Today we received our "Welcome to the Korea Program" packet, officially letting us know that we are on the wait list for our baby girl! We were in limbo for the last two weeks as our homestudy approval was being processed and we were being handed over to the Korea Program Specialist in the agency. Our letter today actually says our official start date on the wait list was July 5th...even better!
It feels SO completely real now reading this packet of information about receiving our referral (matching us with a baby girl) and discussing care packages we can send to her while we have to wait to travel to Korea. Just can't believe we are finally at this step! In 9 months (or hopefully a little less) we are going to get a picture and a profile of a baby....so exciting!! And the best part of these next 9 months...I will have no morning sickness, can drink alcohol, sleep on my stomach, and no weight gain:-)
My posts may be a little more infrequent now that we are just in waiting mode until Feb/March until we get our match....so I strongly encourage you to put your email address in the upper left hand corner if you want to receive email notifications of a new blog post so you don't have to keep checking back. In the meantime, I will post any updates to the Korea program in general that our agency makes us aware of and I'm sure some updates of our little Auden too:-) Thanks so much to everyone for your encouragement and support up to this point!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Home Study Complete!
Our last meeting with the social worker was this morning! This was the only meeting that took place in our home. She met Auden, did a quick tour of the place, asked about the community in which we live, and then we discussed any questions we still had. Auden was well behaved for the visit, in part due to feeling under the weather, so he was shy and sat quietly on our laps (quite rare for our little guy, ha).
Over the next few days she will speak to our references and then she expects to give her approval by the end of the week which begins the official wait! I can't believe the home study took less than 30 days for us...thankfully due to our flexible schedules (and our social worker’s availability) we were able to move it along quickly. If you recall I originally said I hoped to have it finished by the end of the summer, so we are two months ahead of my arbitrary schedule, ha. This is definitely a good thing since the wait times are lengthening in Korea.
Over the next few days she will speak to our references and then she expects to give her approval by the end of the week which begins the official wait! I can't believe the home study took less than 30 days for us...thankfully due to our flexible schedules (and our social worker’s availability) we were able to move it along quickly. If you recall I originally said I hoped to have it finished by the end of the summer, so we are two months ahead of my arbitrary schedule, ha. This is definitely a good thing since the wait times are lengthening in Korea.
Hopefully, by the end of the week I can tell you that we received approval!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Two down, one more to go
We were definitely less nervous for our second meeting with the social worker since the first one went so smoothly. For this meeting she spent the first half of the meeting asking about our families, childhood and aspirations for our own children. The second half of the meeting was spent discussing transracial/transcultural parenting.
We discussed how many of the articles we read (our “homework”) written by adult adoptees were a bit discouraging to us because it seemed like no matter what the parents do the child will still have major self identity issues/struggles. Our social worker explained that this may be true but by giving them the right foundation and the right tools to cope, the difference lies in how well and how quickly they can get through these moments in their life. Will it just be a little bump in the road or a big bump that they are not able to pull themselves out of? It is all about the foundation and groundwork we lay….how we talk about adoption and how she became our daughter as well as how we discuss, teach, and expose her to her Korean heritage. The responsibility of it all…to create the best environment we possibly can for our little girl to grow up full of pride and confidence in who she is and her place in our family….is both scary and very exciting at the same time.
We strongly encourage close family and friends to take a look at some short articles (over the next year). Since you will very much apart of our daughter’s life, Cody and I believe it is important for you to educate yourselves regarding correct terminology when discussing adoption as well as being aware of feelings our daughter may have growing up (and could potentially talk to you about).
I recently found a blog written by a mother of two adopted Korean boys and an African American girl, she is such a beautiful writer and I thought this post about transracial parenting was just lovely: http://flowerpatchfarmgirl.blogspot.com/2010/12/big-adoption-series-chapter-19.html
One of the most interesting things the social worker brought up at our meeting is to think about Auden’s culture. We are going to be so focused on learning about Korean culture for our daughter it will make Auden think he doesn’t have a “culture.” The problem is, like many Caucasians living in America, we don’t really subscribe to any one culture and therefore almost have a feeling of a lack of culture. Despite Auden having a very Hispanic last name, and his mother having a very Irish maiden name, he comes from so much more than these two backgrounds…as he is also…Danish, German, Italian, Czech…and probably one or two others I’m forgetting right now. Cody and I agreed that despite intercultural/interracial marriages and families being such a wonderful thing in today’s society it is quite a shame that what comes with it sometimes is a sense of loss of culture. So don’t be surprised if Cody and I start honoring some old Danish, Italian, Czech, etc. traditionsJ
We will likely be scheduling our third and final visit with the social worker by the end of the month…stay tuned!
