One year ago today...

We were doing this.

And it was one of the best days of my life. I look back at these pictures and can't help but tear up again. The day we met Elliana was so amazing. God was there in that moment and we will never forget it.  If somehow you are reading this blog and you missed THIS POST you can catch up today. It is worth the read. :-)

I can't believe it's been a year since we were there.
In Korea.
Soaking it all in.
The sights, the smells, the tastes, the culture.
And of course HER.

In that one day, our lives changed forever. We were finally face to face and holding the little sister that we had prayed for and dreamed about for so long. This sweet adorable little face.

We were sad to have to leave her that day, but it was only a matter of time before we would see her again.

In just two days we will celebrate the one year anniversary of our daughter joining our family forever...

A day that we hope to celebrate for a long time.

Stay tuned!

Grieving

Well, the honeymoon is over so to speak and the past 24 hours have been some of the hardest I've gone through in awhile. I say hard for me, but really it is what my sweet baby has had to go through. We have watched our little Elliana go from a content happy baby to a very very sad little girl who misses her omma like crazy and wants nothing to do with her new mommy.

She is grieving and grieving hard.

Thursday morning she woke up at about 3:00AM screaming and I tried feeding her a bottle. She refused to eat it, but eventually fell back asleep. She didn't wake up again until about 7:30 and once again she would not have the bottle. Then she went to sleep again. We got ready and went down to breakfast right before it closed and we took some rice cereal to feed her while we were down there. She tightened up her mouth and would spit it out when I would actually get any in.
When we got back up to our room, she still wouldn't eat, but played for a little bit with the boys and then went back to sleep. Does anyone see a pattern here?

After about an hour, she sat on Randy's lap and I was able to give her some baby food which felt like some progress! We ended up going out with our friend Fai Ching (she came from Hong Kong just to see us!) for a little while because I had wanted some pictures of Elliana at one of the palaces and it seemed like she needed to get out anyway. I put her in the carrier and knew right away that something was different. Wednesday she was perfectly fine to be in it and she clung to me and looked up at me and smiled. Thursday was a different story- she was not too happy to have me carrying her and I even tried her on my back just to see if she'd like it better.

Well, of course now I see what was happening. Wednesday she still thought we were just people who came to see her and play with her and that when she got tired and hungry her omma would come back to get her. By Thurday morning our smart little girl had figured out that her omma was gone and that I was trying to take her place- and she was not happy about it. We didn't stay long at the palace but I managed to get a few pictures in between cries. We came back and had lunch and just stayed in the hotel. It was around this point that I noticed that she was fine when Randy was holding her and she would look up at him and would let him comfort her. Randy said later that it was because she must know that he isn't trying to take her omma's place, but she knows I am. Smart guy.

Well, from that point on I knew that we were going to be in for a long afternoon and I told Randy and the boys that until she lets me feed her (she was still refusing her bottle from me) and take comfort from me, then they could only hold her when she wasn't crying. This may sound harsh, but if we don't establish this now- then she will contantly be looking to others to meet her needs instead of her mommy. It is absolutely critical in order to form a strong attachment. They all understood and I think the boys were in a state of shock that this little baby who didn't make a peep the day before, could scream so much!

The afternoon went something like this: I try feeding Elliana her bottle, she looks at me and screams and pushes it away and spits out any that actually got into her mouth. She cries and cries and keeps saying "uh-muh" and eventually falls asleep. Elliana wakes up, looks at me and screams, and buries her head in my chest because she doen't want to look at me. I hold her and tell her how much I love her and stand in front of the mirror so she can see me holding her. She cries when she sees me and would rather stare at her hand than to have to look at me. The boys rush in to see her and they manage to get her to smile for a brief moment and they get her to play on the bed, so I try feeding her again. She looks at me and screams and starts the whole thing all over again. Mentally I was prepared for this, as I knew this would come, but emotionally it was much harder than I was prepared for. No mother ever wants to be rejected by her child.

The first day we had her, we were a little worried because she was acting very much like a 2 or 3 month old. She slept a lot, didn't say anything but cooing, you would lay her on the bed and she would hardly do anything, she can't sit up on her own, she is more fascinated by her hand than any toys, etc. She definitely seems much more than 2 or 3 months delayed. I wonder now though if it is all because it is all part of her grieving. She may be regressing even more because of the pain she feels. I don't know and I am not the expert, but time will tell and we'll see how she does when we get home.

