Out of the more than dozen relatives gathered Tuesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to welcome 3-month-old Greyson Leo Phillips to Minnesota, Grandma Lori got first dibs.
“Oh, my heart is full,” said Lori Tocholke, Greyson’s maternal grandmother, as she reached in the stroller to pick up the wide-eyed infant. “Everybody’s here, and we’re all back together again, and everything is complete. It just feels right. We’re all family again, and that’s the biggest, biggest thing, I think.”
Greyson, who was born three months prematurely in Brazil, finally got to come home to Minnesota on Tuesday after his parents, Chris and Cheri Phillips, worked for months to secure an array of U.S. and Brazilian documents needed to let him leave Brazil and enter the U.S.
Greyson, who was featured in more than a dozen newspaper and magazine articles and TV segments, wasn’t fazed by the homecoming in baggage claim that also included a number of TV cameras and reporters.
“He actually traveled really well,” Cheri Phillips said. “He slept. I don’t know how he slept most of the time on the flights. He got a little cranky during the nine-hour flight from Brazil.”
Greyson, who was 2 pounds, 12.6 ounces when he was born on March 12, 2024, spent the first 51 days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit of Ilha Hospital e Maternidade in Florianópolis. He’s been making good progress in his first three months.
“He’s doing great,” Cheri Phillips said. “He’s growing. He’s eating a lot. He traveled really well. He’s slept a lot. His favorite place is to be held, so he was not going to complain for nine hours straight of being held.”
The Phillipses, U.S. citizens who had not planned to have a child born in Brazil, had to spend almost four months getting Greyson’s documentation squared away.
Among the issues: Brazilian officials wouldn’t issue Greyson a birth certificate because the Phillipses’ passports, like all U.S. passports, don’t list their parents’ names. Without a birth certificate, U.S. officials in Brazil wouldn’t issue him an American passport. Without a passport, his parents couldn’t take him home to Cambridge, Minn.
Media attention helped get the Brazilian government to work with the Phillipses, Chris Phillips said. Greyson’s national identity card – the last piece of Brazilian paperwork the baby’s parents secured, just in case it was requested – was secured on Thursday. Greyson’s U.S. passport arrived two weeks ago.
“It was an ordeal – that’s the first word that comes to mind,” Chris Phillips said Tuesday. “It’s not something we ever expected. We went down for 17 days just to visit my daughter (Melory) on her birthday and have a great time. We were planning to come back to the United States, come back to Minnesota, sell our condo, buy our house, get settled into that for a couple of months, and then have a baby. Nothing went to plan at any stage, and along this entire process, it seemed like every time we made some progress, it was one step forward, three steps back.”
Chris Phillips started crying as soon as he saw his 93-year-old grandfather, Bill Halverson, waiting for him in the crowd. He ran over to hug Halverson, of Edina, who said he was thrilled to finally meet his 27th great-grandchild.
“I’ve been looking forward to it,” he said. “We’ve been following this story day-by-day-by-day for over three months, and, finally, the happy ending is today.”
Cheri Phillips said she was overjoyed to be back in Minnesota.
“My heart just exploded,” she said. “I’m excited. I’m ready to settle in finally, you know, be our little family at home. I mean, obviously, we’ll be missing Melory. Like we said, she’s gotten the time with her brother, but I just, I’m so excited for my space and my language and my culture.”
