Sunday, December 14, 2008

Welcome Home, Kimchi. Now where is my martini?

So, I have about 5 minutes to type this so here's a brief synopsis of the last three days:

Trip home:
If hell had a name other than hell it would be Delta Flight 92 from Itaewon to St. Louis. In all fairness, Kimchi did LOADS better than the other screamers on the flight. However, it was still awful, compounded by the fact that I have been really sick since Korea. Lovely. Here is a conversation we had on the plane as I came back to my seat from the bathroom with him:


Jeff: How'd that go?
me: well, it was my worst fears all coming true.
Jeff: uh-oh
me: yeah, his ass exploded everywhere and while I was attending to that in the minuscule bathroom, he decided it would be SUPER FUN to whizz all over the place. I just got done cleaning the bathroom. YOU'RE WELCOME, DELTA.


Then we got held up a ridiculously long time in customs in Atlanta, which I will go on record as saying it is the WORST AIRPORT ON PLANET EARTH and is filled with rudeness. We sat in customs waiting for someone to help us, which wasn't happening, and we watched the customs agents standing around talking to each other and laughing and pretty much doing everything except their jobs. It took several of us angry folks who were about to miss their flight to get them to do anything. We barely made the connection. Seriously. I ran through the terminal. Like in a movie.


Day 1 home: Since no one slept, we were all a bit cranky and groggy but we had a dr. appt for him, which went decent and then we had to run some errands to get formula and such and then we picked up the dogs and came home and spent the next several hours trying to convince an 8 month old that he needed to go to sleep. That doesn't go over very well.


Day 2 home: Grandma Jan came to visit, thank god, so Jeff could go get provisions because we're about to get some massive ice storm and had no food or anything. I am still very sick but can't take medicine because it will knock me out and he is still allergic to SLEEPING so we are up. A lot. I am one of those fools who gets sick if I don't get enough sleep and since I've gotten about 20 hours of it in the last 7 DAYS, I am not getting any better. Grandma helps tremendously but her payment is that she is now also sick. Sorry, grandma.


Day 3: It's almost noon and he has been pretty good all morning. Last night was awful, however. I think he is finally realizing that his "other mom" isn't here anymore and he is pretty pissed off about the whole thing. We got him down at 11pm last night, he slept until 1:45 and then nothing we did would make him stop crying. We tried food, new diaper, playing, holding, rocking, I offered him some money, more food....nothing worked. We finally just put him in the crib and let him have his meltdown, which lasted until almost 5am.


So yeah, um, adopting a baby is VERY STRESSFUL. At least a newborn is starting from scratch, but I have a well developed almost toddler who has his own ways, which are not exactly jiving with our ways, so it's an uphill battle. I'd like to give a shout out to the other adoptive mommas out there who have gone through or are going through this now. It's hard because no one really gets that this IS NOT a normal situation and the next person that tells me that it is and gives me some lame-brained advice that will work for a 3 day old baby but not my kid is going to get a fist flavored sandwich. I keep reminding myself that this will pass and it will get better and goddamn this kid is cute, which makes it slightly easier when he is screaming bloody murder and pooping all over me, don't you agree?


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh god, sorry you're still feeling sickly and still not sleeping. Wish I could help there. Don't assume he's pissed off. I still think it could be his new tooth coming in plus his little cold and his messed up sleep pattern. It'll all smooth out, although I'm not sure enough. I'm here for moral support and play dates w/the bugger.

Anonymous said...

FYI, I meant to say "although I'm not sure SOON enough".

Gwen said...

One day at a time. He's so cute it hurts a little.

Gwen said...

BTW, I love these updates and I hope they're cathartic.

Kait said...

I've been lurking the past couple months and just wanted to say that it will get better! We adopted a two year old and a ten month old six weeks ago. I can't imagine coming off international travel and trying to adjust to the new baby! It was chaos here for several weeks (okay, fine, it still is) even without the time adjustments.

My only advice, and I'm only giving it because it helped us, is to gradually shift to a normal schedule, don't let all kinds of people be visiting constantly for these first few weeks (he's not going anywhere), and don't worry - those feelings of "wow this kid is cute but what the hell did we just do?!" are normal.

And I don't know if this will help you, but for bonding and sleeping purposes, it has helped tremendously for us to swaddle our 11 month old and either rock her or just hold her. I don't know if it's a little regression or what, but it works perfectly every time.

Amy, Jeff and the kimchis said...

Thanks Kait! Your advice is certainly welcome. Pay no mind to my crabby pants. We will try the swaddling to see how he does. The doctor is attributing the sleep issues to both the time change and some trust issues. I'm sure it will just take time.