It is now 6:30AM on Friday morning here in Seoul and the rest of my family is still alseep. Elliana did take a bottle for the first time in over 24 hours at 3:00AM this morning. It was dark and she couldn't really see my face so I am not going to get my hopes up just yet. But any minute she will be waking up again and I am praying that she will let her new mommy feed her this morning. You can pray for that too.

Today is a new day and I am praising our Lord for our precious baby girl. I know that this grieving is completely normal and even a very good sign because it means that she loved Mrs. Kim deeply and formed a strong bond to her during her months in her home. I am so thankful for that, knowing that with time and patience and much prayer Elliana will be able to bond to us, trust us, and love us deeply as well.

Love you all and am so thankful for you and your prayers

Candice



P.S.*** Once again I chose to be open and transparent on this blog about what is happening with our family. I don't do this for sympathy or judgement from others, but to reveal the whole process that comes with adoption. One could easily look at our pictures and stories from this week and get the impression that adoption is only full of gains and never any losses and that everything is always perfect and wrapped up nicely with a bow on top. But the fact is, if we are honest there are many losses- not too many for us, but significant ones for Elliana as she has suffered the loss of her birth-mother, her foster mother, and soon her country and everything familiar to her. While in the process of adoption, families must be aware if this and sensitive to their child and her feelings.

But oh the gains! There are beautiful wonderful gains in adoption as well. We not only gain a beautiful daughter, but Elliana gains a loving forever family as well. And by family I mean every one of you. She has no idea how much her Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, cousins and many many friends love her already and can't wait to meet her. She gains the chance to grow up knowing about Jesus and hearing from His word each day and we gain the joy and blessing of being there to point her to Him and watch her grow.

More sights of Seoul

Tuesday was definitely the HOTTEST day since we have been here. Combine that with a super long day of touring the city of Seoul, and we were tired!

We started off by hopping on the Seoul City Tour bus near Insadong. The first little bit of the ride was very pleasant as we were the only ones on the bus and put our headphones on and listened to descriptions of the things we were passing. But it didn't last long, as we watched a herd of people squeezing in the bus at the next stop. I am not sure if I would reccomend the tour to someone as we stood half the time and didn't even get to hear about the places we were passing by.

We stayed on for a few more minutes and then our first stop was The National Museum of Korea. WOW- is all I can say about this ginormous museum! We took one look and knew there was no way we could see everything. It was gorgeous inside and out and there were many beautiful things on display. Most suprising to us was that it was FREE! One could very easily spend the entire day here, but we had so many more things we wanted to see, so we got the shortened version and got back on the bus.



A lot of Buddhist artifacts on display.


There were kids from schools everywhere holding hands and I just had to snap a few pictures of these cuties!



All of their little red backpacks were lined up


There were some beautiful gardens here as well


Next stop was the War Memorial of Korea.


Again, I wish we had all day to spend here- it is the world's largest war memorial/museum and it was amazing! It was so huge, that we never even got to go inside because there were so many cool things outside! Did I mention it was hot?




The boys really liked this place and wanted a picture next to every single plane or tank or statue! It is a boy's dream to be surrounded by so many cool war vehicles!





Honoring the many who fought and died in the Korean War.




Looking back, I think we should have just stayed here the rest of the day instead of rushing to see everything else. There was so much we didn't see. Oh well, next time!


This was where we were headed next: The Seoul Tower (that big pointy thing in the distance)


Still very hot and sweaty!



After riding the very crowded and hot bus up most of Namsan mountain, we walked up the steep hill the rest of the way to the Seoul Tower. (We are definitely not lacking daily excercise on this trip- that's for sure!)


There is a story behind these locks



We rode the elevator up to the observatory tower and looked out over the city. It was a beautiful area and a spectacular view of the entire city. The air was not super clear so the pictures were not the greatest, but you get the general idea that we were really high up!


