Greetings from Minneapolis. We are now mostly finished with our return journey and, inch'allah, will arrive home in Maine sometime after midnight in the early hours of Monday the 9th. The long journey home has been smooth, but the hours of sitting on the plane have given too much time to ponder the disappointment of not coming home from this trip with our daughter as planned. We remain far from bitter, though to some degree jaded.

It has been a long, emotionally wrenching, exhaustive, expensive and fruitless 6 days, and while I certainly take solace in the belief that this is how it was meant to be, it makes the pain no less real. I recogniize that every road to parenthood is different, and certainly none of them are painfree, and so we will continue to move forward with positive energy believing that remaining positive is what is best for ourselves as well as for our daughter.

KJ and I very much appreciate the love and support we have received in this challenging time from family and friends and want you all to know that I will continue write from a point of view of openness and emotional honesty, for while I simultaneously recognize that some of you enjoy reading it, the real value for me is in the writing. Take Care.