctor to go away and leave me alone and just let me recover.

After about 30 minutes, the doctor was finished and I asked to see Hazel, but was told that she was still being observed and that I could see her in 30 minutes. I then asked if I could get up and go to her, at which point the midwife actually laughed at me. I later wrote it off as a cultural misunderstanding (in a lot of Asian cultures, laughing is a sign of nervousness or other emotion, not at all meant in the mocking tone I took it in), but at the time I wanted to smack her. Half an hour later, when they finally brought her to me – Steven having been with her the whole time by only solace – the midwife came back five minutes later and said that they had to take her down to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). I glared at her and said that I had barely seen her and that she was not taking her and she left us alone for another 10 minutes, at which point she came back and insisted that she had to take her down. Needless to say, not at all the happy family time that I had imagined. But all in all, we had a healthy baby – despite the fluid in her lungs – and I had survived and it was all over. As Steven left to follow Hazel to the NICU, I finally drifted off to sleep.

Haze's CRBA Appointment Comes...and Goes

2010-05-24T12:34:00.001+07:00

When we initially learned of our pregnancy back in September, we looked up all of the steps we’d have to take to have the baby’s birth registered abroad and to bring her back to the US with us in the summer. As I’ve posted before, all of the paperwork and timing involved seemed quite daunting and we began to prepare early.

According the Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) webpage, all appointments must be made three months in advance and passports should be applied for at the same time, a second process which would take about 3 to 5 weeks to complete. Due to these constraints we made an appointment for May 20, 2010, giving us three days after what we were told was the last day the baby would be allowed to remain in gestation before being induced and a month before we hoped to leave Viet Nam, arguably a tight stretch on either end, but the best we could do given our constraints.

When Hazel’s due date of May 10th came and went, I began to get a little anxious, not so much for Hazel, who, by now I had read, was comfortably in a large percentage of first babies who go back their initial due dates, but more for the impending CRBA appointment, without which, we would not only be without a CRBA, but also without a passport with which to take her home in the summer. Steven suggested seeing if we could move the date back a bit, but when I checked, the earliest available appointment wasn’t until July. I decided to try to put it at the back of my mind and worry about it when it got closer, because, for all we knew, Hazel could come any day.

When May 17th came, the date on which we had originally been told we could not go beyond, but which date had now been moved until 42 weeks rather than 41 weeks, I started to get really nervous. I decided to go to the consulate and see what our options were if Hazel continued to hold out past the appointment date just three days away.

Once at the consulate, I explained, what I saw as our dire situation, to the Consular officer, who listened patiently and then reassured me that if the baby wasn’t here by the 20th, she would be able to fit us in at another date and then presented me with information that practically had me floating all the way home – instead of waiting 3 to 5 weeks from our appointment date, we could apply for a temporary passport that could be issued within one or two days from the Consulate in Saigon and would just have to trade it in before it expired for an official version. I was thrilled. I repeated everything to make sure I had heard correctly and when she clarified everything she had said, I thanked her profusely and rushed out the door to pick up my phone at the front desk to call Steven. We were going home!!

Hazel's Baby Shower

2010-05-23T17:23:00.001+07:00

On Sunday, April 18th, our good friends Marjie and Katherine threw a baby shower for us at the Castle (their five story house in District 1). The invitation initially included our friends of the male persuasion, but after some subtle hints from Steven, and some not-so-subtle hints from other friends, that baby showers were just not events men attended, it was revised to a female only group.

Katherine and Marjie had decorated downstairs and put together a tasty spread of food and invited friends of ours from AIS and VeT, to share in the occasion. Of my friends from VeT, not one had attended a baby shower before, nor had we all been together as a group since the office closed in mid-March, so it was really special to have them there, as well as a group of our friends from AIS. We all spent the first hour or so enjoying each others company and plates of western and Vietnamese treats.

After we'd had our fill of food and conversation, we kicked off the party, as all good parties are started, with a drinking game. Marjie and Katherine had purchased sippy cups and the game consisted of a race between participants to see who could empty their water-filled sippy cup first. After the first round, the winners, one of which was my friend Huong's two-year-old daughter, Suzie, completed a final round to determine the winner.