We were running short on time, so we just grabbed a taxi and headed straight back to our hotel for quick showers and got ready to go to the Korea House. I had several people recommend this place to me as someplace you don't want to miss when coming here, so I wanted to give it a try. Now, I had heard it was expensive, but Randy and I were absolutely shocked when the bill came and we spent a small fortune on basically a rice dinner and an hour show. I say rice dinner because although it was buffet... rice is just about the only thing we ended up eating! As you know we are not seafood eaters and just about everything was some sort of seafood, so we chowed down on rice and vegetables and green tea. The boys had a good time folding their napkins while we waited


Lovely picture that our new photographer Jensen took


Waiting for the show to start


The show had some beautiful dancing and the dancers were dressed in gorgeous hanboks, but it was hard for the boys to stay awake (Nathan actually fell alseep for awhile) because it was just slow moving and long. At one point this lady came out and sung the whole story of what was going to happen for at least 10 or 15 minutes- but it was all in Korean of course! I loved watching the ladies playing the drums- it was amazing.
The best part were these dancer guys who had these hats on their heads with long ribbons. When they circled their heads around, the ribbons danced and then the guys danced and jumped over them. The boys liked that part- it was more exciting!
I really wish we would have known that we could have just seen the show with out dinner, because it was so expensive and nothing we would have chosen to eat. Oh well, we are learning aren't we?!

We never ended up getting back on the bus for the rest of the tour either, so that was kind of a bummer too.

After riding the subway back, we were all pretty tired and went to bed. It had been a long hot day but we feel as though we know even more about Korea today than we did yesterday and that was part of the goal!

Now it is Wednesday morning here and it is the day we get our baby girl for good! We are going to maybe just hang around here until lunch and then go out and get to Holt at 3:00. We are very excited about today, yet I know that it is going to be an emotional one as well. Mrs. Kim will have to say goodbye to Won Sa-ra and I know that it will not be easy. Sa-ra will leave her Omma and join our family, but she has no idea of what today holds. I am praying for both of them today as they spend their last hours together...



And just because she is soooo cute:





****Thank you for all of the prayers,comments and messages to us while we are here! We love reading them and feel very loved and encouraged by our friends and family. You are a blessing to us!!!

Meeting Elliana- One of the best days of my life.

There are few moments in life where one can truly say "this was the best day of my life" and be completely telling the truth. Today was without a doubt one of those days. It will forever be etched on my heart, right along with our wedding day, the day I was baptized, and of course the birth of our 3 precious sons. Even still, I could almost say today was even more wonderful, because God allowed all of us to have the experience together and oh what joy we all had! Here is the story...



Warning: very long post!


July 20th 2009, Meeting Won Sa-Ra

After waking up several times during the night because of excitement over the next day, I finally just got up quietly around 4:00AM and decided to write a little in my journal. I wrote about all the things I was worried about or anticipating about this first meeting with our daughter. And then I gave it all back to the Lord- trusting Him to calm my anxious and over-excited heart! It wasn't long before the 3 boys were up before 6:00 and wanting to know "how much longer" until we met their little sister. :-)

After Randy woke up we got ready and headed downstairs for breakfast, all the while talking and wondering what our meeting was going to be like in only a few more hours. After coming back up to our room, we tried to record a little message for Elliana on video but I think everyone was just overly excited because it didn't go so well and we began to get frustrated with eachother. Well, that was our cue to head out- so we grabbed all of our stuff and the gifts and we did!

We survived another taxi ride into the downtown area of Mapo-Gu where the Holt-Korea office is located and arrived about a half hour early. We headed upstairs and sat in a small room where we waited for Mrs. Lee to come and talk to us. The boys thought I was hillarious, because she had left the door open and every 30 seconds it seemed that another baby was being carried down the hall and I was giddy thinking about one of them being our baby! They were all so cute! Mrs. Lee (Holt-Korea program director)came in and talked to us for a little while and we just chit-chatted about a few different things. All of a sudden she just said, "ok, would you like to meet your baby now?" And we were like "um, YES!!!!" The boys were so cute and amazing, as they were our "media crew" for the morning. Jensen had my big camera, Austin had the video camera, and Nathan had the little point and shoot. We were not going to miss a single moment of this!


