We all woke up today (Monday, August 28) with a feeling of great excitement. Today was going to be the day that we would get to meet Alyssa for the first time.

After a few hours relaxing around the hotel and resting from our long airplane trip, we (five adoptive parents, three grandparents and two previously adopted children) all piled into a minivan with a mountain of luggage to make the three hour drive to the Ham Tan Orphanage.

Soon the van filled with sounds of joy and happiness from two young girls. Jessie and her new friend, Gracie, who is four years old and was also born in Vietnam, were having a wonderful time, laughing and giggling. Their clear love of life made each adult on the van pause and realize once again what a positive impact this fantastic journey of adopting a child internationally had on everyone’s life, not only the children, but also the adults involved. It was evident that their presence only reinforced each parent’s decision to adopt a child.

The trip took a little longer than three hours and we enjoyed seeing the sites as we drove along. For many of us this was the first time outside of Ho Chi Minh City and after about an hour the urban landscape faded and gave way to views of country life in Vietnam. We were traveling along a busy road and soon became used to watching vehicles — trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes and horse and oxen drawn carts — all moving together in a gentle rythm accompanied by the sounds of tooting horns. Only the occassional blast of a large truck’s horn interrupted what appeared to be a well-orchestrated flow of the various forms of transportation. Even the occassional oncoming vehicle veering to avoid our minivan didn’t seem troublesome as we bounced along the way to meet Alyssa.

Eventually, we arrived in Ham Tan and as we neared the orphanage the van quieted considerably as everyone contemplated the once-in-a-lifetime moment that was about to unfold. The van pulled into the orphanage and we anxiously got out and hurried to a room filled with baby cribs where we found Alyssa waiting in her caregiver’s arms. Nancy clutched Alyssa while Jessie and Grandma Patsy looked on and I tried to record this wonderful first encounter with a video camera. After many tears of joy, we were able to compose ourselves and sit down to really meet Alyssa. At the same time, two other families were going through the same experience, all in what I’m sure was a chaotic scene, but no one cared or even payed attention.

It’s impossible for me to explain in words the emotions and feelings of that very special moment. Anything I could write wouldn’t do justice to intensity of the event. Just imagine after waiting almost two years, here we were finally meeting baby Alyssa and holding her in our arms, watching her bright eyes and listening to her soft cooing. All I can do is add in a couple of pictures of our happy family, now in a single moment increased to a family of four.   Scroll down to the bottom of  this post to see the pictures.

I’ll stop this post for now  since it is getting long, just like the day it describes - August 28, 2006.  We spent several hours at the orphanage, traveled another hour to our hotel and celebrated Jessie’s birthday.  I’ll write about that in the next post.

Grandma Patsy and Alyssa

We made it!! We’re in Ho Chi Minh City after a relatively uneventful trip from Ankara.  Our flight from Istanbul was delayed about an hour, which caused to miss our connection in Bangkok.  That meant we got to see more of the Bangkok airport than we wanted, but the airport staff was extremely helpful in getting us re-booked on a flight that was leaving within an hour.   So, after a long trek through the airport, we only had a few minutes to wait before getting on an Air France flight for Ho Chi Minh City.

This is turning to be a truly international experience right down to the number of different airlines we are using.  We flew from Turkey to Bangkok on Turkish Airlines and were supposed to connect to a Lufthansa flight, but instead ended up on Air France.

In Vietnam, we’ll fly Vietnam Airlines from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and then return to Bangkok on Thai Airlines before linking back up with Turkish Air for the return to Turkey.

The airport in Ho Chi Minh City seemed much cleaner and more efficient than we remembered it when we were last there on November 30, 2000 when we left Vietnam with Jessie.  Getting through customs and picking up our luggage was a snap (because of the change in airlines in Bangkok we were a bit concerned the luggage wouldn’t make it). Coming out of the airport terminal, things were much calmer than Nancy and I recalled.

Because of our flight delay, Thao, our Vietnamese facilitator, wasn’t at the airport, but it was no problem finding a van to take us to the hotel.  It was a Saturday evening and the  streets were absolutely alive with humanity — most everyone uses motorbikes for transportation in Vietnam and, of course, Ho Chi Minh City is no exception.  Everything and everybody can be seen on a motorbike.   Most unusual and interesting to us were the families of four and five all riding on a single motorbike.

We arrived at the Riverside Renaisannce Hotel after about an half hour’s drive and immediately linked up with the rest of our group - two other families who had arrived from the US earlier in the day.  Thao was with them and greatly relieved to see that we had no problems getting to the hotel from the airport.  As we were soon to learn, Thao is absolutely fantastic and is constantly working to make sure everything (and I mean everything) goes smoothly while we are in Vietnam.  It is great to have someone like her watching out for us.

After an hour of conversation and getting to know each other, we went to bed with great anticipation of the coming day - August 28 - when we would get to meet Alyssa for the first time.  But for us it was a special day for two reasons since it would also be Jessie’s sixth birthday.

Finally after what seems an eternity, we’re on our way to Vietnam.  Grandma Patsy has joined us in Ankara and we’re set to fly to Ho Chi Minh City via Istanbul and Bangkok.  It will be an exciting journey, one that we’ve been anticipating for many months.

There is still some uncertainity about exactly when we’ll get Alyssa and how long we will have to stay in Vietnam, but that doesn’t really matter since we’ll be able to visit her in the orphanage and be together with her.