Coming Home

I’m happy to report that we survived the VERY long day/night/day of travel during the past 36 hours and are finally back at home. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

Of course I’m not sure when that will happen, as Matthew is still jabbering in his crib right now. In his body, it’s 1:11 pm on Friday afternoon . . . so trying to get him to sleep might be something of a challenge. Wish me luck for a night of restful sleep for everyone.

We spent about 15 hours in the air today. We left the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou at 10:00 am on Thursday morning, caught our first flight to Seoul at 12:40 pm. Spent an hour in the Seoul airport, then boarded another flight to Seattle, arriving at 12:15 pm Thursday PDT. We captured Matthew’s first steps on U.S. soil with a photo in customs, for which we received quite a scolding, but I’m SO glad we have it. Immigration was a nightmare (for lack of a more creative word), but finally around 2pm, we came up the escalator to the baggage claim area, straight into the arms of a big brother and a big sister who were SO excited to see us. My mom and dad took photos and video of the first meeting, but I don’t have those yet—so you’ll just have to take my word for it. It was joyous and wonderful to hug Maya and Sam again—how I had missed them.

It was sweet for them to get to finally meet Matthew too, and he also received his fair share of Marmie and Bapa hugs in the process. We all processed to the car, loaded up, and drove our own Subaru home as a family of five, with minimal fussing from our 18 month old, who had never before ridden in a car seat. His big sister and brother kept him quite entertained when he got fussy!

The rest of the day we spent unpacking, taking a family walk, enjoying a visit from my sister Amy and her son Parker. I snapped a cute shot of the cousins together (Parker and Matthew). Parker has been so enthusiastic about “Baby Matthew in China” these past six months (I’m sure due in great part to his mama’s enthusiasm too!). He wanted to hold Baby Matthew, to kiss him, to pat him. It reminded me that Matthew is already so well loved and welcomed by family and friends.

I won’t detail much else about our trip except to tell you this: The flight from Guangzhou to Seoul was REALLY hard for Matthew. He screamed and cried like I’ve never heard before, and each time I’d FINALLY get him to sleep, the flight attendants on Korean Air would need me to put my seat back up (when the meal was served), raise my shade to let in the blinding light (during landing), or something else about which they weren’t very flexible. And then every time Matthew screamed, they would RUN over and make a big fuss about his crying. I felt claustrophobic and REALLY anxious. I shed more than a few tears on that first flight.

Our layover in Seoul helped calm me down, and just before boarding our LONG flight, I prayed that I would hear a word of encouragement from someone around me on the flight instead of so much discouragement.

Well, not five minutes after we boarded, the man sitting right across from us began to talk with us—he was interested in Matthew and his adoption. We found out that he is Chinese but lives just north of Seattle now. When his son was born (in China 26 years ago), he had a cleft lip that was repaired. He was so encouraging and complimentary about our adoption. It was really heartwarming. He told us, “I don’t know how to say it in English very well, but I know by your adoption that you are good people. That you have good hearts.” I was grinning from ear to ear after that praise.

Then, about an hour into our flight, I was standing near the lavatory rocking Matthew when a woman came up to ask me about him—she was also interested in his cleft lip and palate. She told me she is a Korean adoptee who had a cleft palate as a one-year old—she was adopted and the cleft was repaired. “Thank you, on behalf of all Asian adoptees, for what you are doing by bringing this little boy into your family,” she told me.

I was elated. Two people in less than an hour who were so kind and encouraging about our adoption. As the flight went on, we continued to receive warm smiles and nods from people around us. Matthew slept for over 6 hours of our 9 ½ hour flight—he was a dream baby. So even though we were tired when we landed, we also felt happy that it had gone so well.

And that’s the thing about this whole process, to be honest—Each time we felt discouraged or thought we wouldn’t make it to the next step, we’d find some surprise blessing around the corner. Even tonight, as we were struggling to put to bed THREE children with very different night time needs as TWO parents, I felt a sense of calm come over me, knowing that we won’t get it perfect right away, but eventually we’ll figure it out.

I will keep blogging for the next couple of weeks, especially once we have our appointment at Children’s Hospital a week from Monday and find out what the course is that lies ahead for Matthew’s lip and palate repair. Please keep reading as you like, but don’t feel any obligation. We are grateful to have had all of you along for this amazing journey, and the encouragement and blessings YOU gave us along the way were part of the surprise we didn’t expect.

I don’t miss China—I was very ready to come home. I missed my life and my family here. But this is a new life we are forging together now—a life as five people instead of four, with new rhythms and patterns. I’m expecting that it might feel bumpy once in a while as we all regain our sense of equilibrium. But it’s so good to know we aren’t alone—that we are surrounded by a whole cloud of witnesses who walk this journey with us.

Thanks for welcoming us home. We can’t wait for you to meet Matthew. We are so glad to be back.

Matthew's first step on United States soil--a U.S. citizen at last!

Playing toys together.

The first shot of our three children

Maya is SO into her little brother

So fun to have them all together finally.

Parker gets to hug cousin Matthew