Update

First, we just want to thank everybody for the kind thoughts, words and prayers. We have felt uplifted.

Mia is getting stronger every day. It's still a long uphill battle, but we feel grateful that she's doing as well as she is. Being 14 weeks premature, her heart, lungs, skin, and other vital organs were all underdeveloped when she was born. Because her heart was underdeveloped, one of its arteries wasn't quite closed up enough to maintain steady blood pressure without heart medication. Her artery has started to close, and they no longer have to give her the heart medicine. She still needs to be sedated to keep her heart rate and blood pressure normal, because she likes to move around so much. She has a bacterial infection that she's receiving treatment for, and she's getting better each day. They had to give her oxygenation and electrical respiratory stimulation so that she could breathe normally. They no longer have to give her the oxygenation. Her jaundiced skin is improving every day.

She was improving so much that they decided to try to give her some of her mom's milk through a feeding tube. She couldn't digest it yet so they had to stop, but they tried again last night. We still haven't talked to the doctors, so we're not sure if she was able to digest it this time.

Stef found an apartment in Matsuyama that's about 20 minutes away from the hospital on foot. We can't move in until December 18th, but we lucked out and got an offer from a Canadian couple to stay in their apartment while they're on vacation. It's about 5 minutes from the hospital, so we're going to stay there until we can switch over to our new apartment.

The new apartment is very expensive, but the church is helping to pay for it since we can't afford it. We hope to only have to be there for three months. It's a one-room apartment that's pretty tiny, but it's furnished and utilities are included. We can even get internet, so Stef and I will be able to Skype once I go back to work on the island. It's a huge blessing.

I went back to the island two days ago to pack some more suitcases. I was worried about having enough vacation time to cover the days I would miss and still have some for early next year (so that Stef wouldn't be alone all week in Matsuyama). My boss told me that they were giving me the rest of December (until January 5th) off, paid--and I didn't have to use my vacation time. When I got home after hearing this, I fell to my knees and wept. I thanked my heavenly father for all the help. I have enough vacation time to take every Monday off for the next few months. I plan on working Tuesday through Friday, then making the 4+ hour trek to Matsuyama to be with Stef for the weekend. I'll go back to Uoshima every Monday in the afternoon.

Before we could leave the clinic where Stef was staying, we had to pay our hospital bills. I wasn't sure what I was paying for, but emptied out our accounts to pay the doctors. When I showed my receipt to the people at the Uoshima Town Hall, they said that I had been wrongly charged for the delivery of the baby. The doctor didn't even deliver the baby, yet I paid him $1600 for delivery alone. I still have to pay the island doctor for the delivery of the baby (only $250, but still, I shouldn't have to double-pay). The island doctor is outraged and is reporting him to some kind of better-business-bureau-type-thing. We're hoping that we will get our money back.

Insurance doesn't cover childbirth in Japan, but the city will pay you a lump sum of cash that usually covers the expenses of childbirth. In Imabari, you can walk out of the city office with cash the day you register the birth, but on my island you have to wait 1-2 months to get it. We'll be a bit strapped for cash until then, so it would be really nice to get that $1600 chunk back. They want Stef to open a bank account, but I don't know how we'll be able to split our money up into two accounts. We have a lot to think about.

I've been filling loads of paperwork out in order to get insurance for little Mia. Since she was so premature, most of the costs will be covered by insurance. We still have some costs, but we're much less worried about being able to afford the medical care than we were at first.

I was told to go the the embassy as soon as I could to register Mia's birth and get her a passport. When I contacted the embassy, they told me that the whole family had to be present, including Mia. There are no exceptions. We won't be able to go until she's healthy enough to leave the hospital. After stressing about it a bit, I've decided that it's not that big of a deal. She was born this year, so we can still claim her on our US taxes even if we don't have a social security number or passport for her. Rest assured that I'll be filing my tax return as soon as possible next year. We'll need that money to be able to afford a family trip to Tokyo or Osaka.

We finally had to buckle down and buy cell phones. We didn't need them on the island, but we'll need them out here. It's free to receive cell phone calls in Japan, and our family plan allows us to call each other whenever we need to for free. Calls to the same network are free from 1AM to 9PM (almost the opposite of the U.S.), but calls to other networks and in-network calls in from 9PM to 1AM cost about 42 cents a minute. I had to purchase the phones with cash--the plans where you get a free phone cost much more per month than the one we signed up for. I spent a total of 3-4 hours (in three separate trips) at the phone store trying to communicate with the salesman (without a translator) and understand what I was buying. I hope I got it right.

