welcome to Jack

We are pleased to announce the addition to our family of Jack Phuoc Dat Charles Sullivan. The adoption was made official as of 4:15pm (local time) Friday, June 29th/2007 in Tra Vinh, Vietnam. Jack is the son of proud parents Vanessa Charlesworth and Taylor Sullivan. He is grandson of Ron & Eileen Varney and John & Hazel Sullivan, nephew to Kendall, Julie, Mandy, Dan, David, Beverley, cousin to Danielle, Adam, Cole, Ella, Amanda-Rachel and great-grandson to Mrs. H. Sullivan.

It was a very long, tiring journey to Tra Vinh and back, but we have returned safely and are settling into our new routine at the hotel. Jack is adorable and somewhat verbal and is slowly taking in everything around him.

We will send further updates, once we are bit more settled and recovered from the weekend.

blessings
Vanessa and Taylor

A mother's first lullaby

Early yesterday (Tuesday) morning we arrived in Tra Vinh. Once at the orphanage, we met the director and then we walked towards the building where the children live. We had to pass by other buildings where many elderly and physically challenged people live. It was very sad to see. At the end of the row of buildings there is a brand new building, recently built by TDH. A portion of our adoption fees paid to TDH, goes towards the construction and maintenance of such buildings. The 12 children are housed here and upon entering we were met by an adorable 18 month old boy who is the oldest child of the orphanage, soon to be adopted by a family from Montreal. The other children were all lying in their hammocks.

Our guide from TDH asked if we were able to find our child, based on the photographs we had. We found Jack, who looked absolutely bewildered and a little afraid. We picked him up and found him to be very "wobbly". None of the children are able to sit up by themselves or take any weight on their feet. Although they are well fed, they have nothing to play with and nothing to stimulate them. Jack is very much an "observer". He watched us and all the others with a very intense look on his face. After playing for a while, he did start to kick and punch and pull Taylor's beard - having never seen a person looking quite like him (!) By the end of the visit, he did start to "coo" and make some sounds. By the end of the day, we almost got a smile. He has at least two teeth and is bigger than we thought he would be. Hopefully he will not forget us and will be pleased to see us again on Friday.

With "The Quiet American"

After spending the weekend in a comfortable, but small hotel - which had the added attraction of being under construction throughout the daytime, we decided we needed a space with a larger room that would allow Jack to "roam". We are now at the Continental Hotel located in the downtown center of the city, opposite the opera house. This is an old style, colonial building that was the site for the movie "The Quiet American", starring Micheal Caine. If you have not seen this movie, you may wish to go to Rogers or Blockbuster and rent it. It is quite good and gives a good overview of the history of this country and the many conflicts that have gone on here. If you do watch it, look for a room on the third floor - that is where we
are(!)

Very early (not necessarily "bright") tomorrow morning we will be heading down to Tra Vinh to meet Jack ! We are actually leaving at 2:30am local time, arriving there at about 7:30am. We still have no official date for the giving ceremony, most likely this will be held on Thursday. Unfortunately we will have to leave Jack at the orphanage at the end of the day tomorrow. (Probably just as well, as this would be a rough journey for him to do twice.) We return to Ho Chi Minh city Tuesday evening around 9:00pm and then travel back to Tra Vinh early Thursday morning (hopefully) -- we will certainly keep you posted once we have a more finalized date.

best wishes
Happy birthday Beverley

Vanessa and Taylor

waiting for Jack

Dear friends - our journey continues.

Today we met with our guide from the agency to discuss plans for the upcoming week. As we expected, we do not have an official date yet for the giving ceremony. It looks like it will be later on in the week, possibly Thursday. The plan (at the moment) is to travel down to Tra Vinh on Tuesday and meet the babies and continue with more paper work. We would then return to Ho Chi Minh city that evening and leave again for the giving ceremony (hopefully Thursday). If the giving ceremony is not until Thursday, we likely won't return to Canada until closer to July 12/13 - again that could change. As we mentioned, this process unfolds on a day by day basis and we have to accept by faith what comes our way and that things will unfold as they need to. We have found it a blessing (somewhat) to have a few days orienting ourselves with the city we are in and acclimatizing ourselves to the very hot and humid conditions..... not to mention, learning how to cross the street (!)

Jack awaits us and we await Jack. Soon we are to be in each others company.

Vanessa and Taylor

Good morning (from) Vietnam!

Good morning (from) Vietnam!