After our drinking game, it came time for the presents. I've never been a fan of the baby shower present ritual because of its emphasis on materialism, but a few weeks earlier at the urging of some more practical friends, I had put together a baby registry on Amazon.com, where we picked out some basic, and not so basic, items that could be easily purchased and sent to my parents home in Florida, to save us the burden of carrying things home and the cost of some baby items that would be nice to have. When it came time for our shower, we received a few gifts from Viet Nam, including a great pair of flashy "Vietnamese" stretch pants for Hazel and a really neat internationally themed first counting book. The rest of our friends had printed out pictures of gifts bought from the registry and sent to Florida, including a baby carrier that had come highly recommended, a baby play mat, and a few other practical items that we were pleased to receive.

After the gift opening, Katherine unveiled her masterpiece of the evening. Just as my friends from VeT were making their leave to attend other to other commitments, she came down the stairs with a table, on which were what looked very realistically like dirty baby diapers, filled with the melted remains of five different chocolate candy bars. While the table itself didn’t do wonders for my stomach or my impending visions of motherhood, it was amusing to try to guess which diaper contained which candy bar based on the consistency alone. After much deliberation, Nina, came out victorious, now having won both the sippy cup race and the diaper mystery challenge. For the final game, Katherine and Marjie had us all guess the baby’s birth date – the first and most optimistic guess of May 5, being mine and the last, Caroline’s guess of May 17th.

Once it began to get dark, we all started to take our leave, thanking Marjie and Katherine for the party and saying our goodbyes. It was so nice to spend an afternoon with the friends that we’ve made in Viet Nam during our time here and feeling a real sense of being a part of a community of generous, caring friends from all over the world. It was a wonderful reminder that just such connections can make almost anywhere feel like home.

Reflections on being Pregnant in Viet Nam

2010-05-06T16:01:00.001+07:00

My most common response to the now frequently asked, "How are you feeling?" by well meaning friends and acquaintances alike is "HOT!" April and May in Viet Nam (and presumably, June, July, August, etc.) are hot. Not just hot, but the stifling, perspiration soaked, still hot after four daily showers, heat that pervades every moment spent outside of an air conditioned room or taxi-cab. I attribute this somewhat to pregnancy, but practically speaking, I realize that everyone else is suffering in this same heat, I just find it a bit less bearable in the confines of the few outfits I have left that actually fit my now 167 pound frame.

But besides the heat, being pregnant in Viet Nam has been a relatively enjoyable experience. Next to sitting and chatting with your neighbors, having babies must be the second most common pastime in the country, given the prevalence of tiny little Vietnamese wherever you go and the overall baby-craziness of the general population. This said, sporting an ever growing belly, has made me quite popular with all of the neighborhood grandmothers.

From our well-known neighbors, to parking attendants, to strange women in the markets, my belly has been patted and remarked upon with friendly smiles; the most common question, "Con gai? Con trai?" - "Boy or girl?" to which my response, "con gai," always gets me approving nods. I'm sure if I could understand more Vietnamese, this question would be followed by others and perhaps a host of advice for the new mother, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I am spared further conversation due to my inability to go beyond "Boy or girl?"

The medical care here has been good and quite affordable. I've been seen once a month for the past 9 months at $20 a visit (plus a bit more for the rare blood tests, etc.) and watched our baby grow from our first view of the "sac" to a now (estimated) 7 lb little person. While the hospital is not as advanced in the natural options for labor and deliver that we'd prefer, it is as advanced as any international hospital medically speaking, we've had no complaints and feel quite comfortable and confident that we've been well taken care of (although the Labor and Delivery part of all of this is still a bit anxiety provoking, but that is a whole different post).

From January to March, we took prenatal classes offered by a British mid-wife at another hospital close to our house, during a time when our pregnancy was more a distant than a present reality and got to know a bit more about what we had gotten ourselves into as well as the opportunity to meet a few other local expecting couples. Through these classes, I learned about SIMBA (Saigon Independent Mother Baby Association) a local group of new moms who meet every Monday to support each other and meet with a midwife to ask any pressing new mom questions.

