First meeting with Grant is set!

We just got word that our first meeting with Grant will be on Wednesday May 21st at 9:30am!!!   That is 8:30pm on May 20th for everyone in the U.S. on the east coast.

We can't believe it- a date and time when we will finally be in the same room as our little boy!  So surreal.  The meeting is for one hour and my friends say it goes by so fast.  The primary goal is to get familiar with each other, lots of play, be engaged and ask his foster mom questions but hopefully we will be able to snap some pics and take some little videos too:-).  We can't wait to see what his personality is like!  

We also got confirmation that for the first week of our trip we can stay at our agency's guesthouse.  This is awesome because we will be with families just like us and we will be right in the same building where our meetings with Grant are as well as where the lunch the director of the agency puts together for the families that week.  Additionally, staying at the agency allows you to easily volunteer in the agency nursery and rock/feed all the babies that haven't gone to foster homes yet.  This means so much to me because Grant spent the first 2.5 months of his life in this nursery.  I need to pay it forward and hold lots of babies because I know 2 years ago awesome families were doing the same for our Grant.  Unfortunately, I heard there is even a toddler room created recently that Auden can volunteer in to play with the 1 yr olds.  I think there is just not enough foster families for all the kids recently:(  It is going to be both a heart-wrenching and an amazing experience for our family.

On May 27th we will check into our nice hotel that has a children's playroom and most importantly a swimming pool for our little fish named Auden.  It is a one bedroom with king bed, living room with sofa bed and kitchenette.   We will hit up Costco (yep, they got one), stock it up and be ready to take custody of Grant hopefully by June 1st:-). 

This is happening!!!

Big Bro is ready!

When we first told Auden he was going to be a big brother, I had an arsenal of books geared towards older siblings of adopted children.   He wasn't too interested for the first three months but as time went on they are now practically the only thing he wants to read.  He brings them to me morning and night and it makes my heart so happy because it shows me how excited and interested he is now for his little brother.   The books are doing a great job of explaining: that you don't have to look like each other to be a family, some babies are in need of families, Grant is going to be scared and sad for a little while, big brother's are good for getting first laughs from the their new sibling and helping to teach him English.   And most importantly, Mommy and Daddy's love won't change for him when his little brother comes home.  There is enough love for everyone:-)  These are his two favorites...

  

We also made a "things to do with my brother" box in January and we periodically have Auden add a note or picture to it when we talk about something that would be fun to do with his new brother.  An added bonus is it works on his tracing letters and drawing skills too:-). 

Auden has been doing an awesome job at learning some Korean words (in fact, better than Daddy!).  He knows how to say "hello" to Grant (kids), and the more formal longer version for adults.  He also knows "thank you," "I love you," "carry on back" (in the carriers which we will use there) and the toddler Korean words for "snack" or "cookies/crackers".   

This week I'm going to work on bowing with him.  It's comparable to a handshake in our culture and I want him to do it when we meet some important people, like the Judge!  

Meanwhile, the list-making and packing is in full force!   Can't believe we only have two more weekends at home before we leave!!!!    

COURT DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It happened!  So surreal!  Yesterday we got our court date and bought our plane tickets to Korea!!!

Our Judge held out for so long just to give us a very early date- we have to leave May 19th for our May 23rd court date!!  That is in 3 weeks!!  My friends in my submit group were scheduled later court dates and have had them for over 2 weeks now, crazy!  But we are not complaining, we are overjoyed!!  Let the planning, list making and packing begin!! 

Usually the agency calls you with big news like this but our director in MN actually emailed us at 10:45pm Sunday night with the news.  I'm sure she thought it was too late to call us and she didn't want to wait to call us the next morning because she usually doesn't get in until 10:00am EST.  Dumb Cody and I didn't check our email before we went to bed Sunday night or in the morning before he left for work!  So after a nice long weekend with Nana and Pappy here, Auden and I saw them off in the morning and I got Auden to school only to get a call from Cody on my way home that we had this email sitting in our inbox since last night at 10:45pm.  So, we could have celebrated with his parents in the morning but unfortunately we were big dummies:-)  Good story though, ha.

