In case anyone didnt know, blogging is not easy with a new baby. I’ve wanted to post about several things, but having both time and energy has proven difficult.

On Monday afternoon, I ventured out to run some errands by myself. I had no idea it’d be so hard to be away from him. I left when he was sleeping, and that was probably the only thing that kept me from calling home every 5 minutes. I kept having to tell myself that I didnt want to wake him.
I kinda knew I was a goner when earlier that day, he was napping for a loooong time, and it was at the point where I wasnt even trying to be quiet anymore. I missed his cute little smile and was tyerd of him sleeping. Yep, I’m definitely smitten.

Guess who went for a walk yesterday? Thats right, me! It wasnt very successful, but at least I gave it a try. Steve had much better luck on a walk later that day when it was breezier. My walk was supposed to be an after breakfast bottle walk, while it was still cool. But instead it was an after bottle, diaper change, I put on some clothes, answered a phone call, and did a few other things I cant remember. And by that time, it was too hot out and we were both sweaty and grumpy in five minutes. But I’m willing to try again today.

And this is my life. Live and die by the clock set by a jet-lagged, traumatized (yet adjusting!) 7 month old. And I should probably go pee before he wakes up.

Duuuude, everything is checked off the list! How cool is that? Like all of this, I can hardly believe it. I could add more to the list, as there is still plenty of paperwork to do to get this adoption finalized… but for now, lets just bask in the glory of checking that last one off the list. I’ll add more once I get my head around it all.

So, when I got home yesterday, there was an email from BabyCenter.com. “7 Secrets to Traveling With Your Baby.” Yeah, just a little bit late on that one, BabyCenter, but thanks. Though I doubt their tips would have helped with a days worth of traveling. I tell you what, 14 hours on a plane with a baby that barely knows you (and that you barely know) is full of… what are those thing? jumbo shrimp? oxymorons. Maybe thats not what they are, but, yeah… I’m tyerd.
I had my moments on the trip where I felt completely incapable of caring for a child. Holy cow, it is impossible to get this baby to stop crying! I just cant do this! What the heck was I thinking. And then, I had moments of feeling like if I could accomplish this, without killing anyone, I could care for 50 babies! Bring em on!
Also, I have a new fondness for turbulance. The heavier the better, even. Prior to this, I just had to close my eyes and think of the characters on Lost. If they survived a plane crash, I could do. But with having a baby that loves to be bounced, turbulance was like the only time we could relax. Let the plane rock your baby to sleep. On the other hand, with turbulance comes the Seatbelt sign and thats not cool at all. As soon as that thing dings back on, there’s serious dread. What? I cant stand up? But he likes when I stand. He hates when I sit. You’re just asking for it. Oh, turbulance you say? Alright then. Give it your best shot.
All in all, we made it. It took a lot of teamwork, and a lot of feeling like crap. I was so delirous when I got off the plane at RDU. I really have no idea if I was even speaking in coherent sentences. I know Nick, Kelli and Connor were there to greet us, but I dont really remember our conversation.
When we got home, I was feeling terribly sick. Kind of like my body had no idea what was going on. My mind was racing so much, when I finally got a chance to sleep, it took nearly an hour to get there. Also, I couldnt stop rocking. I had spent so much time rocking the baby (on a plane, which just threw my stomach way off) that if I was standing, I was rocking back and forth. And when I laid down and closed my eyes, everything felt like it was rocking. I’ve now had 4 high quality hours of sleep (two floors away from baby) and 2 hours of half sleep. I’ve also had a meal and am finally feeling hungry again. Much better.
So there you go, forever my version of Labor and Delivery. When most moms talk about how long and horrible (yet totally worth it) it was to bring their babies home, so can I.
 

I’m still not completely sold on calling it “Gotcha Day” but I havent been able to come up with anything better, so thats what it is.
Our Gotcha Day was nothing like I envisioned, but great nonetheless. It happened super fast, it seemed. I felt like there should have been more emotion, more epicness, but it was just a normal meeting, which seems kind of weird since we left it with a baby.
When we arrived, as we were walking into the building, a slew (like 15 or so) young pregnant women were also entering the building. This building houses single pregnant women who plan to give their babies up for adoption. It was weird to see them all, and all I could do was hope that we somehow reassured them in their decisions.
We entered the building and Kunyoung was sitting on his foster mother’s lap finishing a bottle. The pregnant women cooed over him. He smiled and turned on the charm. Then we went upstairs to our meeting place and left Kunyoung and his foster parents to one last moment together.
Our social worker gave us a bag full of stuff. Important documents (including our cutie’s passport!), formula, diapers, clothes, and lots of gifts. A Korean flag and two cassette tapes of Korean kids songs. A necklace with the Korean flag on one side and his Korean name and birthdate engraved on the other. A lovely treasure box and a book with facts on Korea. We gave the foster family the presents we brought for them and then we took a couple of pictures. Then it was “time to say goodbye” and we got out the baby carrier and strapped him to me. He didnt have a problem with it. Mrs Shin said her last goodbye and they sent us off. The end.
He fell asleep right away, which was the best feeling ever for me.
Since then, we’ve just been haning out. Sleeping, playing, eating. It is so wonderful to get to know him. He’s so smiley and happy and I love the sounds he makes. And he’s mine forever.

Let me just say, my son is AWESOME! It was so great to meet him and spend some time with him, and so hard to leave him. But he will be ours forever on Friday at 1pm (that’d be midnight Thursday night in Durham).
He’s super cute with his smiles and bouncing and screeching and sherberting. He’s working on his army crawl and seems to suck him thumb a little. I’m proud to say I did not make him cry. He was a bit fussy, since we were hanging out with him when he should have been napping, but most of the time he was delightful. He had excited moments, and soft content moments. He definitely loves his foster parents.  And they love him. They left us with some pictures of them together, and a hanbok. They also gave back the photo album I had mailed AJ and two disposable cameras for us to develop.
It all seemed to happen so fast. We sat on the floor in their extremely small apartment and played with him. Next thing we knew, and hour had gone by and he was definitely ready to go to sleep, so we left him. Definitely not an easy thing to do. I’m looking forward to Friday, it cant come fast enough!

We made it! You can read more about our travels here.

There was a fax waiting for us when we arrived at the hotel. It was from AJ’s case worker here in Korea. It confirmed that we will be meeting AJ and his foster mother this afternoon! I am so so excited. (and bummed that I don’t have the outfit I picked out… jeans and red shirt? That’s not “hey I’m your mom and I’m awesome” clothing). We were instructed to meet Ms Koh at her office at 2pm. We’re not sure what happens after that, all we know is that it involves spending time with AJ. Good enough for me.