Steven and I still go to the gym once a week, where I still get a few curious stares on the tread mill, and walk at the track next to our house where we're enough of a common sight to avoid the curious stares. Besides the occasional poke of a sharp knee or elbow, and the ever present heat and discomfort of having to wear anything more constricting than a sarong, I've been extraordinarily lucky in that I haven't had any negative symptoms of pregnancy at all and have managed to stay active and relatively fit throughout it all.

I've continued to ride our motorbike, both as a driver and a passenger, even now up to my 39th week, much to the concern of my mother for what all that vibrating might be doing to her grandchild, but don't feel that I am putting our child at risk any more than the countless other pregnant ladies on the back of bikes all over the city, although I have tried to cut back to only necessary trips.

We've both enjoyed the more obvious outward signs of our daughter's growth and development, from the initial kicks in December to the now regular alien like movements of my belly and now that we're in the home stretch, we're both ready to go from "expecting" to "new" parents and are looking forward to having a baby join our family. We all have a lot of changes coming up in the next few months and we're looking forward to having some time between now and when we leave Viet Nam to get to know our daughter and get used to having a new little person in our lives. That said, it would be nice to be closer to family and friends during this happy time, but we are hoping that all will go well with the paperwork and that we'll be able to spend time during the summer visiting everyone and introducing Hazel to her new, extended family.

Either an Original Document or a Certified Copy and One Hysterical Pregnant Woman

2010-05-06T14:52:00.003+07:00

Because we hope to leave Viet Nam sometime in late June and we have so much to do in terms of paperwork and documentation before we can leave, I started gathering documents early on, or rather Kevin did, as all of our documents are in his attic. So by December of last year, all of our necessary documents traveled from Kevin's attic, to our parent's home in Lake Worth, to our house here in Viet Nam, or so I thought...

Last Thursday, I decided to take a document, specifically our marriage certificate (required to obtain the birth certificate, which is required to obtain any further documents), on a trial run of the bureaucratic gauntlet that is the CRBA (Consular Report of Birth Abroad) process here in Viet Nam. The process began with me waiting for an hour and a half at the US Consulate for the document to be "certified," which includes at $30 fee for an official piece of paper and a stamp, after which I was directed to a second office down the block in order to "authenticate" the Consular signature. This second step was new to me and a bit baffling as I couldn't understand why a Vietnamese agency needed to authenticate an "official" signature of the US Consulate and if such authentication was necessary, what good was the backing of the US Consulate in the first place? But figuring I couldn't argue with bureaucracy, once the Consular step was completed, I made my way out of the Consulate to the "authenticating" office.

This next office was simply a small building, not much bigger than the inside of a school bus, with two rows of plastic chairs and one wall lined with windows, much like the DMV in the US. I walked up to one of the windows and, hesitantly - not knowing if the woman behind the glass spoke English, informed her that "I was told to come here to have these authenticated," pushing my papers through the slot in the glass dividing window. The woman behind the glass took my papers, gave them a quick once-over and then proceeded to tell me that she would not be able to authenticate the document - our marriage certificate - as it was not an original document. Wracking my brain for memories of our wedding day over two years ago when Steven and Jane and I had signed our original marriage certificate before mailing it off, trying to remember if I ever received the original via mail after our marriage had been registered and coming up with a vague memory of having received a certified copy, this very one, and wondering, then, why we didn't receive the original. Armed with this memory, I patiently, and perhaps more convincingly than I felt, explained that in the state in the US where we were married, we never received an original, only a certified copy, which was just as legitimate as an original, so that she could, in fact, authenticate this document as it was all that I would ever have to present to her.

Just as calmly, the woman shook her head and again stated that she needed an original in order to complete the authentication process.

I tried a different tact, explaining again that I did not have the original and that this was the "official" certified copy that would serve as the original and that the actual original was retained by my government, which was why I presumed I had just been to the US Consulate and paid $30 for them to verify that this document was legitimate, and I indicated where the US Consulate had put their stamp and signature to emphasize my point.

The, still patient, woman behind the counter again shook her head and pointed to a statement on the paper provided by the US Consulate and stapled to the copy of our marriage certificate, which in bold letters, stated something to the effect of "the US Government will not be held liable for the validity of this document."

