We're Home!!

March 8th-First week Home

On our way home from the airport

We made it home safe and sound around 9pm on March 1^st, local time. Ava did amazing!! We ended up purchasing her own seat on all the legs home and that made a huge difference. She had room to stretch out and she could play on the floor with her toys. She slept a little~maybe 5 hours during the whole trip, but for the most part was still our happy baby girl. On our 14 hour flight from Shanghai to Detroit, she had her own TV right in front of her. She was so funny to watch her check out this “new” toy. I bet we watched African Cats 3 times and Chimpanzee a couple of times. We fed her lots of snacks to keep her happy and walked the isles a few times.

Matt's parents were waiting for us at the airport when we landed with a sign reading “Welcome Home Ava”! It was so cool to see them. What a welcome sight they were :)  Matt's parents stayed with us until Monday afternoon.  What a blessing they were to us.  They helped us get Ava settled as well as cooked for us, cleaned for us, did laundry.  We appreciated the extra help so much!  

Ava playing with Nai Nai

Playing with Grandpa Fuller

My brother and dad also made the trip to Omaha to meet Ava on Saturday.  Ava was quiet around all the new people for a short time, but quickly warmed up to them.  She is such a lover and gives lots of hugs.  She's been blowing lots of kisses to us as well.  She loves to play and has started walking on her own.  

Meeting Grandpa Angell

Playing with Uncle Bobby

Our toughest adjustment since coming home is getting some sleep...this jet lag stuff is no joke!!  The first couple of nights we were all up for hours (usually 12am-6am), wide awake in the middle of the night.  The most frustrating is when Ava is sound asleep and Matt and I are wide awake thinking "we were so tired a couple hours ago, why can't we sleep?".  We are making progress as the week goes on though.  We have tried a couple different things, but are trying to stick to a solid routine.  She is sleeping in our room in a bassinet near our bed.  This seems to be helping as she can hear us during the night and if/when she wakes up we are able to get to her and soothe her before she is crying.  When we can catch her before she's crying we have much more success getting her back to sleep quickly, often without taking her out of her bed.  We have also moved a portable heater into our room.  Our baby girl will not keep a blanket on and so she was waking up a little chilly at night.  Some of the best advice we received was to make sure we were all getting outside during the day to help our bodies know that it's daytime in hopes of resetting our circadian clocks.  This has proven to be both great for our internal clocks as well as our emotional well-being.  Ava LOVES being outside and you all know that about Matt and I.  Our schedule this week has been to run errands in the morning around 10:30 for an hour and then go for a long walk after her nap.  Luckily the weather has cooperated to allow us to do this.

We had one night this week where Ava slept from 8:30pm until 5:30am solid, but most of our nights recently she has been up for at least an hour overnight.  Matt and I are trading off "on-call" nights.   This also seems to be working better for us.  The trouble is that we are both all of the sudden light sleepers and have a hard time sleeping when the other is trying to soothe our crying baby girl.  We are at the point though where we have to get some sleep in order for us to be good parents during the day.

Ava has been happy through it all, even with very little sleep.  Thank goodness!!  This has been a God-send for all of us.  Thank God for our happy baby girl!  We've had a great week settling in, playing the days away, and just getting to know each other better.  I still think that there is no better sound in the world than Ava's laugh.  Melts my heart every time.    My parents are coming in to help us out for the weekend and to allow Matt and I to get more sleep.  We should be energized and ready to go next week.