The end of the beginning

Our time in Seoul came to a close on 2009 Apr 29 (Wednesday), one week after our arrival. When we arrived in the lobby of the ESWS guest house, everyone else was already there (Kimberly, escorting a little girl; Julie Post and her mom -- we were all on the same flight). The foster families were also there with the babies. After a flurry of last-minute paperwork, photos, tears, and a prayer by ESWS director Dr. Kim, we were hurried into to the waiting van and waved goodbye.

So there's the clinical version of what happened, but that isn't the real story.

For several days before leaving, we began to understand the enormous sacrifice and love of Yeong Ah's foster parents, Lee Mi Sook and Kim Tae Seog. As one of our new friends wrote about their daughter (and all our children), "... She already had a family with loving foster parents. She had routines, a secure environment, and everything she needed. True - this couldn't last because a pre-adoption foster home is temporary - an infant can't rationalize that. ..." Indeed, Korea is a beautiful place. Julie and I would talk often of how surprised we were by the strength of our emotional connection to Mrs. Lee and Mr. Kim, and how it felt like we were, in a sense, breaking a family up by taking Ellie home. We had considered our own family, the birth mother, Yeong Ah's needs, but very little about her foster family. We were excited and heartbroken at the same time.

We just couldn't leave on Wednesday morning without hugging Mrs. Lee and Mr. Kim. I don't know if we broke any Korean 'protocols' by that, but I will testify that the strength of their return embrace told me that we had arrived at an understanding for the mutual benefit of Eliana Yeong Ah.

I type with tears in my eyes for the thousands of foster families who have loved children and watched them fly away to foreign homes. Perhaps someday adoption will not be necessary, and all children can be raised in stable homes within their native cultures.

The central element of the Catholic faith is something called the "Paschal Mystery." Simply put, it's our understanding of how God gave life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the mystery of how pain, loss, grief, and failure can coexist with love, joy, life, and hope. It cannot be explained, but is understood through experiences. I have rarely felt such a strong presence of this as in the few days leading up to our trip home. Anticipating the pain of taking Yeong Ah and the challenge of the flight home reminded me of why we celebrate Holy Week. It is to remember that the pain of this week was born because Yeong Ah's mother loved her enough to place her for adoption, and because Mrs. Lee and Mr. Kim dared to invite her into their home. The splendor of Easter would be diminished without the pain of Good Friday.

Our "Easter"

Rocking and Packing

We spent this morning volunteering in the Eastern baby nursery. We fed and rocked babies and even changed poopy diapers. All of the babies adopted through Eastern have their start in this nursery. Ellie lived there from the time she left the hospital where she was born until she joined her foster family on September 18, 2008. We know that other adoptive families and volunteers held and rocked our little girl when we couldn't be there for her and we were happy to return the favor.

Here is the window into the nursery. We counted 28 babies all waiting for foster families and forever homes.

There are so many they have them double bunked. This little fellow that Phil cared for has a trundle bed underneath three other babies.

Phil took care of this smiley boy first. They said he was 3 months old.

I had this little peanut. They did not tell me his age but I guessed him to be no more than a couple of days old. His skin looked like a newborn and he was still learning how to suck. It took nearly an hour to get a few ounces of milk in him.

And two more babies for us. I have a little boy and Phil has a little girl. There was no shortage of babies needing some love and attention.

After our nursery time we finsihed our souvenir shopping. We have also been busy packing to come home. We have to meet the foster family at 8:30 and then we will be shuttled to the airport. Our flight leaves Korea at 12:00 p.m. (10 p.m. Tuesday night at home). We are anxious to come home and start our life with Ellie as a part of our family. We also miss Abby and Gabe terribly and are anxious to see them.

Though we are anxious to return home we leave the land of Ellie's birth with heavy hearts. We have really enjoyed our time in Korea and we know how much Ellie is losing by leaving her culture. We know tomorrow will be sad as we say goodbye to Ellie's foster parents. We can't imagine how hard it is for them to let her go. We will be forever grateful to them for the love they gave her. We will be forever grateful to Korea for our beautiful daughter.

This is Julie signing off until we are home.

Second Visit with Ellie

We had our second visit with Ellie this morning. The visitation room where we were the first time was occupied so we just took her back to our room. She cried for the first 30 minutes. It is heartbreaking to listen to her cry. She looks at our faces and crinkles her nose and just lets loose. What is even sadder is that all the while she is crying she is hugging us. We know that the foster family is not a permanent family for her but watching her loose the only mother she has known is so sad. After we couldn't settle her in the room we decided to try going outside in a stroller. She loved the hustle and bustle of the city and she settled right down. After 15 or 20 minutes of strolling she was content to be held by us again. After an hour we met with our social worker and the foster family. Ellie was content to let Phil hold her even though her foster parents were in the room. We think that is a promising sign.