Stumped now, wondering why it was that I just spent an hour and a half in the US Consulate for a signature and stamp on a piece of paper which was virtually worthless, other than the $30 I had paid for it, but not yet ready to admit defeat, I asked the woman behind the counter if there was anything she could do, again repeating that this was the only marriage certificate that I had and that ultimately, it would have to suffice in this process. She agreed to ask her supervisor and left me standing line, taking deep breaths, trying to calm the rising tide of anxious voices in my head.

"Why don't I have the original? Was there ever an original? How long is it going to take me to get the original? At least a month in the mail, plus processing time. The baby will be here by then! Will they even give me the original? Can I get my $30 for this worthless Consular stamp or am I going to have to pay another $30 - $60 in total - once I have the original, for yet another worthless stamp? Will we have everything in order in time to get the birth certificate? Will we be ready for our CRBA appointment? When are we ever going to be able to buy plane tickets? How are we going to get out of here? And this is just the first step...".

Feeling my anxiety levels rise and my eyes start to tear up, a very rare, yet telltale sign that I am about to lose it, I tried to concentrate on my breathing to calm myself as the woman reappeared.

She again calmly explained that she could not authenticate the document because it was not an original and presented me with an actual original of someone else's document with a raised notary seal and a "wet" signature as an example of what an actual original looked like.

I explained that I knew what an original document looked like and that I knew that my document was not an original, but it was all that I had. Having somewhat resigned myself to this outcome before she had returned, I then thanked her for asking, took my papers back and turned to walk away. But just at that moment, something inside me snapped. I turned back to her, brandishing the notarized, certified, official copy of our marriage certificate and began, calmly and then somewhat hysterically to ask, "Do you mean to tell me, that just because I don't have the original copy of THIS ONE PIECE OF PAPER. That my baby and I will not be able to leave Viet Nam? That we will be stuck here FOREVER?!??!" before dissolving into hysterical sobs.

The poor woman began patting my arm rapidly saying, "Miss, Miss, please don't cry, please don't cry. I will ask again. Let me go ask again for you." As she left, I was vaguely aware of members of the all Vietnamese crowd, not used to such public displays of emotion, come up and pat me on the back and say that it would be okay, as I tried desperately to compose myself behind cupped hands.

When my breathing was a bit more regular, I made my way, sheepishly, through the crowd, not daring to look up, and settled into one of the plastic seats as far from the scene of my outburst as possible. Willing myself invisible, the only westerner in the tiny little room, I stared down at my lap until the woman came back with my paperwork and informed me that her supervisor had agreed to authenticate my paperwork, "just this one time, just one time, just for you, just this one time." I gave her a grateful smile and followed her back to the counter, where she completed the process and handed me my paperwork, not even looking up when I expressed my gratitude and what I felt like was a sincere apology for my outburst. Papers in hand, I hurried out into the street where I was soon, I hoped, just another anonymous face in the crowd.

Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

2010-05-01T09:17:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, April 30, 2010 was the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, the day the North Vietnamese troops stormed the South Vietnamese headquarters and claimed control of the city, ultimately reunifying the country under the Communist government of the north. For the past week, we have watched as parade barricades have been erected, huge doves surrounded in lights, along with flowers, stars and other luminous decorations began to adorn the major streets in the central business district and traffic built up in anticipation of this momentous day. In initially I was intrigued and looking forward to being here on this historical day, but the more I thought about it and the more I talked about it with others, I realized that for many, this is not a day to be celebrated, but more a day to remember those that lost their lives, both American and Vietnamese, and the countless Vietnamese whose lives where forever altered that day in the midst of the chaos, pandemonium and terror of the ending of a war. So as the city celebrated with an early morning parade, I decided to steer clear of the jubilant crowds and wondered how many in Saigon, like myself, were doing more reflecting than celebrating on the anniversary 35 anniversary of the end of the war in Viet Nam.

(A Doctor in Atlanta remembers the Fall of Saigon)

Labor was supposed to be the hard part....

2010-04-14T20:39:00.002+07:00

.. but when you have a baby abroad, what happens afterward, can cause you just as much pain...