It's nice to have phones, even if we just use them to talk to each other and receive calls. My package included $60 of prepaid calls, so I have two SIM cards with different phone numbers. When I need to make calls, I pop in the pre-paid card. Once I'm done calling, I put the regular SIM card in. It's a bit of a hassle, but it will save me a bit of money over the next couple months.

Stef's dad is flying out here tomorrow to be with us and help with Kelsey. We're extremely excited for him to come, even if the apartment will be a bit of a tight fit. Hopefully we'll be able to spend time outside of the house.

I'm going to miss our house on Uoshima ('til I go back). We have a whole lot of food there that needs to come out with us. I'm not sure how I'm going to transport it to Matsuyama without it going bad. We may have to give some of it away and just eat (Ha!) the loss.

Again, thanks to everyone for your support. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. It really helps lighten the load.

Mia Noele Stout

For those who don't know, Stef gave birth to Mia Noele Stout 2 days ago on a rescue boat. She's 14 weeks premature, so we're praying for her to continue developing. For a more detailed account of the situation from Stef's perspective, go to jessenstef.spaces.live.com. We appreciate all the prayers on Mia's and our behalf. We need them. If you click on the slideshow, you can get a better look at the pictures.

Cool Video

Here's a really cool video. Scott, if you've got my blog address, I'm hoping you'll see this here.

Pictures

I'm posting some pictures from our typical Sunday trip that I wrote about today (look below this post to read it), as well as a few from the Thanksgiving activity at church.

Today our school was invaded by a swarm of flies on the second and third floors. Souji (cleaning) time was spent spraying flies with bug spray and watching hordes of flies spin around on the floor like tops. The bug spray somehow messes with their equilibrium before killing them.


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Sunday Trip

Saturday night, we do the ironing, prepare our backpacks with diapers, scriptures, church manuals, and any other things we need to take. We prepare food and put it in the fridge for Sunday's lunch. On Sunday, we get up at 5:45 and get ready for church. We get Kelsey up at around 6:20 or 6:30 and eat breakfast as we make the final preparations. While she's eating, I take her porta-crib down and put it on a fold-up dolly. Once we've eaten and gotten Kelsey ready, we put on our backpacks and run down to the harbor to catch the 7AM ferry to Yuge. I put the porta-crib and dolly in the cargo hold of the ferry while Stef pushes Kelsey's stroller up a ramp and into the boat. Depending on Stef's mood, we either sit in the front of the boat or in the back. Lately, we've sat in the back due to the smoother ride.

For about 40 minutes, we travel northwest through the inland sea, crossing the wakes of gigantic shipping vessels. Kelsey's usually pretty well-behaved on the first boat. She's in a pretty good mood in the morning and enjoys running around from seat to seat and playing with people. We stop at Takaikami, a small island with a population of 50 or so, and another fishing island that has some expensive condos that famous people like to use. The sea is wide, and on a clear winter day, you can see its mountainous borders far in the distance. When we approach Yuge, we ride through a channel with tree-covered hills on both sides. At first, little Japanese houses are sprinkled throughout the trees, but the closer we get to Yuge, things change from quaint to industrious. Old rusted shipping yards, reminiscent of something off Star Wars' planet Tatooine, pop up all around. Arriving at Yuge, we pass under a bridge and head for the dock. Off in the distance, massive ship-building cranes line the shore.

Stef and Kelsey wait with our stuff on a bench under a brown metal arbor while I head up to the port office to buy tickets for our next boat. At 7:55, it shows up and I struggle to hand over our tickets to the boat worker while Stef pushes Kelsey up the ramp and into the boat. I have to lift the dolly and turn it sideways to fit the crib through the door. We usually sit somewhere up front. This boat turns around, goes around one island, and heads back southward, stopping a few times along the way. A few of the stops have big shipyards with gigantic boats in different states of the building process. The hour-long ride takes us along the coast of many different islands in the inland sea. On our right, we see beautiful forested mountains and hills. On our left, nothing but the sea and ships on the horizon.

