Home and Recovering

Yes, I know I know- it is so unlike me to skip so many days between posts... but of course I know everyone understands that we just flew across the world with a new baby daughter after being gone to a foreign country for 10 days and are still adjusting, right? Good.

Ok, well I am going to keep this relatively short because quite honestly- I am exhausted.
And secondly, even if I had the energy to do the big home-coming post... I don't have the pictures yet, and what is a good post without pictures? Not much in my opinion. :-) So there you have it- a better post with lots of pictures coming soon. Be looking for it.

Anyway, here is the condensed version.
*Yes we survived the long flight home and Elliana did great after the first few hours. We were relieved to have the bulkhead seats- thank you Lord for more leg-room and a baby bassinet!
*No she does not like the car seat and was not too happy during the 4 hour drive home.
*Yes we were very surprised and excited to see A LOT of family and friends waiting for us at home. There was a huge banner and balloons and lots of happy faces. But more about that when I share the pictures!
*No she did not hardly fuss at all the first night at home. She was exhausted with the rest of us!
*Yes the boys slept in until 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday after going to bed by 9:00pm the night before.

No I have no idea why I am writing like this. Okay enough of that. On with the update.

We have all been just so exhausted that we have been sleeping off and on since coming home on Saturday. Our clocks are all messed up and this afternoon I feel like we may have finally gotten onto a somewhat normal schedule. We actually ate dinner before 8:00 and the boys were in bed before 10. Last night we were all in bed at 1:00AM, because we had slept half the day. So I guess you could say that jet-lag has got the best of us.

Like I mentioned earlier, Elliana did great the first night and slept much of the day yesterday too. But the poor thing was up a lot last night with tummy troubles and was in a lot of pain. I will spare you the details but just know it has been impossible for us to get her to eat or drink anything but formula so we had to resort to other methods. She finally calmed down this morning, but I was a zombie so Randy took care of her for a few hours while I slept a little longer. He went to work for a while today and we just kind of survived the day. She wasn't overly happy, but her tummy wasn't hurting anymore so she wan't screaming in pain either. The boys have been a bit grouchy and acting bored, but I have zero energy to want to do anything with them either and have felt bad for pretty much ignoring them since I am trying to sleep when Elliana is sleeping.
At one point today I remember thinking I sure hope it gets better than this because I don't know if I can handle much more of this. Of course I know it will and that there are many factors that we are dealing with here. We are just trying to take it one day at a time. I have not even felt like taking pictures since we've been home, and you KNOW it's bad when that happens!

As for the grieving, she has been doing fine during the day, but she still has a very hard time when it gets dark. She cries and cries while I hold her until she falls asleep. She won't even take her bottle when she's like this either. Tonight she seemed happy after her bath and I put her jammies on and turned the lights low and got her all ready to feed her the bottle. She screamed and refused the bottle even though I knew she was hungry. She ended up falling asleep and I laid her down in the bassinet in our room. It is so hard for me to see her like this and I know that it is a process, but I am praying that it will pass soon and she will take comfort in her mommy.

That's it for now. I am tired and need to sleep when i can.
Thank you to all who have prayed and commented and followed along on our journey to our baby girl. I will have pictures soon of that sweet happy face we all have fallen in love with.


***Oh and a big birthday shout out to Randy today! Happy Birthday to my man!!!!!!!

Here are a few photos from Korea with his little birthday present! :-)



We love DADDY!