Because our child will be born in Vietnam, as opposed to the US, where you just get a birth certificate from the hospital, or in the mail, or from a stork, or some other presumably easy process; our process is going to be a bit more difficult. Instead of just a birth certificate we will need the following:

1. Vietnamese Birth Certificate
2. US Consular Report of Birth Abroad
3. US Passport
4. Vietnamese residency Visa

Vietnamese Birth Certificate
To get the Vietnamese Birth Certificate we need:

Birth notice from the hospital
A copy of our marriage license (stamped by the US consulate and translated into Vietnamese, if not already, by the Vietnamese Department of Justice and notarized)
A declaration of nationality selection from the US Consulate stating that our child will be granted US citizenship (stamped by the US consulate and translated into Vietnamese, by the Vietnamese Department of Justice and notarized)
Photocopies of both of our passports.
A copy of our police residency records from Viet Nam.

Consular Report of Birth Abroad
To file a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) through the US Consulate in HCMC, we need the following documents:

A Vietnamese birth certificate issued by the Vietnamese Department of Justice
Our marriage certificate
Proof of relationship between parents (pictures, letters, etc.)
Proof of pregnancy (doctors records, hospital receipts, pregnancy pictures, etc.)
Proof of parentage if parents are not both US citizens (documents showing both parents in same place at the time of conception – visa stamps, flight receipts, etc.)
Proof of residency in the US for at least five consecutive years prior to current international post (social security statements, tax forms, etc.)
Proof of US Citizenship (Passport, birth certificate, social security card, etc.)
Various Official Forms from the Consular Website

US Passport
For the baby's passport, we need:

Passport Application Form
Two Passport Photos of the Baby

Vietnamese Visa
I really have no idea what we need to get the baby a Visa. I should probably ask some other local moms.

Needless to say, we have a bit of a bureaucratic hill to climb. Just something to think about if any of you are planning to come to Viet Nam and have a/another baby....

House Construction

2010-04-08T11:25:00.002+07:00

Our neighborhood is in a great location, right on the borders of three of the city's districts, including District 1, the city's financial and upscale tourist district, and the constant state of demolition and construction since we've lived here reflects its popularity. As in much of the city, the houses in our neighborhood are mostly of the high, narrow variety, most a mere 12 feet or less across and anywhere from one to six stories high. The one story variety are becoming somewhat of an endangered species as their owners either convert their property or sell to investors who tear down the original structures and build five or six story giants in their place. Such a transformation is taking place in our little alley with the house two houses down and across, under construction and the couple just across the street in the process of moving out in anticipation of their house being torn down in the very near future.

Watching houses go up here is an interesting past time and many of our neighbors have been doing just that - parking their plastic stools and chairs in the alley across from the construction or standing around in groups chatting about the daily changes. From what we've heard, and seen, most of the construction crews on these small projects (and even the bigger ones) are young men from the country who come into the city for just such work. Once the houses afford a small amount of protection from the elements, the crews usually string up hammocks and live in the houses until they are completed, often on bare dirt floors with on a plastic covering giving them any privacy from the rest of the alley. Unlike the larger projects, there seem to be no really set safety procedures and as the houses go up, scaffolding is nonexistent, as are hardhats, goggles, gloves, etc., as the crews climb up and down narrow bamboo ladders, or haul buckets of brick and cement up five floors on a makeshift pulley attached to a two-by-four jutting out over the alley. I always take care to be sure that the bucket is either completely up or down before walking past.

While interesting, the construction is also noisy and the days in our once peaceful alley are now filled with the sound of banging, pounding, and whatever else it is they are doing over there. Right now it isn't so bad because it is a few houses down, but I'm not looking forward to the mess and noise once it is right across the street. On the bright side, at least I will have a front row seat to all the action.

Below is the one and a half story house across the street which will soon be replaced by a big, noisy construction site.

Mui Ne

2010-04-08T11:10:00.001+07:00

After five or six weekends in a row staying in the city, Steven and I decided that it was time for a mini-getaway. Saigon is huge, but after you've seen the tourist sites, it really just becomes the city you live in, one with limited options for entertainment - gym, pool, shopping, movies, and going out to eat - all of which get old like anything else. So we made the 5 and a half hour journey north to Mui Ne where we met up with friends and spent an enjoyable weekend at the beach.

