One Year Home

What happened next...

After we left our visit with our sweetie we drove back to the SWS guesthouse. We visited the reception center where Eden lived for the first three months of her life. I will post some video of that soon too. We then went across the street for dinner. The food was good but not as good as the meal we had in Insadong. We then went back to our room and I did some cleaning. I even borrowed the vacuum cleaner! I set everything up for bringing Eden back to our room the following afternoon. I remember not sleeping well that night. I was excited to finally get getting our sweet girl, but more I was nervous and saddened by what I knew would be a painful day for Eden and her foster family.

The next day we went to the SWS office building and we caught a glimpse of Eden and her foster mother as they entered the doctor's office for Eden's last check up. We then went upstairs and waited in the room with the yellow couch. This is the same room where Eden (and most SWS babies) have their referral pictures taken... Mickey Mouse wallpaper, yellow couch, big cream bear, Pororo airplane toy. Not too much later, Eden and her foster mother arrived. She handed us Eden and must have left to do some paperwork. We took some video and then she returned. We all played together until the SWS worker was ready. I treasure those moments. As I sat on the floor with Eden and her foster mother I remember praying somehow, someway Eden would remember all of us together playing. We signed some paperwork and spent a great deal of time going over the contents of bag after bag of items from SWS and Eden's foster mother. We needn't bring anything with us to Korea... they gave us enough supplies to last us for a week! :0) It is a very good thing we had brought an empty suitcase with us for everything.. and even that wasn't enough. We also talked about her schedule and Eden's foster mother answered some questions. I have video of her singing a song she would sing to her when she was putting her to sleep. I have posted before about the last moments before leaving SWS with our daughter. It all happened so quickly and it was very very sad. After we left the office we walked back to the guesthouse. We brought Eden up to our room and just kind of hung out for a while. Already she was like glue and I couldn't set her down for a minute. She cried pretty hard for about an hour and finally fell asleep on top of me. We both napped for about an hour or so. She was alright when she woke... no crying. We had some dinner... Ron got Domino Pizza and we made some rice for Eden. She made quite a mess so we tried giving her a bath. That was a no go. She freaked out. She cried for a little while again and then fell asleep on me. She didn't wake when I put her in bed next to me and slept through the night. We had to wake her up in the morning to catch a ride to the airport the next morning. More to come!

One Year Ago

One year ago today I met my sweet little girl.

I had plans of posting pictures and writing about each day of our trip... but we have had one illness after another at our house and I have not had the time or energy. I also plan on writing about Christmas... oh, I am so behind.

This video will have to do...