Kelsey's patience (or perhaps our own) starts to grow thin with about 20 minutes left to go on the second boat. She tells Stef that she has to go to the bathroom. Stef has already taken her to the bathroom twice. It turns out that Kelsey has already filled her diaper this time. Stef changes Kelsey's diaper while we both try to shield Kelsey from sight and smell. Kelsey's got one diaper left after getting a fresh one, and I begin to wonder aloud whether that will be enough for the whole day. Stef assures me that things will be all right (she was right). It's not that I don't trust her motherly instincts. In fact, she's almost always right. It's just that I'm very cautious and always wanting to be prepared. Sometimes I let my good intentions get in the way of being a good husband.

We get to Imabari at 9:00 or so and pull all our stuff off the boat. I hand the boat attendant the receipt portion of our tickets and squeeze out the door with all the stuff. Stef puts Kelsey in the stroller and we head off to church. Typically, we walk straight to the chapel, which takes about 15 minutes. This time, we stop at Imabari Castle to take some pictures. We make it to church at 9:45, and the members are surprised to see us. We usually make it to the chapel by 9:15 or so, so they figured that we had missed our boat or otherwise couldn't come to church.

Kelsey usually naps through the last two hours of church. This time, however, she doesn't go to sleep. She screams and screams until Stef gives in and gets her up. Stef lets her play with the other kids while we attend out classes. We dread the trip home with a napless child.

Church ends, we get home taught by John Scott, and then the Scotts take us back to the port in their car. I buy tickets for the ferry home. Kelsey runs around the waiting lobby while we wait for 2:35 to come around so we can board the boat. Kelsey grows restless, so Stef takes her outside on a walk. The boat lowers its ramp and lets us in for the second half of our trip. It's all the same, but for a few differences. Kelsey is extremely tired and restless, but we've got the whole front section of the boat to ourselves. I see this as a blessing. Kelsey can run around and scream, and it won't bother anybody. To our left, we see the islands. To the right, the sea, with ships on the horizon. The weather has been very favorable, so the ride is smooth. We feel very fortunate.

Stef is surprised when we arrive at Yuge, because the ride somehow seemed shorter this time. We load our stuff off the boat, I hand over my ticket stubs and squeeze out the door. The Uoshima ferry is waiting across the same dock. I roll the crib up to the boat and toss it in the cargo hold. We'd like to lay in the back of the boat, but a group of elderly people are sprawled across the floor, napping. We go up front to find a place to sit. One of my coworkers from the town hall gives Kelsey a mikan (mandarin orange), and hands me another one. Kelsey gets excited and shouts "Ma-tan! Ma-tan!" She loves mikans. Stef peels it for her, but she only takes one bite of each slice and hands the remains to Stef. She's been doing that a lot lately. I finish off the uneaten halves of her mikan slices.

Kelsey is a bit restless, but rather than being cranky, she's wacky. We finally make it to Uoshima at 4:40 or so and head back to the house with all our stuff. Church back home seemed inconvenient sometimes--especially when I had to scrape ice off the windshield during the winter. But compared to this, that was cake. Somehow we find the strength to do this every week. It costs us about $100 a week. But we don't just do it to get it over with. We gladly go. No matter how grueling the trip is, deep down we know that we need this. Somehow, though it is physically draining, it is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually uplifting. I almost didn't go on Sunday, as I got almost no sleep Saturday night. Kelsey certainly would have napped had I stayed at home with her while Stef went to church. But I'm glad I went.

Thanksgiving

So, I've been to the future, and it's fantastic. Thanksgiving is November 27th, but we had our Thanksgiving on Saturday. We got up at 5:45 on Saturday to make the trek out to Imabari for Stef's prenatal appointment (and church on Sunday).

John spent all day preparing food for a branch Thanksgiving dinner. The Scotts made all the good stuff you're used to: turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, stuffing, and more. Other people brought mashed potatoes, cheesy scalloped potatoes, drinks, Pringles, rice, and sushi. Stef made brownies and an eggplant-noodle dish.

A whole bunch of people showed up to the chapel. There was plenty of food to go around. Before we started eating, John took a moment to explain the tradition of Thanksgiving in America. After telling the revisionist story that we all learned in school, he said that the food we were eating was the same food the pilgrims ate for their harvest festival of Thanksgiving. I wondered aloud how grateful the pilgrims must have been for Pringles.