Morning Errands

2010-04-08T11:05:00.001+07:00

Last night I tripped over my phone wire and ripped it out of the socket, so I had to buy a new wire this morning. Luckily since we've had other wire issues, I knew right where to go. There is a man that has a fix-it shop (along a row of other fix-it shops on fix-it shop street), near our house, who we have had fix a computer wire and the remote for our dvd player. This morning, after my morning walk, I walked down to his shop and showed him the broken phone wire and asked if he could make me a new one, twice the size of my old one.
He happily agreed and set to work. He took a length of wire from a spool of wire on his tool bench, measured out three meters and cut it from the spool. He then took out two "phone wire ends" and used some fancy wrench/wire cutter/plug adjuster tool, to strip the ends of the wires and fit them on to the plastic end pieces. He then tested the new wire by plugging each end into some wire tester gadget he has on his work bench, nodded his affirmation that it worked and handed it to me, charging a dollar for the wire and the "show." Much more fun than just buying a new phone wire in Home Depot.

After leaving the fix-it shop with my new cord, I walked back home and saw a man selling pineapple in the market. I stopped and asked him how much for a pineapple and he replied, 10,000 VND or about 55 cents. I said I would like one and then sat through my second show of the morning as the man expertly sliced off the skin with a small machete-like knife and then proceeded to cut out the tough bits like he was carving a block of wood. After a few minutes of this skillful demonstration, he handed me my fresh cut pineapple and sent me off with a friendly smile. Running errands here can be a real pleasure.

Blogger Blocked in Viet Nam

2010-04-07T19:34:00.001+07:00

Along with Facebook, it seems that the Vietnamese government is blocking access to Blogger as well. I'm going to try to enter posts when it is up and running, but my access is sporadic. Hopefully the Honduran government won't be so involved and I'll be able to keep the stories coming!

Honduras

2010-03-20T15:36:00.001+07:00

Since we are planning a move to this Central American country, I thought I should do a little research. Having never visited Honduras and given my tendency not to know much about other countries until I actually visit them, I am quite ignorant of all things Honduran. My pre-research knowledge consisted the following facts:

1. Honduras is in Central America just south of Guatemala, bordering the Caribbean Sea to the east.

2. The capital of Honduras is Tegucigalpa (thanks to my 10th grade Spanish teacher).

That is about it.

Now my post-initial-surface-research knowledge consists of the following additional facts:

3. Honduras is one of the many Central American nations abused by the US government for commercial purposes in the past;

4. Honduras recently 'impeached' their president in June of last year - a move which consisted of bundling him up in the middle of the night in his pajamas and giving him a military escort to the airport which dropped him off in Costa Rica leading to a host of both peaceful and not-so-peaceful demonstrations on either side of the issue (an event that I might have heard about if I had been keeping up with US news, but that I somehow, ashamedly, missed) apparently because he was trying to force a "vote" to amend the constitution to let him rule indefinitely (makes sense to me that they would want to get rid of him...);

5. Honduras has one of the lowest costs of living in Central America - even lower than Vietnam - which is also related to a high incidence of poverty;

6. People who have traveled to Honduras rave about the country's beauty and the hospitality of its people.

Obviously I have a lot more to learn, but I feel that I know a little bit more now than I did last week and both Steven and I are looking forward to getting to know this new part of the world over the next few weeks, months and years ahead. Hopefully you'll be interested in learning along with us! :)

Western Hemisphere, Here We Come (Back)!

2010-03-20T15:08:00.003+07:00

After two successful, adventure filled years in Viet Nam, Steven and I are planning to pack our bags and head back west this summer. We've both been offered positions at an international school in San Pedro Sula, Honduras for the 2010 - 2011 school year. I say "we," because in order to make the move, we will both need to work to support our family; not that the cost of living in Honduras is high - quite the opposite - but because as Americans educated in America, we both have student loan debt that needs to be paid off every month and adds quite a bit to our living expenses.

