Home 1 month!!!

Emalee will be home 1 month tomorrow. I won't have time to write tomorrow, so I thought I'd post this today! I can't believe it! One month ago (Korea time) we were at Eastern waiting in the lounge for Emalee and her foster mother. When they arrived her foster mother was crying and loving on Emalee as much as she could before she would hand her over to us. As heart breaking as it was, I couldn't help but be so thankful for the love that this very special woman had for my daughter. While we waited for Dr. Kim Sr. to arrive Emalee's foster mother held her and would turn around and walk to the other side of the room and talk to Emalee and pat her and hug her and mess with her clothes to assure herself that she would be warm, etc. I don't have words to express my gratefulness to this wonderful woman and unless you've been in my shoes you'll never fully understand how much she means to us. I tried as much as I could to let her know how much we love her, but because of the language barrier only our tears and hugs could show eachother how we felt. Brian and I decided that although we couldn't understand the Korean language the universal language that we did understand that day was the language of love.

Dr. Kim Sr. came to the lounge along with some other Eastern staff and he prayed over Emalee. I wish so much that I knew what he prayed. Our friends Charlie and Tricia were there adopting their daughter and video taped this special time for us. After the prayer our social worker asked me and Brian to go outside and get in the van. While we were in the van Emalee's foster mother had one more time alone with her to say her good bye's. Then she walked to the van and handed Emalee to Brian. The driver got in the van and we left.

The drive to the airport was about 45 minutes. Brian gave Emalee to me and I got to feed her the rest of her bottle and then she fell asleep in my arms for the first time. I think Brian and I cried all the way to the airport. There were so many emotions. We talked about how pretty she was and how little she was and how her hair was so long. Mostly, we sat in silence wiping our tears. One of the emotions that I didn't expect was a feeling of sadness. A sadness for my daughter for her losses. The loss of a language, culture, heritage, birth family. The loss of what could have been her future life. And although I knew in my heart that we were doing what the Lord asked us to do I couldn't help to feel this overwhelming sense of sadness right in the middle of my joy. It's another feeling that I can't explain and that you'll not understand unless you've been there.

Since we've had Emalee home she's gone from drinking a 4 oz. bottle to a 6-7 oz. bottle. She's turned over from her back to her tummy except she can't figure out how to get her arm out of the way yet and it makes her mad! She loves playing in her Exersaucer. She lays on her back on the floor and if her socks are off she likes to grab her feet and try to put them in her mouth! She doesn't care for the baby swing. She does still like mommy to carry her in the baby carrier. She's still in 3-6 month clothes and and size 2 diaper. She likes to laugh with daddy and is really starting to like her new brothers. She still sleep a lot! She goes to bed around 10 p.m. and wakes around 4 a.m. for a bottle, then sleeps until 8 a.m. stays awake until she has a bottle at 11 a.m. , wakes at 1 p.m. and stays awake until around 5 p.m., naps 1-2 hours and then stays awake until 10 p.m. She also takes little 30 minute cat naps in between some of that! At least it's a pretty consistent schedule.