Home Sweet Home

We got to bed yesterday morning at 2 am from our very long trip back from China. What an incredible journey! Shaela was magnificent! She didn't cry the whole journey on the four plane rides (except once, when we tried to put her in a bassinet). She was playing and having fun on the intercontinental flight. The only time she cried heavily was the one hour drive home from the airport in her first-time car seat. Boy does she hate the car seat. She clutched on to me big time, and screamed until she fell asleep, 45 minutes later. We feel so blessed to have such a great travelling baby. The stewardess came up to us during the intercontinental flight, which had about 30 screaming babies on it, and deemed Shaela the "best baby"(we thought so too).

At our short lay over in LAX (due to the hour delay of the previous flight, and the very long wait for approval of Shaela's passport as a U.S. Citizen), we were greeted by my sister Allison, my brother James, his partner Doug, and our beautiful nephew, Benjamin. They had a banner, balloons and some stuffed animals, and some very needed drool towels. Shaela greeted them all very cheerfully and even was held by my siblings. It was so fun to introduce her. She seemed so happy to have such a great family.

I managed to wake up at 9 am, feed Shaela, our two dogs and then crashed in bed with Justin and Shaela, and we all woke up again at 4 pm. We got ourselves up and out for a hike on our land to see the new house we are building. Unpacked and fell asleep at 11pm. Shaela had bad jet lag and wouldn't go to sleep, she cried a lot and so I finally picked her up and let her "sleep on me." She is quite the mover, throwing her head in all directions, and flailing her arms and legs, tossing and turning, not wanting to sleep on the bed, but not so comfortable on me either. I was awake most of the night with her moving about and at one point her talking and sitting up.

After finally falling asleep in the wee morning hours, I had a dream about giving birth. It was so intense, and I didn't know I was pregnant, but something was moving in my belly, and it had to come out. A healer was there helping me, as I screamed in my dream that I needed to go to the hospital, and wanted to lay down and go to a birthing room. As I pushed and tried to get this "thing" out, I awoke, only to find Shaela's deep breathing belly, pushing against my belly, giving birth to her energetically. It was a pretty intense dream, but I was so grateful to have experienced her "birth". We are so bonded to each other, it really feels like she is my biological daughter. So many people have said she looks like our daughter.

She is such a joy and a love. She already lays next to our two dogs, without a problem. She is fearless, except when it comes to car seats, strollers and laying down for bed. She has stopped crying during diaper changes and clothes changes, and continues to develop quickly each day.

It is quite amazing the emotions one goes through during this whole process of having and "instant family". When we received her it was surreal and so precious. She was so happy and loving that first day. Then, when she screamed bloody murder at each nap, down for bed, diaper changes, clothes changes and any time I was not holding her, it got very tiring and frustrated from lack of sleep for several days. Her difficulty bonding with Justin and screaming when he held her, made him feel sad and frustrated, which then made me feel sad. Little did we know during all this, that she waited for us to go through all her developmental phases, including teething and separation anxiety. She had no teeth when we got her, and the doctors and the Director of the orphanage was concerned she had a calcium absorption problem. I did some clearing on her and we started her on some Omega 3 oils with vitamins A and D. And now she has 4-5 teeth coming in (only after one and half weeks).

We feel so blessed and grateful. What an incredibly wonderful experience. During about 2-3 days of frustrating days, I wondered why no one spoke of the bad stuff, and now I know why. In the grand scheme of things, it is so small (at the time it feels horrible) and the joys are so great. Thank goodness we are at this point so soon!
Blessings to you all.
Debbie, Justin, Shaela and the doggies, Kobi and Tara (who love Shaela too!)