Given the daily reminder that my ever growing belly will soon be a new little member of our family who will need lots of constant love and attention, this wasn't a decision made lightly. Finally after much deliberation and assurance from the school that they would help us find a nanny and reassurance from family and friends that having a nanny wasn't going to scar our child for life, we decided that the intangibles - a 2 hour and 15 minute flight from Miami (and a short hop from there to see our family and friends), an hour and a half from the Caribbean Sea, the chance for new adventures, almost unlimited opportunities to experience nature practically in our backyards, the fact that one of the national dishes is beans and queso with tortilla chips, and the fact that my 10+ year goal of learning to speak Spanish fluently might actually be realized, as well as my dream for our children to grow up bi-lingual - not to mention that the jobs will help us to gain more experience and further our respective careers - made it worth the sacrifices.

So sometime in late June or early July of this year, we'll be packing up our household (and our new baby daughter) and flying back to the US for a much anticipated tour of families before reporting for work in Honduras on August 2. When I asked a close friend of mine if she thought I was insane for accepting a job that I'm not quite sure exactly what I'll be doing, in a country I've never been in, with a three month old baby, she said, "No, I think you're brave." There's nothing like supportive friends!

2010 Saigon Cyclo Challenge

2010-03-20T14:23:00.001+07:00

Last Sunday, Steven and I attended our second annual Saigon Cyclo Challenge to benefit Saigon Children's Charity. I was there as a spectator and Steven, as a part of the American International School Cyclo Team. Since he had driven a cyclo last year, he agreed to play a game instead - the race consisting of cyclo's racing around the track in-between "check-points" where team members play games to move their team ahead.

Steven's game was an odd one that consisted of four team members fishing bags of plastic bottles out of a small lake with bamboo poles and then transporting them, one bag at a time, to the recycling big. One team member acted as the fisher-person, another brought the fished out items to the second part of the team, who were to bring the bags to the recycling bin by standing back-to-back, linking arms, and crab-running to the recycling bin. I think the point is to make it difficult for the team members while at the same time being quite entertaining for the spectators. Some teams never made it past the fishing part.

Ultimately Steven's team came in fourth to last or something, but they all had a good time, which is what matters, right? :)

Unvited Guests in our Ceiling

2010-03-20T09:37:00.001+07:00

A few weeks ago I began to hear scratching on the tiles of our ceiling upstairs. A previous ferret-owner for almost 10 years, I immediately associated the scratching with rodents. Cats don't scratch like that, I thought. Every day over the next week or so, I heard the scratching again, like something trying to come through the ceiling.
I called The who acts as an intermediary/translator between Steven and I and our landlord and asked him if he could ask Mr. Phuong to stop by one day soon to investigate the scratching (because there was no way I was going to lift the ceiling tile and come face-to-face with an enormous rat), since he was already over due to submit our most recent Visas to the police and needed to replace the lock our front gate which had been giving us trouble over the past month. I got the usually response from The, "OK," and after a few days, the usual response to my requests for The to contact Mr. Phuong - Nothing. So I texted The for Mr. Phuong's phone number and asked one of my coworkers to call him for us.

The following evening, Steven and I were home when Mr. Phuong, in his usually cheery disposition, stopped by with a new lock and a sticky mouse trap complete with poison "bait." While I was glad to see him, I was less glad to see the poison, as I had discovered that morning that, the scratching from our ceiling was now accompanied by what sounded suspiciously like the mewing of baby kittens. Worried that I might have misidentified our upstairs guests, I asked him to check before he put the trap in the ceiling.

After setting up the ladder under where I'd heard the scratching, Mr. Phuong climbed up, removed the ceiling tile and peered into the crawlspace. About five seconds later he started to make what can only be described as excited exclamations in Vietnamese and dashed down the ladder, down to our kitchen, only to return moments later with a little yellow plastic bag. He scrambled back up the ladder and proceeded to reach into the crawlspace and produced to day-or-so old kittens which he placed in the bag and handed to Steven.

