(The Tainan District Court where our heairng took place)
(Inside the Tainan District Court)
(J and J)
(J and J's favorite noddles in Tainan done in the traditional way)
(Tainan's famous "Chi-Cken Tower"- trust me, the name sounds a lot better in Chinese)
The Sunday before I was about to leave Taiwan, S started having diarherra and there was blood... we had to rush him to the hospital. He was hooked up to IV for 4 days while the doctor tested for the cause. He couldn't eat anything and was so weak and looked so helpless.. That was THE moment when I really felt that I was his mommy and he was not just some random ugly baby who had no relationship to me.. The test showed that he had Salmonella infection!! We were not sure exactly how he got it, because none of the adults had it! His doctor said that it is actually common for kids in Taiwan to get Salmonena infection in the summer. S's symptom was considered mild, because he only had diarherra for a few days. According to the doctor, some babies/kids would vomit and have diarrhea for a week! I postponed my trip back to the U.S., because I wanted to be sure that he was fine. Luckily he got better in a week.
Our adoption court hearing date also happened to be on Aug 31 when I was still in Taiwan. I decided to attend in person, even though our lawyer had full power of attorney to represent us in the hearing. I took a 4-hour train ride to Tainan from Tao Yuan and spent the night before the hearing in Tainan. My younger brother J drove from Kao Shuiang to meet me in Tainan the next morning. I was a little nervous, because I have never been to a Taiwanese court. The hearing started on time and S’s birth family didn’t show up. The first question the judge asked me was “how much do you make a year?” ok… that was an easy question.. He then asked another couple of questions like ‘what do you for a living?” and “why did you want to adopt?” He then asked our lawyer why the birth family didn’t attend the court hearing. Mr. Cia told the judge that the birth family had given him the full-power of attorney to represent them and the judge was fine with that answer. The whole hearing was less than 15 or 20 minutes!
After the hearing, J and I went for some great Tainan food and on a little sight-seeing, because I have never been to Tainan before. I haven’t seen J for more than a year since he moved back to Taiwan, so we were happy to spend the day together catching up on life and things. I took the train back to Tao Yuan in the afternoon. On Sep 4, I finally came back to the U.S. I didn’t really want to leave Shaun behind, but I felt bad working from Taiwan for a month already and I missed Simon too!
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