The long journey home

It's been 3 days since we arrived home and we can't believe how well Jin-Ri has adjusted so far. She's been quite a handful, but such a joy to have in our lives. She's having so much fun exploring and touching everything in the house. Since she's so mobile, but wobbly, and likes to stand up and pull herself up on everything, we can't let her out of our sight for a single second. It's quite exhausting keeping up with her!

We put her to bed tonight at 8 pm after a bath, bottle and a book...and so far, so good. We're still getting the hang of things, and definitely needing to tag-team since she requires constant supervision and lots of night-time parenting as well. So far, we've barely unpacked our suitcases, we've been so busy with her.

So, a brief flashback to the day of the handover. It was Thursday morning, the 19th of March. We ordered a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the hotel florist to bring to the foster mom, and took a taxi to the Holt office for our 10:00 am appointment.



The appointment was originally scheduled for 3:00 pm, but the foster mom had a scheduling conflict, so we had to do it in the morning instead. I felt very sad that the foster mom was going to miss out on 5 precious final hours with Jin-Ri.

When we arrived at Holt, we went upstairs and pretty much saw Jin-Ri and her foster mom right away. We were all led downstairs to the medical office and met with the social worker and the nurse and doctor, who did one final, quick medical update of Jin-Ri.



Then we all moved to another room where the foster mom changed Jin-Ri into a brand new outfit, provided by Holt. We gave her the flowers and received some clothes and things from her. Then the social worker gave us the Holt baby bag with the immigration paperwork and her medical file and extra formula, bottles, diapers, wipes, medicine, clothes, a baby carrier, etc., and a small gift from Holt, traditional Korean rubber baby shoes. I received these same shoes when I arrived from Korea so many years ago, so it was neat to see the same ones again.









Then it was time. The foster father, son, and daughter weren't able to come, so it was just the foster mom, the social worker and us. Since we had spent so much time together all week getting to know each other and the needs of Jin-Ri, there wasn't that much left to say except for goodbye and thank you. We were escorted out to a taxi, and the foster mom was crying as she said goodbye to Jin-Ri. It was very difficult for her, and we can't imagine how much pain she must have been in, and is probably still in. It must be the most difficult job taking care of a baby, loving her as your own, and letting her go into an unknown future. Jin-Ri was their 7th foster baby. But we do plan to stay in touch with them and bring Jin-Ri back to visit them, so we hope that provides them some comfort. We don't consider this a final goodbye.

In the taxi back to the hotel, Jin-Ri was ok at first because she didn't know what was happening, but soon started wailing and sobbing really hard for her foster mom. She was inconsolable, and we could only do our best to comfort her. Since the taxi ride was about 35-40 minutes (that poor taxi driver!), her angry cries eventually softened to quiet sobs and she finally fell asleep in the taxi. We were very relieved she was quiet when we walked through the hotel lobby and went back upstairs to our room.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were very difficult. Jin-Ri cycled through her grief and we took turns holding her and trying to comfort her while she sobbed. Since we were in a traditional style room, it was pretty uncomfortable not to have any chairs or beds to sit on. We made a makeshift chair by sitting against the mirror with cushions, but it was still back-breaking by the end of it.





By the early afternoon, Jin-Ri was lightening up and started smiling and being playful and cheerful. This lasted a couple of hours, and we were so relieved she was starting to recover a little. But when it got dark out, she was having a difficult time again. She was anxiously watching the door to the room, and every time either of us turned our backs or had to leave the main room to go to the closet area or bathroom as we were packing, she would cry and crawl to the door. It took us till about 3am to get her to sleep, and we had to wake up at 4am to get ready to leave. So needless, to say, we were pretty exhausted. She slept restlessly on the floor mats between us, and kept tossing and turning and flailing about in her sleep. I think she finally got into a deep sleep for only the period from about 4:00 am to 5:30 am, while we were getting ourselves ready to leave.



But we were so impressed with her on the trip home. From the taxi ride to the Incheon airport, all the way back home to Cleveland, she was so easy-going. She was relaxed, smiley, and laid-back. We couldn't believe it. She even provided in-flight entertainment for the passengers and flight attendants on our trip from Seoul to Tokyo. She was being her silly, charming self, jumping in John's lap for the people behind us, giggling, smiling and bowing for everyone in our section. The flight attendants remarked what a happy baby she was.







By the time we got home, we had been travelling for about 27 hours, after layovers in Tokyo and Detroit. It was a long, long trip, and quite a new challenge learning how to take care of an infant in airplanes and airports, but we managed it quite well. Luckily, we had a chance to practice diaper changes and bottle feedings in the hotel.

Jin-Ri zonked out in the car ride home from the Cleveland airport, but when we got home, we purposely made sure to wake her up so she was conscious when we brought her into the house. We showed her all around the family room, kitchen and her room. She was really lively and curious, and enjoyed jumping and playing in her new crib. She was amazed by the high ceilings and the moving ceiling fans and couldn't stop looking up. She also had never seen carpeting before so it was interesting to see her stop and check that out, too.

Our first couple of nights and days home, we've had to hold her as she cries herself to sleep. We've been taking turns holding her, since it can get pretty tiring. I didn't get a wink of sleep the first night home since I had to rock her in the glider chair all night. She likes to take long daytime naps on John, which has left him incapacitated for many hours every day. At night, when I try to move her to her crib or even shift positions in the glider chair, she cries again, so I end up having to carefully hold and comfort her all night. But each day and night is getting better and better.

During the day, she's a real joy. She's so playful and funny. She's doing all the things we saw her doing in Korea; bowing at us, dancing to music, jumping, playing with all her toys, cruising around furniture, babbling, shrieking, screeching, etc. So we are very optimistic that over time, she will come through this transition just fine. She's making great progress every day.

Check the link to the right for Jin-Ri pics of her first days home. We have about 90 pictures on there so far.