Dayna is such a little trooper! She has been so brave since we’ve met, but especially today. We started our day with another fabulous breakfast, then played in the Swan Room again for a bit. We were the only ones there at the time. Through it all, Dayna just wasn’t herself. We met with two other families at 10:30 to go to the official medical exam and to get her visa photo taken.

The medical exam is pretty cursory. They rotated us through three stations: temp/height/weight, ENT, and medical/surgical. Dayna’s roughest part was the temperature taking (and they did it through her armpit…she didn’t even know how much worse it could be!) After Dayna was poked and prodded, we all did a little browsing before heading back for lunch and a nap.

She didn’t sleep long, so we had a good stretch of afternoon ahead of us. We asked Angela to take us to the pearl market. There we purchased necklaces and bracelets for the two Wilson girls, and some earrings for Dayna (down the road, of course.) Something we’d like to do while we’re here is purchase a little gift to commemorate each “Gotcha Day” until she’s eighteen, as well as some other mementos for significant occasions. (We hope to give her the pearls for her wedding day.) Alaina also got a jade necklace: the stone is a circle, signifying the unity of our family.

The entire place was incredible! Imagine a six-story mall filled with jewelry shops. Some of the stones were incredible. (Sisco, you’ve got to come here someday! Poncho thought of you the whole time!) It seems that people come from all over the world to get their pearls and other stones here at wholesale prices.

Well, we came back to the hotel and played some more in the playroom. This time, there were about 20 families in there. We’ve met up again with a woman who was on our flight from San Francisco to Beijing. The room was a happy sort of chaos; quite refreshing in the midst of the rest of the chaos all of our families have experienced through this process. What fun to see the fruits of our labor and love all playing happily together!

Dayna, however, kept seeming a little off, until we decided it was time to have someone look at her. She kept sticking her fingers in her mouth until she was gagging. She’s had a little cough, but we didn’t think it was serious. We looked in her mouth and saw a large white spot, assuming it was a chunk of egg she’d stuffed up in her palate again. It turns out that white spot was thrush. So, they treated her here at the hotel with some nasty looking and smelling brown stuff. We have to have them swab her mouth with this twice daily through tomorrow night. We also had to put socks on her hands to keep her from putting her fingers in her mouth. Poor thing…we definitely heard her ANGRY cry tonight. They also told us that her cough is bronchitis, and we need to give her an antibiotic. We brought some with us, but Walgreens gave us expired medicine (we didn’t think to check, silly us.) So we had Angela get us a phone card and we tried to reach our pediatrician in Omaha. Quite a feat at 6:30 am in the US, on a holiday, no less. We finally spoke to the triage nurse who told us not to give her the American antibiotic, and go ahead and get a Chinese one instead. We’ll begin that in the morning when Dayna wakes up.

Because Dayna wasn’t feeling well, we decided to stay in for dinner and ordered in from Danny’s Bagel. Cheese pizza has never tasted so good…especially after the cardboard concoction we got from Pizza Hut in Fuzhou. Our quiet evening turned out to be just what we needed as a family. However, as wonderful as our hotel is, cabin fever is really setting in. Hopefully tomorrow we can get out and buy some souvenirs.

Dayna is going to sleep better; we have a little routine now, and that helps. She’s getting to be more outgoing everyday. Today she smiled spontaneously at her Daddy. He even started trying to teach her “Go Big Red!” They’re definitely pals.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone back home. We’re sure you’re all enjoying your weekend. If you think about it, we’d love to hear from you. (HINT: Dayna would LOVE to hear from her cousins!)

Blessings to you all,
Dan, Alaina & Dayna

Waiting for my medical exam.
A small slice of the wholesale market
The Bitz's at the Pearl Market
Are these puppets?
Love my Daddy!

5/29/2006