Finally went Facebook public with the news, with this announcement and picture!  So, I guess it's official, haha:-)   

"We are overjoyed to announce that our family will be growing! In just a few weeks we head to South Korea to finish the adoption process of our son, Grant JoonHyeok Alvarez. He turned 2 yrs old last week and is absolutely adorable (sorry, no pics until legally ours). For the last 18 months we have been sending him monthly care packages full of clothes, toys and pictures/videos of us. The wait has been long and we are beyond excited to finally have our plane tickets in hand! Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we complete the final steps to make Grant part of our family forever. Auden is SO excited to be a big brother!"


And in case you are wondering, I fully intend to keep blogging in Korea to keep you all updated on our first meeting with Grant, the Court hearing and our daily adventures.  It will be just as much for us as a great way to journal all the amazing things we see and do in Korea and document our first days with our little guy:-)  How long our stay is depends how fast our Judge issues preliminary and then eventually final approval, could be anywhere from 4-7 weeks, with the average being just about 5 weeks.  Our return flight we arbitrarily picked June 25th but I'm sure we will have to adjust later once we see how things are going.  We can get custody of Grant as soon as we get preliminary approval, so hopefully by day 14 of our trip, fingers crossed for a quick approval!

Grant's Room- All Ready!

Enough of the sad posts for a bit, here is a happier one that I've been promising:-) 

 

We finished Grant's room in March and here it sits patiently waiting for him.  The biggest addition to his room was the window above his bed.  This room was so dark due to the large tree in front of both regular windows.  It got almost zero natural light.  So with the help of our contractor friend, last fall we added this rectangular window which has made an incredible difference.  Now his room is bright and cheery with loads of sunshine pouring in everyday!  Now I just need to get custom blinds for it. 

 

I wanted to make Grant's room similar to Auden's room and have a bright accent wall for the wall that the bed is on.  I also loved the framed prints that Aunt Jody got Auden from Etsy.com so I got them from the same seller for Grant's room but in an airplane theme.  I added some plane decals around the room and even his ceiling fan is designed like an airplane propeller!  I like that Grant's room matches Auden's in many ways but I added little bits of personalization and his Korean heritage.  For now we have Auden's old crib in the room converted to a toddler bed but when Grant comes home we fully intend to co-sleep with him either in our bed or on a mattress on the floor of his room to help with attachment and bonding.       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On his bookcase sits a little light (that still works!) that I brough home from South Korea 10 years ago after visiting my best friend Aimee who was teaching there for the year.  It has a bit of pink on it but hopefully Grant won't mind!  Pink is actually a color most associated with baby boys in Korea, believe it or not:-)  Auden helped me go through all his "baby" books and brought them over to Grant's room and was generous enough to let Grant have the football piggy bank of his since he already has another piggy bank on his bookshelf in his room. 

To the right is a nice hand-crafted frame that I ordered off of Etsy.com.  I think the saying is just perfect.  Although we have not met this little boy yet I have the same type of love for him right now that I did for Auden when he was in my belly.  Of course, it's a different type of love than what develops after you meet and care for a child, but it's definitely a love.  

I have a friend that is also waiting for her little boy to come home from Korea and has quite the talent at woodworking.  She was kind and generous enough to make Grant's Korean name in Hangul characters so they could be hung as decoration in his room.  It is going to be his middle name when he comes home so we are so appreciative to have this piece as a tribute to his Korean heritage.  She better start and Etsy shop because lots of other moms on our facebook group want them!   

 

 

The pillowcase pictured below on the left I ordered off of Etsy.com.  My favorite children's book from when Auden was a baby was "Guess How Much I Love You?" and the popular saying from this book is "I love you to the moon and back."  As soon as I found out Grant's foster family's last name was "Moon" I sent this book (written in Korean) in one of his first care packages.  I thought the phrase was so fitting that I had the Etsy seller write "I love you to the Moons and back" (added the "S" on the end of "Moon") to have a remembrance of his foster family always in his room.  I also bought a necklace as a gift for the foster mom with this saying on it that we will give to her when we see her.  The framed print pictured below on the right is from Zulily.com and says "My Roots Lie Here" in the banner above the word "KOREA." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't wait until Grant walks in his room for the first time and I hope he likes all the pictures, airplanes and things I picked out for him.  Surely, he will love the plush carpet that Daddy and Auden picked out.  I loved every second of decorating it and I hope all the thought and love that went into it shows. 

