A Trip of a Life Time, Our First Trip to Seoul, South Korea

Where do I begin?  We have been back now for about three weeks.  We have been back from the most amazing trip, adventure of a life time. We are back from meeting our son.  I have been thinking of how to write this post for months now. Imagined what it would feel like to meet our son for the first time. Words are failing me. Maybe they always will to describe the moment, the very moment where I first held my son. The first time I heard the pure, magical sound of his laugh.  The first moment I got to comfort him as he cried.  The first moment we got to take our first family of three photo. The first moment I saw our baby clinging to his daddy. The first moment our feet touched South Korea. The first moments we got to experience our baby’s heritage, his birth place. The first moment I truly knew what if felt like to be his mama. The first moment that I knew my heart would never, ever be the same.

I am not sure if I have the words to describe it all. But I can tell you this.  Our trip was life changing.  In so many ways. Another adoptive mama shared this quote, “From the beginning of my life, I have been looking for your face.”  And the moment that I held our Davis, I knew. I knew that all the hurt, the pain, the waiting, the questions, the heartache, the love, the patience, the grace all came down to this moment.  The moment that my arms wrapped around our sweet baby and his arms wrapped around me.

When we first heard that we would have to take two trips to Seoul. Stay one week, meet our baby, leave him, come back a second time for an additional week, I was heart broken.  The thought of meeting my baby. Meeting him then leaving him has been the hardest thing.  I had a bit of a breakdown watching Seoul get further and further away from us as we flew off back towards the US. Every second was further and further away from our sweet boy.  I couldn’t sleep a wink on the whole trip home.  The emotions were just too overwhelming (not to mentioned we were in the tiniest little seats ever on the plane!!)

As y’all know, we can’t share any pictures of our little guy publicly here online until we get him HOME.  But man oh man, is he the cutest, happiest, most curious little boy!!!! It blows my mind that God chose US to parent this precious boy.  God chose us to get to love on him and make our two become three.  Four years of praying to become a mama, and I finally get to hold our baby in my arms.

We had heard from other South Korean adoptive parents say that this wait, this wait that we are in right now to go back for second visit is the hardest.  To be honest, I didn’t believe them!! We thought, no way.  We have waited 10 months to meet our baby.  Another few weeks can’t be that bad! Another few weeks to come home to have a final prep, final nights of just us two, final moments of sleeping in, final moments of having the house to ourselves. It truly has been the longest three weeks of my life.  It seems like a lifetime ago that we were holding our sweet Davis.  And the stress and anxiety is slowly creeping in and slowly taking over.

I am ready to be his mama.  Be his mama everyday.  Meet his needs, have him hear that I love him every day, feel him in my arms, watch him run all over our house with his toys, comfort him when he grieves the only life he knows, watch him start to trust and depend on us.  I am ready for the lack of sleep, the mess, the tears, the laughter, the love, the kisses.  I am ready…

So the next step, because we are getting asked this A LOT! We have about 2-4 more weeks.  We have no real idea when we will get called back.  As of tomorrow, we are three weeks past our court date. We have been told it could be anywhere between 3-7 weeks before we will get the travel call to come back.  Again, we have no idea other than that time frame.  What we really need right now from everyone is just prayers for peace and patience. We are trying to stay busy and positive and trust God’s timing, but we miss our baby.  We are ready to have him with us for good.

Here are several pictures that we took during our week there! Most of them are from my iPhone or point and shoot camera. I brought my nice camera but did not use it as much as I planned or wanted.  However, we have our story of traveling to Seoul for the first time! Take a look