This is one of the few pictures we got before Ellie got upset. Her foster mother always has headbands on her that have fake ponytails on the side. We think they are a hoot.

The foster family then gave us gifts. In fact, they gave us the best gift we could have recieved. They made Ellie a wonderful photo album (like a shutterfly book) and also gave us a CD with all her pictures on it. We are so happy that she will have some record of her first family and the first 9 months of her life. Did I mention that today is Ellie's 9 month birthday? In the photo book they wrote a beautiful letter to her in Korean. Our social worker translated it for us. As you can imagine we were all crying (except for Ellie). The next few days are going to be very emotional.

They also asked for our blog and email addresses and would like to stay in contact. They are such amazing people we are more than happy to keep them updated on our family and Ellie's growth.

Here is a picture of the photo album they made for us.

They also gave Ellie a Hanbok which is the traditional Korean dress.

After our meeting we met the director of the agency and had lunch with her and the other families who are here right now. It was such a nice time to visit with others in our situation. We met a nice family from Seattle and another from Australia. Unfortunately Phil has a cold (he says cold I say swine flu) and has lost his voice so he didn't get the benefit of visiting with everyone.

This afternoon we went to a Buhddist temple.

After that we went to another market to do some shopping. Now we are resting a little before heading out for some dinner. More tomorrow.

A busy busy day...

Well we had our first day in Korea without rain (almost). It didn't rain until evening and even then it was just drizzly. We tried to make the most of the dry day and see LOTS of stuff.

First we went to Gyeonbukgong Palace.

There we saw the changing of the guard.

Next we went to the Korean Folk Museum.

Then we went back to Insadong where we attempted another Korean meal with success. Mmmmm dumplings.

Then it was off to the toy market to shop for some kids we know. No Walmart here everything is sold in open air markets.

And finally we took in the Lotus Lantern Festival parade. This is a celebration of Buddha's birthday. The floats were awesome (see picture above).

Then a subway ride and stop at Burger King...you can take the Americans out of the United States but you can't take away their fast food. Now we must head to bed. Tomorrow morning we get our next visit with Ellie. We are excited to see her again and to see how she will react to us. We figure the first time we were a novelty but now that she is seeing us a second time she may be starting to figure out that something is up.

Pics (with a little help from new friends!)

We met a couple from Arkansas in the computer room at the guest house. We thought we wouldn't be able to post pictures until we got home but they were much smarter than we are so you can now see our new daughter.

Here she is! Isn't she cute?

Daddy (Appa) and Ellie (Yeong Ah). Her foster family calls her by her Korean name. She has been Ellie to us for a long time but now we find ourselves calling her Yeong Ah.

Momma (Omma) and Ellie. She is really interested in touching and pinching our faces.

These are Ellie's foster parents. They were both so kind. It is obvious that Ellie has gotten wonderful care from both of them. It is also obvious that she has gotten sufficient food - she is a chunk!

Be quick or be squished...

Doors here close very quickly. They also don't seem to have the same safety features that electronic doors have at home. We have seen a number of people squeezed between subway doors and Phil was almost tragically squished in an elevator.

We tried to do some sight seeing today but the weather would not cooperate. We did go to the Korean war memorial and museum. It is a museum of Korean war since the beginning of time and it is HUGE but very interesting. Strangely enough this museum also had a Thomas the Train exhibit so there were lots of kids around. Made us miss Abby and Gabe. We got tired of being cold and wet so we headed back to the guest house around 5:00. I snoozed a little while Phil watched a movie. We are now trying to keep ourselves up later in the hope that we won't be awake from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

We are hoping that tomorrow is at least dry so we can see some more of Korea.

Minnows and Peanuts?!?!?

Well yesterday we ventured into Insadong which is a large shopping area. There were many Korean restaurants and we wandered around until we found one that had pictures and some English. I am trying to be adventurous but I am just not up for eel, octopus or squid. I ordered bulgogi which a Korean beef dish that I am familiar with. It was not what I was expecting (it came in a big pot like soup and was mixed with several unidentifiable things) but it wasn't bad. We had several side dishes which is common in Korea. One of them no kidding was little fried minnows mixed with peanuts. How do I know they were minnows you might ask. It is because they still had their little faces and tails. Needless to say I didn't eat much of my lunch and we ended up at TGI Fridays last night for a margarita and a burger. We will try to find another place for a Korean food adventure today.