Monday, June 6, 2011
One down, two more to go
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Overall, I would have to say the first interview with the social worker went very well (although I have nothing to compare it to, ha). It started out somewhat humorously when Cody politely told me in the car ride to the meeting to make sure I didn't interrupt him when he was talking and hijack his stories. I will admit I have a habit to do this, but in my defense it only happens when Cody takes a several second pause which makes me feel the need to interject to fill what I consider very awkward silence. I am happy to report that I only interrupted once when Cody was talking and this he greatly appreciated because I gave him a word he was searching for. In fact, I even let Cody do most of the talking which I'm sure the social worker was probably not used to, as I can imagine typically the wife does most of the talking (maybe we even got some points for it, haha).
The questions she asked us were actually fun because it was like a trip down memory lane. How we met, our memorable dates, our time abroad, our wedding, up to last year with the pregnancy and birth of Auden. Other questions included how we communicate with each other, show our appreciation/affection to each other and our strengths/weaknesses. Basically, good questions that any married couple should think about time to time, especially before they make the decision to have a child.
The only downside about the interview was the information we received regarding the Korea program. Unfortunately due to the Korea government reducing the quota for the number of children that can leave the country in a given year it is creating a longer wait time to travel to go get your child than in years previous. Which means, instead of going to get our daughter when she is 15-16 months like we originally thought; now she is going to be almost 20 months old when we can go get her. This is a big bummer to me...it just makes me so sad to know she will have to be in foster care until she is 20 months old because of an arbitrary quota the Korean government set. We will be matched with her when she is 6 months old, so that is 14 months of knowing who our daughter is but not being able to get her. Some might say- we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this, but that doesn't make it any easier. Cody likes to look at the bright side...more time we can stay in our current house and save up for an ever better house for when she gets here, which is definitely a bonus.
So, what's next? Our second meeting with the social worker will be this Friday, June 10th. She gave us some "homework," specifically articles to read about transracial parenting so I'm guessing that will be the major topic of our second meeting with her. The third and final visit, hopefully by the end of the month, is the visit that will take place in our home and when she will meet Auden. Soon after that, upon her approval, we officially are on the waiting list to be matched with a baby girl. The wait to be matched is anywhere from 1-8 months. Since we are waiting for a girl (which there are less of) and we are being pretty conservative as far as medical conditions go that we are open to, we estimate that our wait time will be towards the end of the range...probably 8 months. Crazy to think that by February we will most likely have a profile and picture of our little girl (6 months old at time). Then the harder wait begins...14 months until we can travel to go get her. Thank God we have a little monkey to keep us busy in the meantime!
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Overall, I would have to say the first interview with the social worker went very well (although I have nothing to compare it to, ha). It started out somewhat humorously when Cody politely told me in the car ride to the meeting to make sure I didn't interrupt him when he was talking and hijack his stories. I will admit I have a habit to do this, but in my defense it only happens when Cody takes a several second pause which makes me feel the need to interject to fill what I consider very awkward silence. I am happy to report that I only interrupted once when Cody was talking and this he greatly appreciated because I gave him a word he was searching for. In fact, I even let Cody do most of the talking which I'm sure the social worker was probably not used to, as I can imagine typically the wife does most of the talking (maybe we even got some points for it, haha).
The questions she asked us were actually fun because it was like a trip down memory lane. How we met, our memorable dates, our time abroad, our wedding, up to last year with the pregnancy and birth of Auden. Other questions included how we communicate with each other, show our appreciation/affection to each other and our strengths/weaknesses. Basically, good questions that any married couple should think about time to time, especially before they make the decision to have a child.
The only downside about the interview was the information we received regarding the Korea program. Unfortunately due to the Korea government reducing the quota for the number of children that can leave the country in a given year it is creating a longer wait time to travel to go get your child than in years previous. Which means, instead of going to get our daughter when she is 15-16 months like we originally thought; now she is going to be almost 20 months old when we can go get her. This is a big bummer to me...it just makes me so sad to know she will have to be in foster care until she is 20 months old because of an arbitrary quota the Korean government set. We will be matched with her when she is 6 months old, so that is 14 months of knowing who our daughter is but not being able to get her. Some might say- we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this, but that doesn't make it any easier. Cody likes to look at the bright side...more time we can stay in our current house and save up for an ever better house for when she gets here, which is definitely a bonus.
