Jada grew!

We went to the doctor today to do a checkup for Jada. She is still small, but healthy in every way!
As most babies, she lost weight after she was born. She was born at 2.47Kg (5Lbs, 6oz), went down to 2.38 Kg (5lbs, 4oz) a few days after she was born, and she now is 2.5Kg (5lbs, 8oz)! YAY! She regained her birth weight plus a bit. Now you are probably thinking 120g/4 oz is not a lot, and your right. Remember Jada is only two weeks old, so that is quite an achievement for her, as well when you are that size, it makes a huge difference. Comparitably, if I were to gain weight at the same rate, I would have put on 5Kg (11lbs) or more in two weeks - assuming of course I did the math right. I weight about 250lbs (113Kg). If someone figures I did this wrong let me know ok? This would be unhealthy for me, but for Jada, it is right about where she needs to be. For a while starting from now, she should be gaining up to 1 kg (or 2lbs) a month. A couple more good things about Jada. Her Jaundice is down by halfish (according to the readings) and is barely noticeable on her face now. She is also at a weight and age where she could get vaccinated in China. Their schedule is to give a BCG (for TB) and Hep B shot at birth. I know that Canada they don't do those right away. Any thoughts - Should we follow the Chinese Vaccination schedule or the Canadian one?

Other things are going well. We are hopping to be on track with our visa issues, we will find out for sure on Thursday when we go pick them up. We are still planning to go to Canada, now on September 23rd. We will be there for a few weeks, then come back to China to finish up my contract with work. From there.... We have yet to decide exactly what is going to happen once we reach that. I am looking at a couple different options, and I might just try to go for all of them, and see which one fits the best for us.

For the time being, I (usually) enjoy teaching English. There are students I like, and others that try my patience, but on a whole, it is quite enjoyable. I'll post more on this when I gather my thoughts a little more. It is slowing down a little more, as school is starting back up soon. Not that I teach children, but we have a lot of university students.

That is all I can think of to say now
Mikey

Passports and Visas

So Jada is a now a week and a half old. We have been really happy with the decision to bring her out of the hospital, as we would have missed her way too much! We love seeing her, and when she is alert, she just sits there looking around, and has really cute eyes. I love being around her, and seeing her. She is a really quite baby too. She sometimes cries really loud (espically when changing her diper or clothes!) other times she sqwaks. It is also becoming easier on Chelsey, as Jada is sleeping and eating better. Some nights Jada still is snacky during the night, but most times is sleeping really well.

Yesterday we had a bit of an adventure. We went to the Canadian Embassy to get Jada her Canadian citizenship and passport. First we had to get photos with her eyes open. So we tried to time it to when she would be waking up. But the taxi probably put her in a deeper sleep, so it was a bit of a struggle. But the photogropher got a good one, and it only took six or eight tries. At least we did not have to worry about hands being in the photo, because they had her on a blanket lying down. They also photshoped it a bit to make it look nice. It was really cool watching them do it, as the guy that did it knew what he was doing, and it was so quick! It was a photo place recommended by the Embassy, so I'm assuming that they knew that the photo place would photoshop a bit. Did I mentention that the Embassy closed at three at that we were at the photo place until 2:30? This is because we took a little longer then we thought in getting out. But we did make it to the Emabssy at 2:40, so it worked out well. I am glad that we were able to apply for both the citizenship card and the passport at the same time, as it takes between 6 and 18 months to get it! We were going to apply for an emergancy passport, as we were worried about time, but they told us that there would be no problems in getting the passport in time, and still have time to get Jada a visa for China. We also went to the bank and got certificate of deposites for both of us, so that we can show that we have 3000 USD each to extend our visas. We got new plane tickets for September 23, so pray everything goes well, and that there are no delays.

With Jada's passport getting started, that leaves one thing left to do this week, and that is get our visas extended. It should not be any problem now that we have the certificate of depostits. I don't know what plan B will be if it comes to that, but hopefully we don't need that!

The Joys and the Worries of New Parenthood

Last Sunday we were able to pick up Jada from NICU. The nurses undressed Jada and showed us every inch of her skin so that we could see that no harm had been done to her, we found that amusing, and after a bunch of paper work she was finally in our arms and we were free to go. She seemed to settle down immediately and looked very peaceful and happy to be reunited. Staying at the bishops house with their support and experience in caring for newborns was a huge blessing. I don't know what I would have done without Sister Johnsons help and confidence. Warning: if the words breast and nipple make you feel uncomfortable, don`t read on. Breast feeding proved to be a challenge that I had not expected. Luckily my milk came in the second day but Jada is a baby that is nei to impossible to rouse from sleep, often not sucking and my nipples were not cooperating (probably why she would not suck) . We were only having 3-4 successful feedings in a twenty- four hour period which was really worrying us. I put some of my milk in a bottle and tryed feeding her that way which was successful,so the next day I went and bought an electric breast pump and the success rate immediately jumped astronomically. Then I found that I could use the pump to stimulate my nipple and get the milk flow started and Jada would then feed off the breast. The last few days we have gone back to the breast, my nipples are now reacting like they should and Jadas appetite has really made leaps and bounds. I have not had to use the breast pump even once today. So it has been a positive learning curve for both of us. She is almost a week old and already made so much progress, we are so proud of her.

We are back in our apartment. We hired a lady to do a really deep cleaning of our apartment while we were at the bishops house so that we could bring Jada home to a sterilized, dust free environment. They did a really good job.

Mike has been super busy. He got 4 days off in a row right after the birth but he didn`t get much rest as there have been so many things to get done fast. He has been running errands all over Beijing. We still have Visa issues to take care of. We are seeing if we can get our current visas extended for 30 days. That gives us time to get Jadas Canadian citizenship card, passport, and a visa (still not sure exactly sure what has to be done there, she is considered a chinese citizen right now and we will need some sort of visa for her before we can take her out of the country). Thirty days is really rushing it so keep us in your prayers that all will go smoothly and we will be able to get it all done in time.

We took Jada to Amcare Women and Childrens hospital for a wellness check. The doctor said that she is healthy just really low in the percentiles for height and weight which is to be expected considering she was 5 weeks early. She has a little jaundice but it is in normal ranges so we had been giving her some time infront of the window every day, that is suppose to help as it gives her vitamin D. We are going to go back next friday for a check up on her weight gain and jaundice.

All in all, things are going well just rushing around alot trying to get things done and doing the best we can to ensure Little Jadas health. Keep a look out for new Jada photos on photo bucket as we will upload new photos there periodically.
http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad59/mdinnes/