The food was great. It was neat to eat all the traditional Thanksgiving foods with chopsticks.

We used to do grocery shopping on the weekends, but now we go through a catalogue and order food online. Stef writes down the code numbers and quantities for all the items that we want, and I input them on a website by Tuesday night at 7. The next Monday, our food is placed on the Uoshima ferry and arrives at 4:40. Items that need refrigeration come in a styrofoam box with dry ice. Everything else comes in cardboard boxes. It's very convenient, even if the prices aren't always the best. It's worth not having to travel, and I'd actually guess that we spend less this way.

I had Monday off, so we stayed with the Scotts on Sunday night so that we could get some shopping done in Imabari. The boat ride was pretty wild; the wind was so strong that they weren't even sure if they'd let the boat leave. We needed to get to Yuge in time to reach the boat that arrives at 4:40 in Uoshima. Otherwise, we might not have made it back on Monday and our food could have spoiled. Even though the waves were high and the ride was bumpy, we got home safely and got to put our groceries away. One of these days I'll give a more detailed account of our trek to church. It's quite grueling.

On a different subject, when we were decorating for Halloween, on the window Stef stuck little rubbery goo stickers in the shape of ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, witches and cats. She also spelled out HAPPY HALLOWEEN for passersby to read. Kelsey found them. One by one, she would climb up on the couch and grab one while we weren't looking. At first, we got mad that she was ruining the decorations. HAPPY HALLOWEEN slowly turned to HAP HALLOW, or some other such nonsense. But then, we realized that they weren't that important, and we had only spend a couple bucks on them anyway. It wasn't a big deal. By the time that Kelsey had whittled our decorations to HA LOL, we had already learned to laugh at the situation. Kelsey really is a cute little girl. We'll be happy if her little sister is half as cute.

That's right. We're having a girl! :D

Blog posts? It's time for "nuh-one"

So, Kelsey's talking quite a bit now. She can say a ton of things: boat, movie, 'nanas, I love you, treat, poopoo, shoes, slide, drink, juice, bing (the sound the toaster makes), toast, running, me, you, yep, yes, no, no-no, choo-choo, Mommy, Daddy, blue, Nemo, cat, kitty, Mama's sleeping, and pretty much anything we ask her to say.

As a linguist, I'm fascinated by some of the things she says.
Backpack: It's hard to say the velar stop consonant /k/, and much harder to say it directly before moving to the bilabial stop /p/. Even though she can say "cat" and "kitty", she hasn't figured out how to produce the /k/ when it comes at the end of a syllable. She omits the first /k/, and turns the second /k/ into the closest voiceless stop consonant she can say at the end of a word: /t/. Kelsey loves her "bapat".

Kelsey likes to point at things and tell us what they are. For example, on the ferry ride, she points out the window at a passing freighter and says, "Boat!" If another boat passes, however, she'll say, "nuh-one!" If she wants another piece of chicken, she'll point to ours and say "nuh-one!" Every additional cat she sees after the first is a "nuh-one!" Her love of pointing out "another one" of everything she sees has subtly influenced some other words she says.

She hasn't yet figured out how to say /r/ or /l/, which is normal for her age. When 2+ syllable words end in either /r/ or /l/, she'll often pronounce it as an /n/. Pillow becomes /piwwone/ ('one' pronounced like the number), shower becomes /showone/, towel becomes /towone/. It's very cute.

Before Kelsey started talking a lot, she would follow Stef around with her arms up, wanting to be held. Stef would ask Kelsey, "Do you want me to hold you?" And Kelsey would say "Yep!" When Stef was cooking, Kelsey would beg for attention, putting her arms up and whining to be held. Stef, preparing the food, would say, "I can't hold you right now."

Kelsey heard "holdyou" as one word. Up until recently, when she wanted to be held, she'd walk up to Stef and say, "Holdyou! Holdyou!" While very cute, Stef and I wanted to make sure that she understood that she should say say "hold me!" instead. So, after a week or two of drilling it into her, she now says, "Holdyou..........me! Holdyou..........me!" She's very entertaining.

Kelsey now says "'scuse you!" when someone passes gas, including herself. It's very cute. I'm sure that, before long, after passing gas she'll say "'scuse you.........me!"