It is Saturday morning at about 9:00am (june 23 - Vietnam time)
We are currently at the Spring Hotel - a small place, but quite nice overall. Once we find out more how things are going to unfold and what our needs will be, we may make a move to another location. The others travelling with us are at another Hotel about a 10 minute walk from here. As most of you know we are with two other families from Ontario - Heather and Steve from Toronto and Andrea and Jim from Ottawa. Heather and Steve have adopted two wonderful children a son from Vietnam (northern part, near Hanoi) and a very energetic/talkative daughter from China, both of whom are travelling with their parents. Andrea and Jim, like us, are adopting their first child. (Andrea is a pediatrician and Jim is a dentist - so we are in good company! However, for the time being, the Spring Hotel will suite our needs fine.

As mentioned, we had a good, but long flight. We flew from Toronto to Anchorage. We were in Anchorage for about 45 minutes, but as this is U.S. soil we had to go through the regular immigration/customs protocol, which took about 30 minutes -- I had to think, what would have happened if someone did not have proper paperwork, would they have been sent back to the plane?? After streching our legs for about 15 minutes, we were back on the plane. We were then off on the long 10 hour flight to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong airport is quite new - not the old airport that is located in the heart of the city, where the airplanes flight in and around all the buildings. After about a 2 hour lay over, we were on the 2 hour flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We arrived here about 10:30am local time.

We are having a meeting today to find out what will happen next. We are expecting to travel to Tra Vinh sometime next week, although the exact date is not finalized. As we shared with many of you, this process will unfold on a day by day basis. We will keep you posted as we have more information - which of coarse may end up changing.

blessings to all of you
Vanessa and Taylor

We have arrived

Greetings to all -

It is Friday June 22 at about 1:30pm (Vietnam time).
We have arrived, after a long but smooth flight. We are just getting settled into the hotel and will have more updates shortly.

Vanessa and Taylor

Our journey begins...

Hello to all our family and friends. This is the beginning of our journey to Vietnam to meet and bring home our son, Dat Phuoc Ho. As we shared with many of you earlier, Dat Phuoc is a beautiful name in Vietnamese. It roughtly translates as: accomplished child of blessings, hence the name of our blog.

All being well, we depart on Wednesday June 20th at about 11:30pm, arriving in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) at about noon on Friday June 22nd (Vietnamese Time) *

* Vietnam is 11 hours ahead of Toronto Time and 6 hours ahead of British Time.

Once in Vietnam we will be based in Ho Chi Minh City at the spring hotel. Our son is in an orphanage located about a 5 hour bus trip south of the city in the town of Tra Vinh in the heart of the Mekong Delta (yes big, VERY BIG mosquitos). We hope to travel to Tra Vinh very early on Monday morning (June 25th). The giving and receiving ceremony is scheduled for that day. Once this takes place Dat Phuoc Ho is officially our son and will be named

John (to be called Jack) Dat Phuoc Charles Sullivan

John is a family name in both Taylor's and Vanessa's family. John is the first name of every first born son in the family (for at least the five generations since the family settled in Canada)

Not much is known about the circumstances about Jack's birth. We were given a small amount of information from the orphanage, which we share with you here:

On November 3/2006 at about 10:30am he was found
wrapped in a blue table cloth in front of the home of
a Mrs. Ho in the hamlet of Lo Ngo (This of coarse is
not an uncommon occurance in many parts of the world.
This Mrs. Ho seems to be a town official of sorts and
considered someone responsible who would do what was
necessary for the child). Jack was then placed in
Mrs. Ho's care for two months while the officials went
through the process of finding his birth
mother/family. On December 29th/2006 he was placed in
the Tra Vinh orphanage.

The forecast in Ho Chi Minh City as of 4am Saturday, June 16th (note this 4:00 in the morning)

28 degrees celcius with a humidex of 39 degrees.

The latest update gives Jack as 7.6kg (approx. 16.5 pounds) and 66 cm. He is where he should be for his age.

This will be the first time Vanessa has travelled to Asia. She regularly travels to England and is used to the 7 hour flight there. She is somewhat apprehensive of the upcoming flight of about 20 hours. Taylor however has travelled extensively, including several long haul flights. This will be his second time travelling to Asia.

We hope to update you every so often during our journey. We of coarse have no idea what sort of internet facilities we will have in Vietnam, nor do we know how much time we will have to do this (!) However, we delight in the opportunity to share our exciting journey with you.

Vanessa and Taylor