BIG BROTHER'S ROOM: 

 



Here are pictures of Auden's room that I'm not sure I ever posted after he got his "big boy" furniture.  Since his room is a bit bigger than Grant's he gets the double sized bed and we will eventually get a single size bed for Grant's room.  Our hope is that since Auden doesn't like sleeping alone these days and Grant is used to sleeping in a family bed in Korea that perhaps after a few months of being home they can sleep in Auden's big bed together.  Auden says he would like that but we'll see what Grant has to say about it after he sleeps with "helicopter" Auden and gets his feet in his face every night:-)

 

Happy Birthday Sweet Grant!

Happy 2nd Birthday Grant JoonHyeok!  I hope you had (since it's now nightime in Korea) the best birthday and Easter ever!  I hope your foster family showered you with love and gifts (I'm sure they did).  I hope you got all the goodies that we sent to you either on Friday or you will get them tomorrow when you go to the agency for your 2 year well check.  Of course none of these things takes the place of missing out on being with you on your special day but I hope they at least make you feel loved and give you lots of smiles.  Please don't laugh at Mommy's poor Korean- I tried so hard to learn how to say "Happy Birthday JoonHyeok, I love you" into the recordable picture frame.  I had my Korean American friend send me a recording saying it, so I practiced and practiced:-)  Daddy got to say it in English after me because I didn't think we'd be able to speak Korean in sychronization!   I hope you like the recording your big brother did on his side of the picture frame.  You won't understand it but he enjoyed singing Happy Birthday to his little brother.

 

This year your birthday falls on Easter.  I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder on us.  We are glad we will be together as a family and we will definitely sing "Happy Birthday" to you tonight and we will wish we were in Korea with you on this special day.   We will go to Easter mass this morning with Grammy and Grandpop who are visiting and we all will be saying lots of prayers that we will be seeing you soon.  Your big brother wants to make brownies for you today to add to our Easter feast- I I hope you don't mind that he blows out your candles after we sing to you.  Promise, this will be the last year he does it for you!  Please know that you are in our hearts and minds daily but especially today, we love you.

i think of your birth mom all the time, but especially today.  I hope she is well and happy and there is peace in her heart that making an adoption plan was the best thing for you.  I wish more than anything that one day she will find out how loved and cherished her little boy is.

Below is the picture that we put in the recordable picture frame in your birthday care package that my friend took to Korea last week.  We had fun taking it, I hope you like it.  Your big brother liked playing with and popping all the balloons after the picture:).  I put a new outfit in the package that I'm hoping your foster mom may dress you in the day we meet you.  I love polo shirts on little boys so your big brother will probably be wearing one too at our  first meeting.  i wrapped up a lot of the small things so you could have fun tearing open some wrapping paper.   I think this is the last care package we'll be sending you because if we don't get a late May court date, I just don't think I can bring myself to do one more.  Hopefully we will see your adorable little face by June at the latest.

Happy Birthday sweet boy, your forever family is anxiously waiting to get to you and start the next chapter of our lives as a family of four.          

   

 

 

 

   

 

Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

Cody picked the title of this post today.  Unfortunately, frustrations have only grown since my last post.  This week the only two families I knew that were still waiting from my court submission group got court dates.  Yep, everyone else from our group that I know of has received a court date but us.  The facebook groups I'm apart of are invaluable but definitely stink in times like these when you feel completely and utterly left out.  It seems as though all our files from our submission group went to different judges and our Judge, for whatever reason, just hasn't scheduled us yet. 

Our agency director put in a call to Korea last night on our behalf again but it's doubtful she learned any valuable information from the Korean partner agency.  Not being her fault, it's just that the Court does not have great communication with the agencies and the agencies are afraid to "push" the Court and ask judges for specific information.  Partly a respect and cultural thing which is hard for us Americans to understand.  We believe we should know what Judge has our case, what they are currently doing with it, what measures they are taking to contact Grant's birthmother (after the agency already attempted contact 3 months ago) and what is the hold up.  But that is just not the way it works in Korea and the social workers are afraid to ask these kind of questions to the Court and do not think it is their place to.  And so, we are expected to sit here patiently, just hearing the words "any day now" which we've been hearing for the last 4 weeks. 

