The baby is adorable. There is so much to say, but not much of a delivery story. We drove down to the airport amid gathering storm clouds. I was certain the plane would be delayed, and I was feeling terribly sorry for the poor escort and baby who had to endure three legs — Seoul to Tokyo to Chicago to Boston — over 24 hours.

The airport was practically deserted. For some reason, there’s never much activity at Logan after 8:00 p.m., and the few stores and restaurants in the terminals I usually use are mostly closed by 8:30. We — Husband, Aitch, my mother, and I — had not eaten, so we ordered some burgers and waited for the plane’s status to be updated. The greeter came to meet us and give us the rundown (basically, “Show me your ID, sign these forms in duplicate, and take the kid”). Then, suddenly, the plane’s status changed from “Delayed” to “Landed.” It was right on time.

Like last time, we lined up right outside the security area for the gates on the left side of the terminal. Unlike last time, we could stand right in front of security, because we were the only people awaiting the flight. There were no other babies traveling, and the hourly flight from Chicago to Boston, full of business travelers, does not necessitate pick-ups by excited relatives and friends like the San Francisco flight Aitch was on two and a half years ago. A few minutes after the greeter disappeared through security, she was back with the escort and the baby.

He looked just like his fat baby picture, and not so much like the scrawny-chicken baby picture, although he does, under all that fat, have an awesomely pointed “Reese Witherspoon” chin. The escort was very agitated. She didn’t speak English fluently, but she communicated that she had a headache and hadn’t slept for 24 hours. She was not quick to hand over the baby, but not because she was cooing over him or anything like that; she just seemed exhausted and distracted. I was eager to hold him but didn’t want to annoy her when she had just come all this way to bring him. Finally, the greeter stepped in, and the baby began to scream as soon as he was in my arms. The escort told us he had eaten three hours ago, and from my experiences with Aitch I knew that Korean foster mothers feed babies every three hours like clockwork.

I went off to change him and make up a bottle. He took it eagerly, confirming my suspicion that he was hungry, but he also gulped a lot of air and cried until he was burped. The crying seemed to upset Aitch. I suddenly realized that, although we had prepared Aitch for the fact that a baby was coming, he had no practical experience of babies. For Aitch, anyone crying was a big deal; maybe he even thought that he was causing it.

When we got back to the greeter and escort, we discovered that the escort was planning to fly to D.C. the following morning, but she hadn’t made hotel arrangements. She thought that the adoption agency would have a guest house where she could crash. She didn’t have a credit card and was horrified by the cost of a Boston hotel, as most people would be. Husband tried to reserve a room for her, but the few hotels that had vacancies wouldn’t take his card over the phone if he wasn’t going to be available to present it later. We tried some other options, but eventually we left her to spend the night in the airport. She asked us where the restaurants were, but even the concession stands had closed. The greeter seemed irritated at us for getting involved, and said that it was the escort’s responsibility to figure it out.

The baby was reasonable good-natured for the walk to the car and then fell asleep during the car ride, but woke up about halfway through. I sat in the tiny space between the baby’s enormous rear-facing seat and Aitch’s enormous front-facing seat. Whenever the baby cried, Aitch became very quiet and got a worried look on his face. We tried to reassure him. I had had no idea that he would take the baby’s distress so hard; if anything, I thought he’d be oblivious to the baby, and more concerned with the attention the baby was taking away.

When we got home, the baby would not let us put him down. He didn’t even tolerate being held in in a sitting or lying position; it was chest-to-chest contact or screeching. We took turns walking around with him until about 1:00, then tried to go to bed. I rocked him until 3:00, then put him down to sleep between us. He slept pretty soundly in the rocker and in bed, but woke around 5:30 with a fever. Our pediatrician appointment was not until Monday, but the office told us to give him some Tylenol and bring him to sick call at 9:00. The verdict: double ear infection. For the next 24 hours, he yelled whenever we moved him from the chest-to-chest position. Then the drugs started to kick in, and his little personality began to emerge–just in time for Husband to leave for a two-day business trip, and for the contractors to show up to demolish our third floor–but that’s another story.

Once again, I feel like I’ve told a very pedestrian story, as though there was no emotion on one of the most momentous days of our lives. I can’t deny it: it’s downright weird to acquire this little stranger on a quick trip to the airport. The poignancy comes later, during the hours and hours in which you lock eyes with him as you feed him, change him, bathe him. Adopting a child is kind of like getting married. It doesn’t matter if the big day is perfect, as long as all the other days are rich.

So far, so good.