A few minutes later, in walks Mrs. Lee with Mrs. Kim (foster mother) holding the sweetest baby girl I have ever seen. Randy and I took one look at her in that sweet little hat and outfit and just laughed with joy. She was wearing this little yellow beanie that Mrs. Kim had knit for her, a really ruffled white top and denim shorts with a Garfield belt and little yellow socks. She had on this tiny little silver bracelet with a heart cut oout of it. And of course the cutest thing was this little crocheted backpack that was held on to her with Garfield suspenders! On the backpack was little hair bows and clips and socks sewed onto the back. It was very funny to see this little baby with a backpack on! She was stylin!


Mrs. Kim almost immediately handed her to me and it was the best feeling- just finally being able to hold her. She was bigger than I thought she would be, but of course still pretty small for an 11 month old. It is funny to me that I didn't really cry at all during this whole meeting, because I ALWAYS cry when it comes to stuff like this. Every gotcha-day video I've ever seen-I can't get through without tears coming down.

And today, when it was our moment it was different.
Today I just laughed and smiled and laughed some more. I could not stop smiling at her and studying her! The boys were wonderful and captured every precious moment and I am so thankful.



We sat down and took off her hat and backpack/suspenders and just stared at her. She is truly the cutest baby I have ever seen. She stared right back at us (another answer to prayer!) and smiled this adorable little smile. It just melted our hearts. She grabbed onto me right away and she liked my necklace that says Omma. It was so sweet when she wrapped her little fingers around mine. She was very quiet- we hardly heard a peep from her the entire time. Mrs. Kim said she was tired because it was her nap time, and if that were true- she is the most easy going baby without a nap that I have ever seen! Oh and she LOVES her daddy (oppa)!








Her foster mother calls her by her full name Won Sa-Ra or just Sa-ra and had a sing-songy way of saying it to get her attention. With her Korean name you don't say the R sound, so it sounds more like Sah-Da. We quickly learned this and after a few minutes everyone in the room was saying it and competing for her attention and I think she was loving it! We probably will be calling her this for awhile even after we get home to ease the adjustment too. Randy held her next and it was thrilling for me to watch him hug and kiss his little girl with such adoration in his eyes- I will never forget it. The boys each took turns holding their baby sister and were a little awkward, but very cute about it. Austin told me later that she was a lot heavier than he thought she would be and that he didn't hink he could hold her for more than a few minutes! They are all 3 already asking how much longer until she can come back with us- I think they have fallen in love as well!





After a little while we put her on the table in front of us to see how well she could sit up, etc. She is definitely behind in her development, but after watching her and interacting with her I don't believe that it is because of a more serious condition, but simply because of her prematurity. She could sit up some, but you have to be right there because she leans to the side and falls over, something more of a 6 month old would be doing. With some early intervention once we get home, I know she will eventually catch up at her own pace. Honestly though- I love that she seems so much more like a baby even though she is almost one year old. She loved being on her tummy too. Mrs. Kim started singing this song to her and as she was on her tummy she smiled and moved side to side like she was dancing to the song- it was adorable and of course we got it on video! At one point Mrs. Kim even got out her cell phone and played the song again while Sa-Ra was on my lap and she started clapping and giggling. She was very happy with all of us, but she definitely knew her Omma (Korean for Mother and what Mrs. Kim calls herself) and her voice.



All too soon our half hour of visiting time was coming to an end. Mrs. Kim gave us some gifts that were very sweet. A beautiful hanbok for Elliana's first birthday celebration, an outfit, the hat and backpack she was wearing today, the blanket and rattle we had sent 4 months ago, and my favorite- two small albums full of pictures! What a blessing to have these and be able to see some of those months we missed out on. Truly, she was very well taken care of. (yet another answer to prayer!) We headed down to the first floor, where there were a ton of babies with their foster moms waiting to have their check-up by the Doctor there. As we waited, Randy held our girl and I snapped some pictures of some of the sweet babies there. There was even a set of triplet girls- what a blessed family who will get to adopt those cuties!



After a while, it was time for Sa-Ra to see the doctor for her final clearance check. I was shocked that she weighed in at 17.6 pounds considering that we just got an update last week saying she was 16.4! The doctor showed us all of her mongolian spots and I was suprised that she has so many of them. For those of you who don't know what that is, a mongolian spot is a birth mark that looks like a bruise that is only found among Asian babies. They go away by the time they are school age, but to some one who didn't know what that was and saw her- a parent could easily be accused of child abuse. Basically it looks like she is bruised all over her back and legs, just so you know. The doctor told us that her eyes were not crossed anymore and to follow up with an apt in 6 months- that was also suprising to hear after all that had to happen before this point! So after that she was cleared for travel! Yay!