The outcome of the meeting between the agencies and Court last week was semi-successful.  They got rid of the requirement to take the 4 outdated tests that I spoke (no ink blot test!) of in my last blog post but have required families going forward to take one more test in addition to the MMPI-2 that we already took.  So back to the psychologist's office we go on Monday to take the Child Abuse Profile Inventory test, called the CAPI for short.  It's about 175 questions where your answers are "agree, strongly agree, disagree, or strongly disagree."  The test should take no more than a half hour but of course all these tests come with a hefty fee that we did not plan for.

Did I mention our baby Grant's 2nd birthday is this Sunday?!  We really thought we were going to be in Korea for it when we were submitted to Court Feb. 7th.  And then, the unthinkable, a despicable human being murders his South Korean son.  And here we are.  Understandably so, the Courts are scrutinizing our files for longer periods of time and we are running around taking last minute psychological tests.  Not even having a court date yet makes his birthday even harder.  I'm just thankful it is on Easter Sunday so our family will be all together and my parents will be in town.  If his birthday fell on a work day when I'm alone, there is a good chance I would spend most of it in tears.  So, we will focus on making this Easter a fun and special day for Auden, while our dear little boy Grant will be close to our hearts. 

This graphic pretty must sums up our adoption journey and right now I feel like we are paddling. 

 



Waiting, waiting, waiting....

The last two weeks have been frustrating, to say the least.

First, in the wake of the death of the adopted Korean child, the Korean Court's mandate is still in place that all families with court dates after April 30th must take a battery of five psychological exams.  However, four of these tests are completely and utterly outdated and useless to determine how a parent would care for a child.  We are talking ink blots and drawing tests designed for people with brain damage.  Needless to say, the agencies are fighting back on these four tests and advocating that only the MMPI-2 test, if any, should be required.  So, given that we are probably/hopefully looking at a May court date, we have found a psychologist in DC that is able to administer all five tests (despite how silly 4 of them are).  We have been going back and forth on whether we should take all 5 just in case the Court isn't persuaded to drop the 4 or just take the MMPI-2.  Some families with our agency in the mid-west can't even find a doctor that will perform two of them because they are that outdated.  Thankfully, the psychologist we found is working with two local adoption agencies and has been in communication with the directors (including ours) and they all came to the conclusion that families waiting for court dates right now should only take the MMPI-2 personality profile test.  In addition, he will write an accompanying letter to the Court as to why the other four tests are antiquated and irrelevant in the context in which they want to use them.  The Court with be holding a meetings with the Korean partner agencies next week to again discuss the testing requirements.  Hopefully they are persuaded by the evidence the agencies are providing.  So, this coming Monday Cody and I will be taking the MMPI-2 test with 576 true/false questions along with an interview with the doctor so he can write up his report.  Can't wait (sarcasm)! 

Secondly, the goods news is that practically every single case sitting at the Korean Court right now has been issued a court date by one of four judges.  The horrible news is that for some reason we are not one of them.  I only know of one other family that is waiting for a court date right now with my large Korean partner agency.  Everyone else with our court submission date received the court date of 5/13 in the last week.  I guess there is still a chance we can receive that date as well but who knows.  It is unclear how the judges divide up the files and we have no way of knowing what Judge we were assigned to and when he/she may issue our date.  So, it feels pretty bad to be one of the last ones left anxiously waiting.  We could get a court date tomorrow or not for another month from now, who knows?  It's definitely a frustrating way to live right now.  We are just trying to focus on Grant and how we know he is happy and thriving with his foster family.  He is oblivious to all of this, not to mention that is life will soon enough get turned upside-down.  So for now, we will keep preparing Auden for our trip, keep researching things to do with the boys in Seoul, keep practicing our Korean toddler words and common phrases and have our extended-stay hotel ready to be booked....and just wait for that call.