Saturday - Day 9 - Hitting the wall!

Let me start by saying, I hit my breaking point today.

Last night I went to bed at 11:40 which was about 5 minutes before Amelia woke up for another hour or so. She was still not feeling well. She was coughing all night. I had her for an hour and could not get her to go back to sleep. Every time she would lay down she would fall asleep and a few minutes later she would wake up coughing and whining.

Linda took her around 1:00, and laid down on the couch holding the baby in an upright position so she could get some sleep.

I was greatfull for the relief, I did work last night and was exhausted by the time Linda took over. I laid down, and let me remind you of yesterdays post, that James went to sleep around 5:30. Which means by 1:10 he had already slept for a good 8 hours.

Two seconds after my head hit the pillow, I hear James waking up. I look over just as he comes crawling over into my bed.

He says "Daddy, when are we going to eat dinner?"

I got him up and took him to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He came back into bed with me and he actually went back to sleep.

I don't know what time Linda finally got the baby into her crib, but I awoke around 4:00 and realized that Linda was sleeping in James' bed. James was wide awake at 4:00 am, because he has now been in bed for 10 1/2 hours. He is trying to wake me up by sitting on me, and then he was trying to push me over.

I feel bad now but I had to yell at this kid several times to go back to sleep. Which is crazy because he had already had a full nights sleep. He did fall back to sleep and we all slept until around 7:00am.

My infant slept through the night, but my 5 year old was awake at 4:00 than at 5:00 than at 6:00....you get the picture.

- - - - -

So we wake up at 7:00 knowing that Eduardo, our translator was going to pick us up at 10:00. Now yesterday, he told us to see how she was today and that we would be able to bring Amelia to see the doctor from the orphanage.

Well we meet up with him and the Danish family to go shopping at some touristy place. Immediately we tell him that the baby was still kind of wheezing and she had a fever during the night. So he says, we have to wait until Monday when the doctor is available from the orphanage.

So in my head, I am thinking "What the F*ck?" And also he doesn't bring the camera cable that he promised.

Amelia seemed better after we gave her the motrin. We decided to go to this little shopping village and see what would happen. It was kind of rainy all day. We had to drive up to the top of the mountains to reach this little tourist trap.

After being there for about an hour and Linda spending $150 U.S. on little b-s stuff, we headed back to the hotel.

I do not like shopping, no matter where I am in the world. So my job was to mind the two kids inside of this store at the top of the mountain. At this point is when Amelia started to decline. She started to become a little whiny, nothing I couldn't handle.

Byt the time we got back to the hotel, Amelia was kind of acting okay. Not really a 100%, but we decided to go down by the pool to give James some fun time.

We met up with the two other adopting families, and hung out for about 15 minutes. The the skies opened up and we had one helluva rain storm. So we all went into the hotel lobby bar which didn't open for another hour or so.


After awhile it was time to go back to the room, you know for feedings and diaper changes etc. The Danish couple, Oola and Brit, invited us to go to the Colombian restaurant across the street for dinner. Which I very happily accepted.

Well in the short time it took to go from the lobby bar to my room, things started spiraling down.

I get back to the room to discover that the baby has a fever and she is now wheezing heavily. James was exhausted from all the sleep he had the night before, so he was being a pain.

We were supposed to meet the couple downstairs in less than an hour. James wants nothing more than to go to dinner, but does not want to get ready to go. I have been wanting to go to this restaurant since we got here.

Linda starts to get a little more worried about the baby.

For one full hour, we try to figure out what we should be doing. James is crying that he wants to go to dinner. Linda is starting to get a little more freaked because of the condition of the baby. The baby is now crying/whining not really knowing what she wants.

We decide at the last minute not to go to dinner. James freaks out and goes berserk. He starts throwing things around, saying bad things starts to hit me, so I yell and he gets time out. All because we told him we were going to dinner with his friend Simon, and now we weren't going.

Now we want to order room service because it is getting late and we are hungry. But Linda doesn't want room service, she wants me to go down to the pool side restaurant and get a menu so she could get something from there.

I get dressed, the baby is crying continuously, James is pretending he is a Jedi master and jumps from bed to bed to floor and back again about 8 gazillion times. Every time James jumps he misses the baby by about a fraction of an inch. So I try to get him to stop, which only makes him do it more.

I go down to poolside and of course they are not allowed to deliver the food from the restaurant to the rooms. So i go all the way back to the room.

We start all over again, James wants to go out, so he is crying. Linda doesn't want anything from room service, but hasn't eaten anything all day. Baby hasn't settled down yet.

We finally figure out what we want for dinner. James wants Mac and Cheese, which is fine, but now I have to cook it. Linda is trying to get the baby to stop crying. The phone rings. Eduardo is downstairs with the camera cable. So I run downstairs, to meet Eduardo and his girlfriend at the bar. He invites me for drinks.

There is nothing more that I really wanted at this point than a drink.

But alas, the baby is crying, Linda is freaking and I have mac and cheese heating on the stove. So I bid him and his girl a fond farewell.

I come back to the room just in time for room service and Linda wanting a doctor to come right now. She calls and asks for the doctor. The doctor comes just after we ate dinner which they didn't bring everything we asked for.

James is starting to freak out now because his mother is freaking out about the baby's health. James is hanging all over me and all he want is that I sit and watch a movie with him. The baby is crying.

I officially have had enough at this point.

9 days in and all I want is to be sitting in front of my tv dozing off on my chair. With no kids crying and no wife freaking out.

Dinner sucked tonight. I just want to have a home cooked meal.

The doctor finally shows up with two ambulance drivers. Turns out he lived in fort worth for a year and spoke english well enough to communicate with us.

Apparently the drops that the first doctor gave us last week were for Amelia once a day to be given orally. Holy effing crap!!!

We had been giving her these effing drops in her nose. And every time we did, this poor baby would lose her mind.

Shoot me now!!!

#@$%&* ME!!!

The last doctor didn't speak english, and as stated in a previous post, I translated the prescription over the pone to the translator who then phoned in the order and then called back to tell us what the dosage was and how to use it.

We were under the effing assumption that we got nasal drops. God, I just wanted to be home. I have hit the wall.

- - - - -

Deep breaths.....

The doctor nebulized the baby, and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic. She has a slight infection in her lungs. And she has goo coming out of her left tear duct.

more deep breaths...

When the doctor was done, the baby stopped crying. He wrote us the prescription and reassured us that the baby was fine. She actually was very calm and laughing at this point.

...I am slowly calming down now.

As soon as the doctor left, the phone rang. It was Ernesto from long island wanting to know if I wanted to go downstairs and have a drink.

Linda took the call and told him that I would be dressed and ready within 10 minutes.

I really didn't feel like going.

He showed up at my door with a bottle of scotch and three glasses. He and I went downstairs and met Oola down by the pool. Apparently we were all losing it. After a half a bottle of scotch and a few rounds of beers I was feeling normal again.

After listening to the other two guys bitching about this whole process that we are going through, I felt much better.
Guy therapy! Scotch, beers, cuban cigars, and a little cursing and we all felt better.

My wife is great for making me go out with these complete strangers from different parts of the world.

I came home shortly before 12:00. Opened the door only to have Linda hand me a crying baby, and you know what?

I wouldn't change it for all the scotch or cuban cigars this planet has to offer.

Here it is at 1:20 am now that I am done writing and I am really tired. Let's see how tomorrow goes...

Ciao