re-entry :: the first few days

So I'm not gonna lie, re-entry is plumb dumb hard!

We left the airport Thursday night and I looked at Jase and asked, "Can you drive?" We were so tired and hadn't driven in over two weeks! lol. We did fine and stopped for our favorite pizza to take home for dinner.

It was wonderful to be home. Just to walk in the door and see the sweet signs the kids had made along with Jason's parents. We were so grateful. It was the perfect touch to a long and hard day!

And I have to say, if I haven't already {I truly can't remember} that we are sooo very grateful to our families for their help with the kids. I mean it. I know it was hard to carry out school work {especially with Joel} and to feed them and take care of the day to day with three children for 15 days. I told Jase half way through our flight home that I couldn't wait to get home to my bed and my tub! And I knew that both would be clean. We both smiled at each other and said that we knew the ENTIRE house would be clean because Jase's mom had been there for the last several days! What a complete blessing. I just can't say it enough...to my siblings and my parents and Jason's and to my bestie for being a school taxi service...we couldn't have brought Gabe home without you. We love you and appreciate all you did for us and for our babies at home.

The night we flew home, the kids were still giddy over their new baby brother and so it was hard to settle down even though it was 10pm and the three of us weary travelers were zonked. But we bathed and loved on each other and fell into bed around midnight.

Gabe woke up at 3:30am and we tried to talk him into just a few more hours of sleep. He was having none of it, and surely due to the fact that he slept a good bit on the flight. We decided at 4:00 to just get up. By then Jase and I were pretty wide awake too. I started our laundry {the kids's stuff was all clean and put away - thanks, Nancy!} and we set about unpacking.

Gabe still sounded bad in his chest and I was so grateful to Tara for making a pediatrician appointment for us for 8am that morning while we were still in China. That's what friends do...and she's come through for me many times over.

I took him to the doctor and began to tell her the story of how sick he had been and how congested. How he would vomit because he had so much congestion come up when he coughed. Sorry, TMI. But it's part of the story. How he has a few heart defects and that we know his heart is enlarged and needs surgical correction. She listened to him with her stethoscope and couldn't even hear his heart for the congestion. A breathing treatment was ordered immediately followed by a chest x-ray stat because she feared he had pneumonia.

Sweet, sweet baby. He felt so badly. After the x-ray, we dropped off his prescriptions and headed home. We got the call a few hours later that the x-ray was negative for pneumonia. Praise the Lord.

Re-entry was kicking my tail by about 1pm. I was dizzy with vertigo still {something that happens to me pretty much every time I fly a long distance}. I almost had a panic attack when I brushed my teeth after lunch because I put my toothbrush under the tap! Hysterical. You try sooo hard to NOT do that in third world countries and so for two weeks, we'd been using bottled water to brush our teeth. Really funny that I freaked out when I did it at home. Gabe and I went to sleep in my bed and didn't wake up till 6:30pm! Eeek. That was too long but we couldn't help it.

I also woke up holding Gabe in the middle of our bedroom. I was dreaming that all of our luggage and souvenirs and stuff from China was in the floor at my feet. He was on my hip and before me were two lines...and I was to choose which one to get in to. "To Keep" or "To Send Back to China". Those were my choices. A man appeared and told me to choose the line where I would put my things and my son. I said I wanted to keep it all! So weird.

I guess part of me is still in awe that this precious boy is ours. I mean it. I just look at him and think that it's too good to be true. I can't imagine not having Gabe in our family. The Lord is so good. So kind to allow Jase and I this privilege.

By Friday night, Jase had resigned himself to the guest room! Gabe is a pretty wild sleeper! So he and I snuggled down in our bed and woke around 2:30. We enjoyed some chocolate chip cookies and snacks and TV. Sweet boy. I could just kiss him a million times over. He's so good to let me too! See? This is how we roll in the middle of the night! Cookies and toys in bed! :) iPhone edition no doubt...my Canon is STILL in my suitcase.

On Saturday morning, we were up by 6. Jase came and got him since he couldn't sleep either and I went back to bed for a bit. But by 10, something hit Jase hard and fast. We're thinking it was food poisoning. It came soooo fast. High temp and all the rest that you don't want to know about.

We figure it was the shrimp he ate on the plane that I didn't eat. I remember him saying, "shrimp..." and some imaginary red light was flashing before my eyes saying a "Abort! Abort!" so I didn't eat any. I had had shrimp the previous two nights for dinner {it was delish!} and I just wasn't tempted to partake of the airline's shrimp. But Jase did and he said it tasted funny.

Hmmmm.

We stayed in the bedroom a lot just in case what Jase had was contagious. The kids were so fun with Gabe. He adores them all. And the feeling is quite mutual!

So it's now Sunday afternoon and Jase is still feverish and sick. The rest of us are fine. It could be a bug. But I'm thinking we would have felt the effects of it too by now. It's been going on 30 hours and we are fine. The way it came so quickly, it must be food poisoning. At least that's what we think. And what I've read says that it can take 48 hours for food poisoning to get ya. We both took Cipro everyday while in China. But stopped the night before we left.

I'm going back to school with the kids tomorrow...hoping for good sleep tonight! And praying that my sweet hubby kicks this thing soon.

Re-entry. Any way you slice it, it's a killer. But so worth it!