Korea Day 5- Gotcha Day!

Hello everyone.

Today was a long, emotional day. As I'm sitting her typing this, it is almost 11 pm at night and I am listening to our baby girl cry in her sleep. :( Night time is going to be the hardest, we can already tell. I need to get my thoughts from today out now because I don't want to forget anything. However, I will blog about our trip to the Korean War Memorial that took place this morning later this week because the pictures from this place alone deserve to be seen...


We had a quick lunch this afternoon around 12 pm in our hotel just because we weren't sure when we would actually get to eat again. It was raining pretty hard so when we were done I asked Allen to run up at get our umbrella. As I was waiting for him to come back down, I was surprised to run into one of the Korean ladies who took us to dinner our first full day here. She speaks almost no English but quickly had the hotel staff translate that she wanted to take us to Holt because it was raining and it is hard to find a cab in the city when it's raining... she wanted to ensure that we got there fine. It took almost a full 40 minutes to get through the city to get to Holt. Amazingly, I wasn't at all nervous- worried, but not nervous about picking up our daughter forever. Once we got to Holt our Korean friend told us she would take us back to the hotel too.


We got into Holt and there were a TON of babies with their foster mothers there. We ran into DJ walking up the stairs and she told us to just come with her back down the stairs because she was ready for us. We walked into a waiting area where the babies wait to be seen by Holt's dr. There was our beautiful girl dressed all in pink with her foster mom. We asked the foster mom a few more questions and then I backed off a bit so that the foster mom could hold KatieJoy for the last few minutes. I was so worried about taking our sweet girl from her. A few minutes later it was KatieJoy's turn to go into see the dr. for one last time. I let the foster mom go in without us... Once she came out we talked a bit more and KatieJoy's Omma had DJ translate to us that she wanted us to be sure to bring KatieJoy back for visits as she grew older. I teared up and promised that we would. DJ said that it was time to go so I got the baby carrier on and KatieJoy's Omma put KatieJoy into it. She gave her some last kisses and hugs and then put her little hood on her so that she wouldn't see her crying. She was so stoic about the whole thing but I could tell that she was really hurting watching this sweet girl leave her forever. KatieJoy was screaming bloody murder in my carrier and while I felt so bad for her, I felt terrible for her Omma. Allen and I both hugged her Omma hard and she just let us... she hugged us back and then I grabbed her hand and just squeezed it... all while bawling. I had a hard time walking towards the door out to the car so DJ had to usher me out. I turned back for her Omma and saw a few other foster mom's holding up her Omma and patting her on the back and talking to her in Korean. I assume they were telling her that this is a happy day because they all kept smiling at me as I was seriously struggling with myself to make my feet walk towards the car. How in the world did taking this baby girl from her loving Omma make sense? Especially since she was just looking at me and screaming at me to pretty much let her go...DJ kept ushering me towards the door and down the outside steps into the rain. I kept looking back at her Omma wishing I could say something to make this horrible scene in my head go away. As I walked down the steps there were several more foster moms waving goodbye to me and smiling. It was and still is the hardest scene to get out of my head. I got into our friends car and then Allen and Calen got in behind me. Once the door closed our little girl was going wild. Suddenly we saw a hand wiping away the moisture from the back window and KatieJoy's Omma was there waving and crying and trying so hard to smile. DJ was holding her up. I kept putting my hand to my mouth and almost blowing her kisses all while saying thank you, thank you, thank you. I couldn't stop crying, Allen was crying, KatieJoy was screaming and Calen kept asking me what was wrong. I had a hard time composing myself to tell him that KatieJoy was scared... how do you explain to a 2.5 year old that his new baby sister hated the parents that he loved and adored? I could tell he was trying so hard to process everything. He was such a trooper and just stayed very quiet the whole time.


It took us around 40 to 45 minutes to get back to our hotel. Our poor girl just cried and cried the whole entire time. I finally let her out of the carrier because it seemed she wanted Allen. However, once she got to Allen she kept going towards the window and we figured out that she was looking for her Omma in the last place she remembered seeing her. Absolutely heartbreaking. Our friend kept talking to KatieJoy in Korean to try to calm her down. It didn't really work. Once we got out of the car, our friend helped us in and had the hotel staff do some more translating. She told me that KatieJoy would love me and that to just have patience and love for her. Oh I do, I DO! I hugged our friend goodbye several times and just cried. I finally let go and we parted ways. This woman will always be in my heart for her kindness today. How amazing to have her drive us instead of a cabbie...God is so good to us.


KatieJoy kept crying on and off for another hour or so and then she finally fell asleep on Allen's chest. Calen just watched a movie and took everything like a champ- thank goodness for fruit snacks! Allen was able to put her down on the bed and she slept for about an hour. We started to get things packed because we weren't sure she would let allen put her down for the rest of the next day or so. However, once she woke up she did amazingly well for the rest of the afternoon/evening. I'm telling you, we could seriously feel your prayers! She instantly let me hold her and take some pictures with her. Calen was able to make her smile and laugh. She explored our room and ate and played with her new toys! She let me dress her in one of her new outfits and played with me by putting her hair bows in and out of her hair. She even came to me a couple of times for comfort.

Finally asleep on daddy...

Isn't she beautiful?

Woke up to daddy and was semi happy Letting me hold her without crying for the first time!

Grainy picture, but I still love it. Calen just grabbed her head and dived in for a kiss!

In her new outfit- I think she is gorgeous but I might be biased!

Playing in the bath with brother for the first time- Calen wasn't so sure about sharing his bath time

Ready for bed or at least we had hoped!

We got mostly packed and then decided to put the kids to bed. Calen was out in 2 minutes flat as he hadn't had a nap the whole day. KatieJoy however started to grieve again and cried and cried, going back and forth between allen and I because she couldn't decide who the lesser of two evils was. Finally she was in Allen's hands and I grabbed the blanket that her foster mom sent with her and put it on allen's shoulder. She stopped crying buried her head into the blanket and after a few minutes she fell asleep. I forgot how terribly traumatizing it is to listen to your new child cry so deeply for their korean family. It is truly something that is one of the hardest sounds in the world to endure because there is nothing you as a parent can do to make it better for your child. How do you explain to a 11 month old that you are their forever family? You don't. Plain and simple. You just have to endure it until they trust you more and more and it eventually goes away...

I am so excited to come home tomorrow. I have really enjoyed Korea this past week. The sites and sounds are all okay- but the people, the people are why I love this country. More specifically the people that raised my children and are missing them tonight as I am rejoicing in the Lord that I finally have my son & daughter in our presence. I am most sad for our daughter's Omma and Appa tonight...how they must be feeling is not something I can relish on too much at one time because it makes me cry. I am praying for them. I know they must believe in what they do because they have done it for 40 babies...but, I can't imagine how hard it is the first night back home without the baby that was there that morning... So please, as you are rejoicing in the Lord for us and praying for our transition as a family of 4, please pray for them also. Specifically, pray that they have peace that we are a good family and that we will love her so very much...

I doubt I will get to blog tomorrow so please be thinking of us as we start flying home in about 16 hours. We love you all so much and are so grateful to God that he has placed each of you in our lives in some manner...

Love Our Family of Four,

~Mandy, Allen, Calen, AND KatieJoy~