The very last place that felt like "foreign soil" to me was the first place we went when our plane landed in the U.S. when we came home with Little J. It was the Immigration and Naturalization Service at JFK airport in New York.

Yes, we were in New York. The guards and facilitators in Customs made that very clear, both with their accents and their attitudes, but it was the last hurdle we needed to get through to get our baby home - to be free. Once we were passed through the desks at the INS we could go anywhere or do anything, including catching our flight home to Raleigh. Or not. There was no one watching us, translating for us, driving us, or facilitating for us any more. We wanted to get home to see our other son, but it would be on our own terms.

But first we had to get through the INS.

After we departed the plane we went up some stairs, down some corridors, through some passageways - it was like traveling through a maze - until finally we got to the long line that lead to INS. This won't be too bad, we thought, the line seems to be moving along, until we inched our way down the stairs to see a room filled with people, snaking back and forth in a line guarded by ropes and metal guards, like the lines at an amusement park.

Little J was being a trooper. He was still in the same dazed and happy mode he'd been in the whole plane ride over. The child who'd sat behind us in the airplane and who'd screamed the whole ride home wasn't as cooperative. She was screaming and thrashing and her new parents looked exhausted. None of us had slept on the plane but their nine-hour flight had been complicated by a baby who didn't want to be held. Ours, in contrast, had been a pleasure. We'd had a baby who'd been thrilled to be held, and whose cheeks had to be aching from all the smiling he'd been doing. I felt for the other couple, but I was also glad for us.

Finally, after however long - maybe an hour? - we reached the front of the line. We were waved over to a desk and produced the sealed package of papers that contained everything important in Little J's adoption - his adoption papers, birth certificate, visas, everything - to the man behind the desk. He sent us to a little room where we waited in line again...and finally, the packet was returned to us and we were let out into the airport at large.

Freedom!

We ran to catch our next flight.