An Over-due Update! Our Trip Home

Well, the Wakeman house now has five members! This post is kind of late in coming, but we have been busy settling in to life together.

Hannah and I picked Kristen up on Wednesday in Korea. She kind of tuned out when her care-givers were leaving. Mommy, on the other hand, was a wreck - crying and crying. It was so touching to me that they would miss her and that they had taken such good care of her. We took a taxi back to the Co-Op and settled in. Kristen started playing in the water in the sink, with the computer and phone, AND in a triumph only a six year old would be capable of -- turned on the air conditioning that we thought wasn't working. We went out to try to find a Korean restaurant with pictures to order from, but I was a little over-whelmed. We ended up eating at McDonald's - good old Americans. ;) We walked quite a ways to get there and I think we tired Kristen out pretty well. We played a little more in the room when we got back. Her biggest idea of fun was telling Hannah and I to go up and down the stairs! She went to sleep fairly quickly that night in between Hannah and me on the bed. She slept until the next morning just fine.

It was a mad rush in the morning to get everything packed up - we had done most of the packing, but kept finding more things to fit in! We ended up leaving some things behind - like my pillow and a bottle of detergent, etc. I must be more frugal than I realized because this was so hard for me! We got into our taxi at 7:30 and it took about an hour to get to the airport. After checking in, we had breakfast and bought some water to take on the plane. At this point we could start saying that in 24 hours, we would be home! This sounded much better than "we will be traveling for 24 hours."

The first plane ride went great until about an hour in (halfway through). We still had seen no tears from Kristen, although Mommy cried again as we went through immigration and her passport was stamped as departing. All of a sudden on the plane, you could see things start to click and she got very quiet and started crying. I wasn't sure at this point if she was sad, or her tummy hurt, so for a while I was trying to comfort her while holding a plastic bag in front of her mouth.

Once we got off the plane in Japan, we got some snacks and stickers out and she calmed down. We were able to get reassigned seats so that all of us were together, which was great. There was a little boy in front of us that I think was sent to show me how well Kristen was doing. He hung over the seat ALL the time, and was just a general nuisance to everyone around him. We played with stickers, colored and ate for the first few hours. Then, Kristen fell asleep for the last half of the flight. Hannah and I dozed on and off, but didn't really sleep. When it was time to get off, it was hard to wake Kristen up - it was the middle of the night to her!

Getting through customs and immigration in Minneapolis was a bother - we had to collect all our luggage and get it through the checkpoint, just to put it back on the plane. But, we did it and as we came out, Jill from our agency in Minnesota was there to greet us! It was so nice to see someone familiar. We had a while to wait and Kristen was able to burn off some energy and Hannah and I each took a short nap - at different times, of course.

At last we were able to get on our final plane home! I was so excited! It was a quick flight and we used the last of our activities up - perfect timing! We had a little trauma getting off the plane as Kristen had to use the bathroom and we almost didn't make it in time. But, we did - whew! Then it was time to meet our public!

The first people we saw were Katie and a friend from church who had walked up the hall a little. As soon as I saw them, I started crying. It was such a relief to be home and so wonderful to be holding Kristen's hand and bringing her to our family. We walked down the rest of the way and there were so many people to meet us. Family, friends from church, adoption bulletin board friends - it was just amazing. There were balloons for Kristen which she loved! She was overwhelmed - understandably, but I can't wait to be able to tell her about all the people that were so excited to see her come home when she is able to understand.

The support and prayers of the people that were able to be there and so many more spread across the US are so important to us in this process of bringing Kristen home. It is just amazing to see and hear all the people that have traveled with us. Now we start the next part - the real journey of being Kristen's mommy and daddy.

I will post pictures soon and add the second part of this post - how we have been doing these first few days as a family of five!