Make-up post #2-City Tour and Family Day!

On Monday morning at 2 am, Javier and I were both wide awake. It happens to almost everybody...I mean, serious life changes are going to take place just hours from now and we are supposed to sleep? So finally around 2:30, after a half hour of lying there wigging out that we would be meeting Emma in 12 hours, we did what any sensible person would do in that situation. We got up, had a snack and wrapped all of our gifts we brought! After getting them all wrapped and sorted perfectly, we decided to try sleeping again. You ALL know where this is going. Finally falling asleep....the alarm goes off and we are too sleepy to wake up!! Figures. Our city tour is at 10 am, so we stroll down to breakfast. At the Somerset, our hotel, breakfast is no small matter. It is awesome-an omelet station, a "carb station" with croissants, rolls, breads, waffles and pancakes, a fruit selection, cereals, juices, and coffee. So we pig out with our newfound friends from the Internet forums, and head back to get ready for our city tour.

Right at 10am, a young girl comes to retrieve us from the lobby. A pretty, young Korean girl in her gap year between high school and college, I cant help but find myself hoping Emma grows up to be this beautiful, confident and outgoing. We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace (see pics in earlier post) and strolled around. Javier and I were more interested in talking to our tour guide than seeing the palace, but it was a gorgeous place. We talked to her about the changes in Korea, the new generation of young Koreans, how Emma would have grown up is she had stayed in Korea, and views on adoption. We had a great morning! She got us back to the hotel in time to eat lunch and get ready to head to the Holt office. Yeah, 'cause we could really eat at that moment. But we gave it a good shot anyway. Half a cheese sandwich and a torn-to-shreds-in-nervousness beef sandwich later, we headed up to the room to get dressed. This is where things get a little blurry and somewhat numb.

We suddenly felt like we had been dropped in a reality show. The hotel staff got us a cab, instructed him where to take us and off we go. And....the cab guy got lost. And he had to stop and call Holt for directions. The greatest thing of all about Korea is no one, not even the people who live there and drive people around daily in cabs, no where the heck anything is located. This is why I asked for the cab an hour early. Anyway. We actually made it early enough to take some deep breaths, take some pictures outside the building, and regroup before the meeting. We are greeted on the second floor by one of the social workers, and brought into "the room" where all the baby meetings take place. Cue the nausea and tachycardia. Our SW (social worker) comes in and shows us Emma's visa, her immigration folder that we are to guard with our life until we get to the US, her complete medical file since birth, and her final physical exam write-up. She leaves us to go tend to some other business while we wait for Em to show up. For the next 15 minutes, everyone and their Mama knocked on the door and every time we thought "this is it, she is here" and it was some random person checking on us. Oh we couldn't be better, thank you, we are pale and sweaty and feel like puking. Finally when the knock came and Emma came in with her Foster Mom, we didn't even look up at first, since we figured it wasn't her!!

Foster Mom promptly plopped her in Javier's lap before we could even suggest that she come sit with Emma on the couch with us. Akward silence ensued......and I finally snapped out of it and grabbed a toy to bribe her into liking us. :) we asked questions for a while about what she liked, didn't like, etc. We found out she hates the stroller (not true), LOVES a bath (love is a strong word-how about tolerates it), and falls asleep easily (okay we are starting to see this now). We exchanged gifts with the Foster Mom and the SW. The Foster Mom gave Emma a beautiful hanbok to wear for her first birthday party, and she sent a photo album of pictures of Emma from birth until now. Absolutely priceless. From Holt, we got a necklace with the Korean Flag on the front, and on the back is Emma's name engraved in Korean with her birthdate. We got bottles, a can of the formula she is on, a pair of traditional wooden masks, extra clothes and pj's for Em, and........her umbilical cord. .!?!? Yep her umbilical cord. I wasn't prepped appropriately for that one.

Anyway. We shipped off downstairs for her last once-over by the Doc, she was strapped to my chest, we were dumped back into a cab and BAM we were a family of three. That's about how it went down. She fell asleep in the cab and slept all the way back to the hotel. Once we got back, she played but constantly looked around and looked at us like, "what the heck just happened". She seemed about as numb as we were. Things went well until that night....she started grieving for her Foster Mom, and I started puking. Nerves? Bad food? Exhaustion? Probably. Javier got put on baby duty all night while I alternated puking and crying and wondering what we had just done. But don't worry-it is getting much better now. :)

I'll do my best to keep updating with stuff from the trip. Using the computer has suddenly become a luxury these days! I'll also post some pics of her now that we are home. It really does get better every day.