2nd Doctor Visit...

Friday was yet another big day and another doctor visit. We started off with Taka being a little grumpy but we got him in the Bjorn and he started calming down. We took the train to East Tokyo with the full crew: Ogawa-san, Hagiwara-san, Otsuki-san and our Canadian friends. 

We stopped for lunch first. Mindy had miso ramen and I had katsudon. Both were great but I think Mindy "won".

Takahiro and Iori both slept while we had lunch. Once crib buddies - always crib buddies. 

After lunch, we took a walk through a couple of shrines. At the shrine behind Mindy we got to see a service which was pretty cool. Here are a few more shrine photos:

After the shrines we continued our walk to the doctor's office. 

It was pretty hot but we did catch Darth Vadar on this roof top. Can't imagine being in all black in this heat...but I guess he does have the force. 

We finally arrived at the doctor's office which really felt more like an apartment. 

Upon arrival we met Nanami, Takahiro and Iori's other crib mate. Nanami and Taka were born on the same day but there is a little size difference!  The doctor's office was packed with all of us and Nanami's grandparents, the doctor, a mid-wife and a birth mother.

The visit started off different than we had expected. The three couples and the doctor sat around the table where he outlined how the day would go, asked us all different questions and also had us speak to why we chose adoption and why adoption from Japan. This part was actually pretty hard for all of us; reliving our painful experiences was pretty emotional. Good thing for Taka to keep things light - he was "tooting" the whole time. ;)

After our sit down with the doctor each couple had to take their baby to get checked out by the doctor and mid-wife. Here is Mindy pretending to be deep in thought.

Taka's turn was last...we got him stripped down to his birthday suit and the check up began. I've edited one of the photographs for his privacy. :-)

At 4.940 Kilos, Taka had even grown from the day before!

Of course I was taking pictures the whole time and Ogawa-san thought it was funny! 

After all the check ups, we received our letter of approval from the doctor. The experience was a lot more formal than we had expected but we passed - sweet!

Here is the full group...

Mothers...

Fathers...

and families ;)

It was kind of a long day and we needed a pick-me-up so Ogawa-san took us to a department store/mall where we hit the food court and got ramune ice cream and shaved ice...

...and donuts! The Looneys have a sweet tooth. 

We headed back to the apartment and celebrated Taka's 1 month birthday with our donuts. 

Can you guess which one Taka had?

As with each day, we were exhausted but with this one, even more so. Let it be known that Taka fell asleep first.