A Medical Exam, Paperwork & A Japanese Dinner

Today was the day of the dreaded “medical exam”. We left bright and early at 8:30 AM to beat the rush. On our way to the exam, our guide Lineker told us we could not make copies of the exam info. He then went on to say, “You take your babies to doctor when you get home and if they don’t do a better job than this exam, get another doctor!”. Basically, the medical exam is just a checklist for immigration into the US. They want to make sure you aren’t really sick. The biggest pieces of info we gathered from the exam were that she weighs about 17 ½ lbs. with a wet diaper and all her clothes and she has ear wax. We’ve noticed before, and it was very evident in the exam, that she doesn’t like to be restrained at all so there was definitely some screaming when they held her down to get her length and when we had to hold her arms and head so they could look at her ears.

After the exam we stopped by a grocery store where we were able to pick up some noodle bowls for meals in our room, some more diapers, and a few snacks. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have Lays chips because after trying Blueberry and Mango flavors I was looking forward to trying lychee flavored. We did get some Steakhouse BBQ Pringles though which definitely have a beefy flavor to them. When we got back Todd went to the paperwork meeting which lasted almost two hours. He was able to complete all our paperwork for the adoption and immigration into the US so we should be done with a 3 1/2 + yr paper trail.

In the evening, the most of the group met for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in the hotel. It’s been nice to touch base with some of the families who went to other provinces when they left Beijing and find out what their journey has been like.

Thank you for your prayers for our bonding process and keep them coming. Shiloh is doing great and we continue to see good steps each day. It takes a little bit less each day to coax a smile and she is more interactive with us when we play. I think there is a lot of truth to something I read about having to teach children from orphanages how to play. We had fun putting “hats” on her today and by this evening she would pull them off and wait for us to put it on again.