Fifteen years ago yesterday I was given the most amazing, wonderful, breath-taking gift: my son. I cannot believe it’s been fifteen years since that day. Over the next few weeks, I would like to share some of our experiences as a brand new family in Vietnam.

We left O’Hare in Chicago for Vietnam on July 24th. This is our travel group.

Because of all of the time change stuff, I really couldn’t tell you how long we traveled. A long, long time. If my calculations are correct, about 40 hours or so.
Trying to catch some ZZZ’s in Singapore.

It was my first time out of the country. Doug had only been to Canada. It was my first time on a 747. I was very worried they wouldn’t get that big plane up into the air!

And yes, the flight attendants looked like this AFTER our looong trip!

We weren’t supposed to be going to Vietnam. They were supposed to escort the children to the States. But as we were waiting for the phone call to tell us our son was on his way, Vietnam changed the rules. We had to go there in person. We scrambled and six weeks later, we jetted around the globe. Because of the last-minute nature of our trip, and because U.S. planes still weren’t allowed in Vietnam, we flew the round about way to Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, then Hanoi.

My first impressions of my son’s birth country: hot, hot, hot, humid, humid, humid. My legs shook so badly, I wanted to get on that plane and go right home. Another international flight had just landed, so the immigration room was packed. Did I mention it was hot? No air conditioning (not that I remember, anyway). The far wall looked like where bank tellers sit, except each station was manned by a solider with a machine gun on the floor next to him. It took a while, but we got through there without incident. We managed to locate our luggage and made it through customs as well. We easily found our agency’s greeter. I did sort of leave Doug to wrangle all the bags. Once I saw someone who would help us, I practically ran toward her.

We began our trip into Hanoi. The airport is quite a ways out. The noise from the honking horns was incessant. Drivers were crazy. Kids herded water buffalo right along side the roadway. But it was beautiful!

And then we got the biggest shock of all. Because of a staph infection in the orphanage, we would be going directly to meet our children. No rest, no sleep.

We went to the director’s house, across the street from an apartment building for U.N. workers.

It was small but clean and cool. I was nervous. A woman from our area and her mother were there as well, adopting a little girl. We had traveled with them. I braced myself. Surely, their girl would be the first one out. It would be alright. I had waited this long, I could wait a few minutes more. A young Vietnamese girl wearing a bright yellow shirt came through the doorway and it was not the girl, but my Brian! He was so little, my smaller than I thought he would be. I took him, held him, and cried.

I had waited so long to be a mother. I couldn’t breathe. I told myself to stop crying because I didn’t want to frighten him. I touched him, kissed him, looked at him. Could he really be mine? Doug took him. I loved the sight of my husband with his son. So amazing. For years we had prayed for the Lord to give us a child. And he did, in the most spectacular way. Never how I would have imagined it. Better. Much better. Brian didn’t cry at all. He just sat with his big brown eyes and looked at us.

We were told the children had just awakened from their naps and were sent on our way. Yep, that’s all the training they gave this brand-new mom.

They took us to our hotel, where Doug checked in for us. I just sat and took in the feeling of finally being a mom. I spoke softly to Brian and looked him in the eyes.

Our room was on the 7th floor, so up we went. Another woman adopting a child had been there few several days before us and she took Doug out to get some formula. They told us not to bring any because the kids are used to Vietnamese formula, which is sweeter. The trouble is, no one reads Vietnamese, so we didn’t know how many scoops to put in the bottle or anything. My high school French came in handy because the directions were also in French, so I figured it out.

I don’t think we went anywhere to eat that night. I just can’t remember. I’m pretty sure jet lag had overtaken us.

July 26, 1995, was one of the three most amazing days for me. It spanned 48 hours, four countries, and gave me a child to love and to cherish. Forever.