We are still struggling a little with the time change. We are exhausted by 9:00 and fall immediately asleep but I woke up at 2:00 and couldn't get back to sleep until after 4:00. By the time our bodies have this figured out it will be time to come home.

The weather here has been lousy. We hear you have 90 degrees at home. It was chilly and rainy all day yesterday and today looks to be the same. We think our vacation weather has been cursed since our rainy Vermont vacation with Jeff and Polly. Perhaps we will have to have a successful weather vacation with them before our luck will turn. We had a very strange experience where we were standing at a stop light together under one small umbrella when an elderly Korean man walked up and joined us under our umbrella. He stood there and spoke Korean at us very quickly until the light changed to green. We don't even know how to say we don't speak Korean in Korean so all we could do was stand and smile at him and laugh about it later.

We decided we will go visit a few museums to do something that allows us to be dry. We are off to Itaewon to do some more shopping and have lunch and then we are going to the Korean war museum.

She is WONDERFUL!

We met Ellie for the first time and it went really well. She is really beautiful. She has super long eye lashes that curl. She is MUCH bigger than we expected. She weighs 22 lbs. and has the chubbiest little thighs. :-) I don't know if the clothes I packed for her will fit. She eats a lot and her favorite snack is something similar to cocoa puffs (just like Gabe she is coocoo for cocoa puffs). She sits up well and rolls around but is not yet crawling.

She was very interested in both Phil and I and liked to touch our faces. The foster family is so nice. They stayed for the first 40 minutes of the meeting and then they left us alone with Ellie. She did really well initially and was happy to play with us and let us hold her. Toward the end of the meeting she got upset but the foster mother said she was due for a nap.

Our social worker had warned us in advance that Ellie had some stranger anxiety and was prone to crying very loudly. She also said, "all the time she is so smart." We didn't find her to be particularly anxious around us and for that we were glad. We get to spend time with her again on Monday morning and then it is our decision whether to get her on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning before we leave. Our social worker is encouraging us to wait until Wednesday. We can see advantages both ways - one way gets us and Ellie a good night's sleep before a long trip - one way lets us start bonding with her and start her grieving process before we get on the plane. If we understood the social worker correctly, the foster mother intends to come to the airport to see us off. If that is the case we may wait for Wednesday as all the hard work we would do on Tuesday night would have to be done again after she sees her foster mother again.

We are now off to Insadong to do some shopping and grab some lunch. No pizza hut for us today we are going to eat native cuisine.

We miss you Abby and Gabe.

1 Hour to Contact

We made it! We are in Korea and in about 1 hour we get to meet Ellie for the first time. We're so excited!

The flights went well. Our planes both left on time or slightly early. 13 hours is a crazy amount of time to be on a plane but I survived. I was unable to sleep on the plane so by last night after being awake for 27 hours and sleeping only 4 hours the night before that (Phil's Asia plan) I was awfully tired. We walked to a pizza hut (boring I know) and had pizza about 8 o'clock last night and then crashed. It is amazing how much better you feel after some sleep and a shower!

We will try to write more later today and fill you in on Ellie!

Travel Plans

We are flying directly out of Rochester tomorrow. Our flight leaves at 9:00 a.m. If you are now wondering why I am still awake see the post below about "Phil's Asia travel plan." We arrive in Korea on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. (their time). Korea is 14 hours ahead of us. We get to meet our new daughter for the first time on Friday at 10:00 a.m. and we are SO EXCITED!

We are staying at the Eastern guest house. Eastern is the adoption agency in Korea and they have their own on site hotel for adoptive families. We were very happy to get a room there so we are close to all the action. In the same facility is the baby hospital where Ellie spent her first weeks of life. We hope to visit there and spend some time rocking babies because we know that others did the same for our little girl.

We promise to try to keep this blog up while we are away. We are excited to share our adventures with all of you.

The Finished Product

Yes even late this evening we were putting the finishing touches on Ellie's room. It is all part of Phil's Asia travel plan which is to stay up incredibly late the night before you fly so you can sleep on the plane and reset your clock. It worked for him when he traveled to Taiwan. We'll see if it works on this trip too.

THE CALL!

THE CALL finally came at 8:45 this morning. Yes, that is right we are having a baby! We are working on getting flights for Wednesday the 22nd. We should get to meet Ellie for the first time on Friday! I am so happy and so excited. What a great day!

Getting ready for Ellie!

We have been busy getting ready for our baby girl to come home. Abby and Gabe have even gotten involved! Painting was messy but great fun! The room is done now all we need is for Ellie to come home.