Well folks, this is it! We went to the consulate today, swore we would be good parents to Eliza and that all information we had given was true, and Eliza is only a blink away from becoming an American! The minute we hit Chicago soil- she will be AMERICAN!!!!
Eliza awoke today with a lot of rumbling in her chest. We were concerned that she still did not sound perfect. With three flights tomorrow, we decided to head to the local clinic, located in the hotel. Sure enough, she still has bronchitis. The doctor gave her enough antibiotics to get us back to America plus two days. We will have to go see Dr. Kuo on Monday.
The medicines over here are really weird. You have to mix them yourself and the instructions are, "use 3/4 of a pack and mix with 5 ml". From there you have to somehow get it in their little mouths and into their bellies. This is really a challenge with Eliza. She is a champ at spitting it all over the place, coughing it back up from deep in her throat, and using her tongue to push it all back out and down her chin. We had to strip her shirt off and put a big towel under her. I think us trying to give this to Eliza on the plane tomorrow will be a challenge. She had her first dose today at 11 am and by 5 pm the diahhrea had started again. The next 24 hours should be interesting at best.
We leave here at 5am in the morning. We fly from here to Hong Kong (90 minutes). Next, we catch a plane to Chicago (15 hours) where we will go through customs. From Chicago we fly to Atlanta (2.5 hours) and then we will finally be close to home. From the time our flight leaves here until the time we get to Atlanta we are travelling for almost exactly 24 hours. Oh, and did I mention that we only have a lap ticket for Eliza. PRAYERS and GOOD WISHES please. :)
Once we get to Atlanta we will need lots of time to recover from travel as well as time to be with our boys and introduce them to their sister. We love you all but we need to request that you hold all calls for about a week so that we can settle and not feel so overwhelmed. We know you all want to meet Eliza and hug our necks but please respect the craziness of the Smith house and give us just a bit of time to get our feet on the ground.
Thank you all for you love, messages, and support throughout this two year process. We feel like the most blessed couple in the world!
Hugs to all!