Our princess is home safe and sound!

And that truly is the most important fact about our crazy day yesterday! She is sleeping right now in my bed with Chris. I am up with Joey, blogging, totally in love and totally exhausted.

A little about our family airplane day, that was anything but boring. So the day goes as planned, well except for Carmela waking up ill. My stomach was on and off all day, but I think it was nerves. At about 2:50, Chris goes to let the dogs outside before we take off. I decide one last time to check the flight and make sure all was on schedule. It was due to take off in 15 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I see cancelled! I flipped out, screaming. Chris comes running inside and says "Jackie you are mistaken, I just checked before I went outside with the dogs". I yell at him, "I am not kidding. Why would I lie? Its cancelled." I call Gerri, the lady that is supposed ot meet us. She has no information. I call my agency, they have no information. Finally Chris calls the airline. We don't have a confirmation number and start to panic. Then we think to give Juliana's name and low and behold, they find her information. They tell Chris that she is protected on the next flight, which leaves at 7:05 and arrives at JFK at 10:47 pm. I call afterwards and they tell me the same thing. I call Gerri and the agency and we are all set for 10:47 pm.

We leave for the airport at 7:30 pm. We decide to leave Joey at home with my mother in law since its late already, and just take Carmela. We get to the airport at perfect timing (so we think) as my sister is pulling up with her car load. With her is two out of her three kids, Gianna and Dominick, my Mom, Juliana's Godmother Kathleen, and Aunt Betty Ann. All of us enter the airport and immediately locate the information desk where we are to meet Gerri at 10:00. It is now about 9:30 pm. We get there, put our bags down. Chris runs to the market to buy us water, and the lady at the information desk asks if we are waiting for our baby. I say yes. She says "your baby has been here for hours". WHAT?!?!

So I immediately start to cry, taken aback by what I am told. My sister goes to find Chris and I am asking where my baby is. She says that the "lady" is walking around with her so I think she means the escort. Chris, as a sidenote, continues to buy the water thinking the lady is mistaken. I call Gerri at home asking her what to do and her son tells me she is at the airport. After a minute, I located Gerri (I recognized her from Susan and Angie's photos). I am in tears and I run up to her and hug her. She says she has my baby! So we all follow her to Juliana. There is a baby sitting on the chairs, dressed in pink, and my sister takes her photo. I am thinking that baby looks big for Juliana. Then Gerri's child says "this is your son" and points to the stroller. I said "that's my daughter" as I see the sleeping baby in the stroller! We all immediately look at her bracelet as admittedly she was dressed as a boy! We wake her up, I pick her up, and hold her. She is staring at us all and taking in us as much as we are taking in her. I had to hand her off to get my license so I handed her to her daddy, and oh my, it was love at first sight for both of them! She is nuzzling into his shoulder, as he holds her and all of a sudden PUKES an entire bottle all over him. Yup we were christened pretty early on. It is obvious that Juliana is not feeling too well at this point. Gerri needs Chris to sign a peice of paper then, and he gives her back to me and she cries leaping out of my arms for her daddy!!!! This was beautiful to me, as we were so afraid that she would be afraid of Chris. We speak to Gerri and am told that she was on the 1:00 pm flight from Minnesota to JFK. That flight was late, and ended up landing at 7:00 pm. Those two poor babies (and escorts) were at JFK all that time. The escort waited until 9:00 am (Korea time) to call Eastern and then Eastern called Cecelia. Cecelia called Gerri to tell her to the go to the airport. We are all furious with Northwest at this point. How dare they tell me that she is on that later flight. All in all, I've calmed down now, but when I think of it I still am hurt to think of my baby girl in the airport all alone. The poor other family was out having dinner as their flight landed from Buffallo around 7:00 pm and then they went to eat as they waited for the 10:47 pm flight to arrive. Gerri had tried calling their cell phone but had the wrong number! What a mess!

After saying our thank yous and goodbyes to Gerri, we decide that despite what C told us about not changing Juliana, we absolutely have to. She is soaked with puke. So we take her into the bathroom and change her clothes. I wiped her down quickly with a wipe and put her in a sleeper pajamas with a onesie. We go out in the airport, take photos and play with Juliana. Soon, we decide we are all exhausted, and most Juliana, so we leave. The ride home she slept most of the time. She cried a little bit at being put into the car seat, but not much at all. She falls asleep quickly. At one point, with her eyes closed, she starts blowing raspberries and calling "MaMaMa". She opens her eyes, cries out, and then goes back to sleep. I know she is dreaming of her fostermother. When we got home, we didn't know what to do. Shewoke up as I was bringing her inside and is crying on and off. We decide she must be hungry because we didn't know when she last ate, and knew whenever it was, it was all over Chris's shirt anyway. So we make her a bottle. She drinks one ounce and throws up again. Feeding is over and we decide at 1:00 am to try to get her to sleep. No dice and Chris takes her downstairs. They fell asleep a bit on the couch and then he decides to take her to bed. She slept for one hour, then woke up. She played for about 5 minutes (more trying to get the sleeper off her feet!) and then starts fussing. I decide to try again with feeding her. Success. She had 4 ounces, stopped, and then had 2 more. We walked around and then I notice that she needs a diaper change. As I am doing so, she is crying, but once I take off her sleeper, she calms right down! I realize she's hot so I take it off and oh my gosh, a new baby emerged. She was making cooing sounds, talking, and so playful. At this point its about 4:30 am so we head downstairs and she plays with her toys, both old and new (her fostermother returned the two gifts we sent to Juliana in Korea). She is cooing, talking, and we are playing together. It was DEFINITELY a moment where she realized I wasn't so bad, as now she will look at me and giggle at me. WOOHOO! I feel my bond to her start to grow. At about 5:30 am she starts rubbing her eyes, and pulling at her ears so I head upstairs. Within a few minutes, she's asleep! Success. I let her sleep until 11:00 am when I woke up both Chris and Juliana.

A new day begins with some oatmeal and prunes (she's a bit constipated). She starts out eating it real well, but after a few spoonfuls either didn't like it or decided she wasn't hungry, because now she doesn't want to eat. We let her play with the spoon, and then decide it is bath time. She still had the puke smell in her hair and such. We put her in the bath and she plays a bit. She was quite content in the bath. Get her out, and dressed. She is in 12 months clothes because of her length, however she is a petite little thing! I find an outfit for her, put it on and its falling off. But the length fits perfect. I have her in 6/9 months pants, but they are a tad bit too small! I need clothing help LOL!

After her bath, she plays with her brother and sister a bit more, then I fed the older kids lunch as Juliana sits with Chris. After I serve them their lunch, I get her the bottle. She drank 4 ounces VERY slowly. I am thinking her belly still isn't feeling well. I then put her down for a nap. I let her fall asleep on my bed with me, and then transferred her to her crib. We will see how this goes. I am exhausted and I know I am leaving a bunch out, but I must sleep as I have 2 of my 3 kids in for naps! Ask questions and I will try to answer. I am on cloud 9. She is definitely an observer and soaking in every single thing. The big kids are enamored with her, especially Carmela. Joey is still trying to figure out what this means to his place in the family. Both kids are calling her Soo Hee, her Korean name, as that is what Chris and I are calling her.

Ok I had two hours sleep and am babbling. Off to catch some zzzz's!!!!!

Here are some pics from the airport

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