Next Mrs. Kim asked us if she could take us to lunch and of course we said sure! Now, just so you know- Mrs. Kim speaks no English and we obviously speak no Korean so we knew it might be interesting. Mrs. Lee from Holt made sure to tell her that we did not eat any seafood, and then sent us on our way. We went with another foster mom and baby, but of course she spoke only Korean as well! They asked me if I wanted to carry the baby on my back to the restaurant and I was more than willing to oblige! :-) Some of the foster moms laughed as they helped me to strap her in the carrier on my back and as we walked out I loved that I was doing it just like them. It was a dream walking around the city with her- weird though, feeling like I was just caring for someone else's baby- and I guess I really was as she still belongs to Mrs. Kim for two more days. She fell asleep almost immediately.



Almost right after we got to the restaurant, Mrs. Kim took Sa-ra from me and held on to her for the rest of the time. I could tell from watching her that she maybe wasn't quite ready to let go of this adorable child and although I might of felt a twinge of jealously, I knew it was a really good thing. Randy and I laughed at how seemingly rough she was with Sa-ra and she was just perfectly content to be in Omma's arms, eventually falling asleep again.

The food at the restaurant was delicious! After yesterday's Korean meal of Bulgolgi and Bibimbop, I was pretty nervous to push our luck by making the boys eat something they weren't too fond of again. But they were very polite as we sat down and really didn't complain that we were going to be eating Korean food again. Well, we were all suprised as we sat down on the wood floor to a little table with a charcoal grill in the middle and the ladies started grilling marinated pork. It cooked really fast and we watched how Mrs. Kim was going to eat it. You grab the meat off of the grill with your chopsticks , dip it in sauce, put it on a lettuce leaf, add other vegetables, wrap it up and eat it. Ta da- it's a Korean lettuce wrap and wow they are yummy! The boys all liked it and even Randy was digging this meal! We ate until we were full and I was so happy to have found some Korean food that our whole family liked!



After lunch, Mrs. Kim opened her gifts that we had brought for her and out of everything she loved the photo album the best. On the cover it had a little opening where I put the one picture I had of her and Sa-ra in it. She saw it and was very happy and patted her heart. The other foster mom who was with us started crying and it was an emotional moment for all of us. At that moment, even though we couldn't speak the same language, we knew what the other was feeling. I was so thankful for her and her loving care of our little one and she was touched that we would think of her enough to put the album together with her picture on the front. She had told us earlier that she has been a foster mother for 15 years and has had around 40 children in her home. We even have a picture with her and Sa-ra standing in her house in front of all these other pictures of her holding foster children. Thank you Lord for this woman who loves each baby as her own even though it is for such a short time.

After lunch Mrs. Kim took us to the Holt reception center where we said goodbye to her and our baby and went upstairs to play with more babies! These babies are not in foster homes, but they are very well taken care of by the nannies at the center and most of them were glad to be held or fed by one of us. This was so neat to be able to do as well and I'll write more about that soon.

We came back to the hotel and I posted those few pictures and soon we were headed out again. We knew that if we didn't, we would all crash and then wake up for dinner at 9pm like we have been doing the past few days. We walked around a lot last night, paid way too much for dinner at Burger King, and came back exhausted. I am happy to report that after 3 days we are finally on Korea time! I haven't been sleeping the best as I have woken up in the middle of the night each night, but oh well at least I can blog while I'm up right?!!

Tuesday we are going to take the bus tour that we didn't do on Sunday and at night we have reservations at the Korea House. It is dinner and a traditional Korean dance show. I am excited because I hear the show is really good! It will be a busy day! Then on Wednesday, we aren't sure what we'll do in the morning, but we'll go to lunch and then pick up Elliana at 3:00PM!

Phew! That was a long post, but I knew that I didn't want to leave out anything because this is our journal as we are on this journey to our baby and I know she will want to read about it some day! It was truly an amazing day that none of us will ever forget. I can't wait until she is a part of our family forever!



More pictures to come soon....