We all stood there gazing at the kittens for a moment, wondering what to do with them. Finally Mr. Phuong started taking down his ladder and began downstairs. We followed him with our little bundle. We all walked to the door and proceeded to have a semi-nonverbal discussion with smiles and fingers pointing in regards to the fate of our new kittens. Steven and I briefly considered keeping them before wisely deciding against it, but wanted to be sure that they would be well taken care of if they rode off with Mr. Phuong, who seemed keen for us to keep them. We called The for translation and Mr.Phuong said that he would take them and find them a good home if we didn't want to keep them, so we handed them over and watched him drive away with the little yellow bag dangling from his handlebar.

Unfortunately, never having newborn kittens ourselves, at no time in this discussion did we consider the mom or the debilitating effects on both mom and baby when kittens are removed from their mothers too soon. A fact that we were soon reminded of that evening, when the mother cat discovered her missing babies and proceeded to sit on our roof and cry all night. And the following night. And the following night.

I researched the negative effects of removing kittens from their mothers too soon and found that while it is traumatic for both baby and mother, both sides, if properly cared for, can eventually move past the trauma and thrive, something that didn't make me feel any less guilty for what we'd done, but somewhat pacified by the hope that they'd eventually be okay.

And finally the mother did stop crying on our roof. And hopefully the kittens are faring well in their new home. And from all of this, I have learned an important lesson and will think before immediately adopting the "finders-keepers" mentality in such a situation in the future.

Unemployed Once Again

2010-03-20T09:10:00.001+07:00

After five months with Villes en Transition here in Viet Nam, I am once again unemployed. The organization had installed a new Head of Mission to take over the organization in October and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on where you stand) she was quite good at her job and through an initial audit, found that the organization had be overspending and spending money it didn't have, leaving us in a situation where we had projects planned, but no funds to fund them.
After months of scrambling to obtain funding, restructure the organization to make it more presentable to future donor and wrapping up current projects in anticipation of a suspension in activities until more funding could be obtained, the head office in France realized that the problem was bigger than they had anticipated and the most responsible thing to do would be to close the office in Viet Nam and eventually dissolve the organization. So after 15 years of successful projects in Viet Nam, and five months of my involvement, VeT Viet Nam, closed it's doors.

We were all sad to see the organization close, not only for the beneficiaries of the projects and for our own impending unemployment, but also because our small team had really worked well together over the past five months and we all enjoyed working together and would miss being able to get together on a regular basis. On our last day, we went out for a staff lunch at a fancy seafood restaurant, courtesy of the VeT head office and drowned our sorrows in flaming coconut shrimp, seafood spring rolls, tamarind crab, baked scallops with cheese and grilled squid. It was all delicious and bittersweet and we parted with promises to stay in touch and meet up again soon.

Koh Samui - Mae Nam Beach

2010-02-20T21:48:00.001+07:00

We left Bangkok after three days and took an overnight train/bus/ferry combo to Koh Samui, one of Thailand's largest islands in the Gulf of Thailand. Luck was with us and we managed to find an available bungalow at the beach of our choice - just $15 and mere steps from the water. We contemplated never leaving at least once a day.

Ayutthaya

2010-02-20T21:45:00.001+07:00

We spent our second day in Bangkok visiting the Siriraj Forensic Museum and wandering around sampling lots of tasty Bangkok street food before meeting a friend for dinner. The following day we took a mini-bus to Ayutthaya, an old historic Thai city less than an hour north of Bangkok.

River Views

2010-02-20T18:47:00.000+07:00

Bike Ride through the Bangkok Jungle

2010-02-20T18:46:00.001+07:00

Having both visited Thailand before, Steven and I decided to forgo the traditional Bangkok sights and do a little off-the-beaten path sight-seeing. Our first afternoon, we took a bike trip to the "Bangkok Jungle," a separate province just across the river from Bangkok, where the development is limited to preserve the natural state of the area. The first part of the tour took us through a few neighborhoods and backstreets of Bangkok which looked very similar to the narrow residential alleys of HCMC and was quite an interesting window into lower-income urban living. Unfortunately, I didn't stop to take many pictures of the narrow alleys and tiny markets we rode through, not wanting to offend anyone. After a brief stop at a temple along the river, we crossed the river via a long-tail boat and spent the next hour and a half riding through the peaceful trails of the "Bangkok Jungle."