Home Update

Okay, so I guess it's pretty bad when Joe lets me know that I haven't updated the blog! I told him I just hadn't been feeling too "wordy" lately. Which, I guess is true. I've never really traveled far enough to experience jet lag before, and it hit me pretty hard. Joe seems like he was back to himself a day or so ago. I'm still a little tired, but today is the first day that I haven't felt like my head is in a cloud.

So, to go back to my last post, yes, obviously we did get home safely. We visited the coffee factory last Friday in Ethiopia and bought about 35 lbs. to bring home. Our luggage smelled great! We then got back to the guest house to pack up. We had a short time of pictures and prayer with our group, and then we headed to the airport.

Now, to start our travel home story, you need to know that probably about Wednesday of last week, Isaiah had decided that he wasn't a big fan of me. He only wanted daddy, and nothing to do with me. I was prepared in my head for this - knowing children sometimes fight against their adoptive parents or can bond more with one initially than the other. But, knowing it in your head and experiencing it are sometimes two different things. Especially given the intense emotions of the week and our exhaustion, I had a really hard time with this. No matter how much I knew in my head, after everything that went on that week, my heart just wasn't ready for the "take-a-long-walk-off-a-short-pier" look I got from him pretty much every time I got near him. So, I was pretty emotional, and praying for God to give me clarity. I was happy that he was happy with Joe and that Joe was able to take care of him, but my heart hurt that I wanted to be his mommy . . . I was ready to be his mommy, but I couldn't be. We knew that to prevent a melt-down at least until we got home, it meant Joe was pretty much going to have to be Isaiah's main caretaker for the trip home. So, Joe was struggling with keeping Isaiah entertained, and the fact that he felt bad for me knowing how much my heart was hurting. And I was struggling with all of the thoughts/feelings I mentioned above, and with the fact that I couldn't help Joe with Isaiah.

Isaiah actually did pretty well on the way home, except for having to buckle up on take-off and landing . . . on four different flights ;o) He pretty much screamed at the top of his lungs for the entire time he had to be buckled in. But, thanks to Benadryl, he did sleep about 8 hours out of the longest 12-hour flight.

So, after all of our hassle from the time we got to the airport in Indianapolis on Friday, until Wednesday in Ethiopia when we finally got our luggage, you'd think we'd get a smooth ride home, right??? Well, by this point, we didn't expect anything close to "smooth" ;o) We had called and confirmed the flights (that were rebooked after the confusion on our flight there), and they assured us we were good. So, it started right off the bat at the airport in Addis Ababa when they couldn't seem to print out our boarding passes. When we finally got them and we tried to board the plane, they said they weren't right and we had to wait until the guy over at the ticket counter came and confirmed. Then, when we got to Dubai, we got stopped for a security check on Joe's passport . . . I always suspected something with him ;o) Then when we got to JFK, we had to get all of our baggage to go through customs . . . I should've known something was up when that all went smoothly, and we got through customs so quickly. Then we trucked our luggage over to the United terminal to check it in there and get our boarding passes for our remaining two flights . . . they took our luggage and then informed us that there was a problem ;o) Somehow, we had our flights booked from Dulles to Indy, but the one from JFK to Dulles was revoked because of a problem with our credit card??? Then she made a call and did some computer stuff, but was only able to fix Joe's, but not mine. They had our reservation and could check our luggage, but couldn't get my ticket cleared. She wanted us to head back to the other terminal to talk to Emirates about fixing it (really, again?!?) We asked her if she could please call them because we didn't want to go all the way over there only to miss the flight we were trying to get on. She looked really annoyed, but then she did. We discussed having to buy my ticket again, but after about 20 min. on hold, they did fix it and we were on our way.

It was so great to see our kids at the airport. We were so ready to be back home with everyone again!

The first several days at home have gone relatively smoothly. We've had some more emotional ups and downs, as is expected, but we're getting to know each other. We're getting to understand Isaiah more each day, and he's getting to understand how things work in our family. Isaiah had a cough and runny nose when we met him (and has for a while from his medical information), but that has cleared up since we've been home. He developed some type of a blister under his nose on Tuesday, so he had his first trip to the pediatrician yesterday . . . we also took advantage of the trip to get a lab order to test him for parasites . . . all I can say is eww! ;o) He's got an appointment with his doctor at the international adoption clinic at Riley Children's Hospital in a few weeks. They should be able to help us figure out an accurate age for him as well.

So, that's what's been going on around here ;o) We're looking forward to a visit with my parents the beginning of next week, and some time with Joe's parents later in the week. Hopefully over the next several days I'll get to post some "recap" posts with pictures from our week in Ethiopia. It really was an amazing week!

Thank you so much for your prayers all throughout this last few weeks, and this last year. We were never so aware of our need of God's grace as throughout our trip! We appreciate your continued prayers as we seek to be the parents that God would have us to be for all of our children!