The Medical

Today was the famous medical day for the babies. All the children must have a cursory medical exam in order to get their visas. We walked down the street to a clinic here on Shamian Island for this. As you can see in this picture, Claire LOVED it!

And that sums up how all the children and parents felt about it!

The exam itself involved three stations. All the parents we taken into a central room, given the paperwork for their child and told to get into each line and then turn in the paperwork when you were done. Claire lost it the minute the nurse put her on the scale at the first station. This picture is of the dreaded height measurement! Then we went onto the ENT room where she had her hearing checked-a squeaky toy was squeezed behind her and she turned her head, hearing check over! Then they looked in her ears and down her throat. I guess we passed. We were given our paperwork and sent to the next station. The last station tripped us up. By the time we got to the doctor she had fallen asleep in my arms so I laid her on the table and he checked her heart and then began to undress her. It was good that she was asleep for this because this child will freak out when you undress her! The first thing he did was take her shoes and socks off. He took one look at her feet and stopped. He checked her records and looked at her feet again, checked her records and back to the feet. Then he moved on and did a quick check of the rest of the body and back to her feet. I knew what the problem was, her diagnosis doesn't say "club feet" it just says post operative spinal meningocele (spina bifida). Club feet are typical with the type of spina bifida she has but her feet are only mentioned once in her entire record and it was by the doctor that discharged her after her spina bifida surgery. At this point our translator happened to walk in the room and the doctor spoke to him for a minute. Then Simon, the translator, looked at me and said, "the doctor says her feet are deformed"......DUH! Well, apparently the doctor didn't think we knew that because it was not in the record. I assured him that we knew that and that it was not a problem. Simon spoke to the doctor and the then told us the doctor just has to update her medical before he sends it to the Consulate. Finally, we were released! I was so relieved!

After our fabulous morning at the clinic, a group of us mosied over to Lucy's. Lucy's is a restaurant right outside the hotel that serves American style food! Although we have had some very good local food during our China experience, it was nice to have something familiar! We spent the afternoon wandering around the shops and parks of Shamian Island.

Our guides scheduled a Pearl River dinner cruise for the evening. The boat was nice and the company was good. We were with all but one couple from our travel group. But we ordered Papa John's when we got back and that is all I will say about the food on the cruise!

On the Pearl River

Eating my noodles!

Our travel group

Claire's little personality is really starting to show now! She spent the first five days with us just sitting in the middle of the bed. She would not move, just play with her toys right where you put her and she would scream if you put her on the floor. Now she is crawling all over the floor. If you put her on the bed she will scoot to the end and slide off backwards to get down so she can either cruise along beside the bed or crawl all over the room! She also yammers to herself the whole time! We have no idea what, if anything, she is saying but it is so cute! And, today was the first day that she would come to me if I held my arms out for her. Usually she just pushes me away and wants Paul but today either of us would do! Another milestone is that today was the first day that she did not cry all the way through the bath. She actually sat in the tub and played for a few minutes! She still doesn't got down for the night without a fight but once she is out she has been sleeping much better.