Kenya/Coming Home

I wrote this post several months ago and for some reason never hit publish.  I think it was because our small group was on a media fast, which ironically gave me time to write my own blog because I wasn't on other people's blogs.  But here it is.  I'm glad I took the time to write back then, because time has made the details fuzzy. 

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We've already celebrated two months of Max being home!  I think I may be free to stop counting the weeks now and just let it be in months.  But before we get too far away from those early days, I want to take time to remember.

After most of a week in Addis, we took Max on his first plane ride.  Not home yet, but because we are crazy, we decided to take our new son to Kenya first.  It was a tough call, I really agonized about what we should do, and at the last minute we decided to go for it and asked the embassy to rush his visa so that we could get a quick trip in. And for me, it was a fabulous decision.  It was so very wonderful to be back with Matt to where it all began for us (and sidenote - why this blog even started). We were greeted at the airport by my dear friend who is in Kijabe for a term with her family.  She has been possibly the biggest champion for our adoption and she was delighted to meet Max (all the good photos on here are from her! Thanks, Allyson!).  A couple friends kindly said "Welcome Home!" when they saw us in Kijabe.  One of them had been there since I left - five years - and I felt honored that he would share that sentiment with me - and, crazy enough, it did still feel like home.  

I hugged all my little fourth grade students who are now sophomores in high school and walked our old trails and showed Courtney all of our sentimental spots. Poor Court had to listen to all our reminiscing.  Max did well with our trip, too.  He was a good sport on the short flight (even with the extra Ebola screening and the customs officer threatening to vaccinate us on the spot for yellow fever). While we visited with our friends he was still pretty easy, more like a baby than a toddler.  We started to see him recognizing us and crawling after us to find Mom and Dad.  That felt pretty good! One of my treasured moments from the trip was eating dinner with our Kenyan friends and discussing, among other things, our adoption of an African baby. I also loved seeing my old college pal and showing off our new baby! 

And then we started the dreaded long journey home!  We flew back in to Ethiopia for a few hours before boarding the 14 hour flight to Washington, DC.  Max really did well on the flight.  He was little enough to sleep in the bassinet or in our arms and we kept him full of formula - he never really got a chance to cry.  We'd heard horror stories of babies going through 10-14 outfits so I brought an entire suitcase on the plane just for him of diapers, wipes, and clothes.  Kenya has well-stocked grocery stores so I was pretty prepared and while we went through several changes of clothes it was nothing record breaking.  When we landed in DC, Max became a US citizen after going through immigration.  (USA!) We were picked up at the airport by Matt's brother and our sister-in-law, and then my sister surprised me by driving down from her college.  So special!  Our family made Max feel so treasured. Max also had his first rides in a car seat . . . he didn't love that part of American life. 

By the time we got on our last flight I'm not even sure how long we'd been traveling but it had to have been 48 hours at least.  I was dead tired and Max was done.  Thankfully it was a short trip (comparatively). We were so ready to get home.  Max was awake and unhappy the entire flight and fell asleep as we landed.  We had a little crowd of family and friends who met us as the airport.  I was SO ready to see Bo, who was jumping up and down in his big brother shirt.  Everything in me just wanted to get us home so that we could finally be a family!