It's official! (and I'm exhausted)

At 12:45pm, Thursday, June 16th, I became a Mother and I now have a son, Samuel Alisher Payne.   The court process was fine, but a little nerve-racking when you are standing in front of a judge when you don't speak  the same language.  We are well briefed ahead of time and our translator translate for us, but still I was a nervous wreck.   On Friday, we went back in front of the judge to request the waiver of the next 15 day "waiting period".  Fortunately, we knew this was a reasonably foregone conclusion, but the prosecutor did say "no" to all of us, but the judge overruled. Yeah!   Saturday afternoon, we picked up the babies and started the rest of our lives together. We had brought their caregivers a going away outfit for them in the morning and two empty bottles.  When we arrived at 5pm, Samuel was all dressed in his Old Navy finest with 2 bottle ready to roll with his formula.  We made our goodbyes to the caregivers and took one last look around.  It seems so hard to believe that these little babies will never remember their stay here.   Things were going along JUST fine until we got to the airport and found out that our flight was 3 hours delayed.  Plus, we arrived an hour and half early.  The terminal is sparse and there is no A/C or open window, so it was a rough few hours.  Fortunately, our coordinator, translator and another couple that are a few days behind us in their schedule were there to relieve us of the tired babies and help us with our luggage.  It was quite a feat to pull two gigantic rolling suitcase, a carryon and a baby in a Snuggli. Samuel did quite well, but was a sweaty mess in the Snuggli, plus has been running a fever, so we gave him some Tylenol and walked him to and fro.   It was packed flight with no leg room and no place to put our carryon's, so wrestling to get the bottle and chew toy were quite a challenge.  Samuel did pretty darn good, only fussing a bit and had no problem with the descent with the bottle in his mouth.   We finally checked into the Hyatt around 2am. This Hyatt is a little piece of heaven after roughing it for the past 3 weeks.  Samuel finally fell sleep on the drive to the hotel, but awoke around 2:30am, crying and scared.  It was the most heartbreaking moment of the trip. He looked around, eyes wide, pushing me away, as if crying, 'where am I and who are YOU!".  A big bottle later, he was happy as a clam and played in his crib until 4am before sleeping a few hours.   Needless to say, no one slept well.  Although he has had 3 nice naps today and was fast asleep by 7:30pm tonight, I don't expect him to make it through the night.  This has to be tough on him and I'm ready to make him feel better.   You'll be proud to know that I've changed about 5-6 diapers, but am still really slow with that and dressing him.  The caregivers at the Baby House were speed experts.  He is drinking tons of formula, and nibbling a few bites of my food.  It seems that his fever broke today, but he is still coughing a lot so the doctor at the Baby House gave me some medicine for him.   We got strollers today!  Our BIG outing was a 15 minute walk to the supermarket, lunch and return.  Samuel slept part of it and had his first lunch out a restaurant, squashed Cheerios and few bits of my fish and potatoes.  All the babies seem a bit food crazy and grab for everything and anything off our plates, so it is quite interesting to watch our group eat together,  The aftermath of the table and floor are best left to the professional clean up crew.   I'm a little stressed and a little tired, but really doing quite well.  We are learning how to communicate with each other and I'm learning how to take care of him to meet all his needs.  He really seems pretty easy going and is able to put himself to sleep after a bottle and a few minute of fussing.  He had his first bath tonight (forgot to bring the camera into the bathroom for photo-op) and he LOVED splashing  the water and chasing his water toys around.   It's 8:30 and I am ready for bed.  Wish us a good night sleep.  Catch up in a few days.   xoS   (Photos are of leaving the Baby House, his first night sleep with me and out outing in the stroller (can't say he loved being in thestroller))