Two for One Post

This is two for the price of one since we didn't get anything posted yesterday. Yesterday we were able to take custody of the children. It was tear jerking watching the nannies say goodbye (even though we still have a couple of things to do at the care center.) Once we got K. home to the hotel we realized one of the reasons she is so small is that she doesn't really eat. The care center feeds all the babies using a cup so bottles are completely new to her (although we thought that was how they fed her in the hospital) and she is totally resistant to the experience. And cup feeding her is a challenge- we start with 4 ounces of formula and it disappears but we can't tell if it went into her or onto her so it is hard to know how much she is really drinking.

The kids are loving her to death, although D. has a whole affection/aggression thing going on. When B. is holding K., D. freaks out, chasing after them and if she doesn't get picked up too, watch out. X. is having issues of his own, but I don't know if they are related to the baby, to being away from home, to not getting enough sleep, to not feeling well or a combination of all the above. I think once we get home and get settled that will make a big difference for him.

We are supposed to keep the babies in the care center and avoid taking them out in public as much as possible, but we braved it and took them to the Hilton for lunch. Meals here take a long time as the food sort of trickles out from the kitchen- not the best situation with 3 hungry kids and fussy baby. After lunch we had the paperwork meeting for the US immigration visa.

Today was the embassy appointment. The embassy is behind a brick wall, and there are not one, but two security checks to get in. Including my 2 and 4 year old children being patted down by a security officer. Now I realize that you can never tell who might be a terrorist but what are the odds that a 4 year old US citizen accompanying his parents and siblings to get a immigrant visa for a baby is carrying anything more dangerous than a bad attitude???? But after all the security and about an hour of listening to A. complain about why this could possibly take so long, we have had our petition to get K. an immigrant visa approved. On Thursday, the agency staff will pick up her passport and we will be good to go (we think) because......

There is some confusion about whether or not K. needs a transit visa to land in Amsterdam (where our layover is). The Dutch officials say "yes", then yesterday we were told not if we are flying on KLM (which we are). Today, as we were leaving the embassy, we are told that they can't board the plane without the visa and they can't issue the visa until the US visa is in the passport. We race to the Dutch embassy to start the process and hopefully have both the US and Dutch officials expedite the paperwork so that we can leave on Thursday, otherwise we are going to be stuck till Monday before everything can be finished. By the time we got to the embassy they were closed so we all went to lunch. None of have really packed enough stuff for the babies to be out and about till after 2:00 (see above regarding how meals are served) so we had lots of crabby people, both big and small. However, during lunch, the agency director's phone rings and apparently, now we do not need transit visas for the kids. So hopefully, we will all be able to board the plane for Amsterdam. Otherwise, I will be bringing the 3 older kids back with me and B. will remain with K. until it is all worked out. Me with 3 kids on planes for 18 hours, plus 3 plane changes and a trip through immigrations and customs- well if that doesn't sound like fun I don't know what does.