So, what's next? Our second meeting with the social worker will be this Friday, June 10th. She gave us some "homework," specifically articles to read about transracial parenting so I'm guessing that will be the major topic of our second meeting with her. The third and final visit, hopefully by the end of the month, is the visit that will take place in our home and when she will meet Auden. Soon after that, upon her approval, we officially are on the waiting list to be matched with a baby girl. The wait to be matched is anywhere from 1-8 months. Since we are waiting for a girl (which there are less of) and we are being pretty conservative as far as medical conditions go that we are open to, we estimate that our wait time will be towards the end of the range...probably 8 months. Crazy to think that by February we will most likely have a profile and picture of our little girl (6 months old at time). Then the harder wait begins...14 months until we can travel to go get her. Thank God we have a little monkey to keep us busy in the meantime!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
First Interview is Scheduled
Our first interview with the social worker is on Friday...as in two days from now! We will be going into the agency for this meeting (not sure I like the word "interview") and then I believe the next two meetings will be at our home. So luckily we don't have to go cleaning crazy just yet:-) I can't speak for Cody but I'm a little nervous as I'm not sure how she is going to ask us enough questions to fill a two hour period of time. We'll see soon enough!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Let the home study begin!
Yes, finally an update! Happy to report that yesterday I received a letter by mail stating that all our paperwork, fingerprints and clearances have been processed! We have been assigned a social worker that will be calling us within the week to set up our first interview. We are so excited! Especially now that so many of our friends that have kiddos Auden's age are pregnant with #2. We started researching agencies last fall, when honestly, having another child was the furthest thing from our minds. Thank god I trusted my instinct that we had to start then because I just knew we would be more than ready by the time we got matched with a child. Although we love our little Auden Angel more than life itself, he was as high maintenance as they come as a baby. Now that he is a little toddler, things are so much easier, and I really just can't wait for a little girl....even if I have to wait 1.5 years:-)
Here are some random silly pictures of Auden...
Here he thinks his baby monitor is a phone...in his defense it does look like our iphones!
The kid who refused to keep a party hat for one second at his 1st birthday party now wants to wear this hat all the time and will find it and put it on himself!
Here are some random silly pictures of Auden...
Here he thinks his baby monitor is a phone...in his defense it does look like our iphones!
The kid who refused to keep a party hat for one second at his 1st birthday party now wants to wear this hat all the time and will find it and put it on himself!
Monday, May 9, 2011
YES, NO, or MAYBE
First, a status update. I spoke to the agency last week to tie up some loose ends with our paperwork and they said our child abuse clearances should be back within the next week or so. They need to get the results of these before we can officially begin our home study. So hopefully we will be getting the call that we have been assigned a social worker by the end of the month! Then the real fun begins:-)
In the meantime, there is an interesting form that we must have completed for the first visit with our social worker. It is a form that lists almost every health condition as well as family background concerns. There are three boxes next to each condition/concern- YES, NO, or MAYBE. And our job is to check a box next to each one which describes our openness to accept a child with this condition or concern. It is a very strange feeling to make a decision regarding whether or not your child is going to have a certain condition/disease. After all, if this was a biological child…even if you get the genetic testing done during pregnancy, usually all you can do is pray that your child is not born with some severe health challenge. You don’t get to choose whether your child is born blind, or with seizures, or with spina bifida, or with autism, etc.
As you can imagine, there is a great need for parents willing to adopt children with special needs…afterall, these are the children that are usually “unwanted” and have to grow up in group/foster homes. I must say, filling out this form, does bring a considerable amount of guilt when you are seeking a “healthy” child. It breaks your heart to know that these special needs children, who probably need a parent’s love the most, are the ones growing old in group/foster homes. God bless the adoptive parents seeking special needs children.
Of course, no child is perfect. And if you check “NO” to every condition/concern, you will likely be waiting to be matched with a child for a very long time. For example, Cody and I happily checked “YES” to “mild hyperactivity” and “mild speech delay.” We also checked “MAYBE” to many conditions that Auden had/has…I just couldn’t imagine excluding them. For example, “32-36 weeks premature,” “under 32 weeks premature,” “low birth weight- under four pounds,” “blood transfusion,” and “minor heart defect.” Of course, not every preemie does as well as Auden for being born at 31 wks, but on the other hand, some do even better. So, by checking the “maybe” box, we feel it is a good compromise and if a child happens to be presented to us with some of these issues, we will definitely consider them on an individual basis.
Some of the background issues were a little more difficult. For example, "depression in family background," or "birth parents experienced physical abuse." Because this could have absolutely nothing to do with the child you adopt. One background issue we were warned we have to be open to is minimal alcohol use by the birth mother during pregnancy. Typically, this means the mother drank "soju" (a common social drink, comparable to beer in alcohol content) during the first couple months of her pregnancy before she knew she was pregnant. When we get matched with a child and learn more details about exactly how much alcohol exposure, we will discuss with our pediatrician and international adoption physician ( which we hire to look at the child's medical profile) the risks associated with such exposure. This may make some uneasy, but I just feel lucky we will be presented with a detailed account of the mother's pregnancy...if we were adopting from any other country (esp. eastern europe or china) we would get zero information and have no clue regarding the child's exposure to alcohol and drugs during pregnancy. That to me is a lot riskier than knowing exactly how many drinks the mother consumed during her pregnancy. But the bottom line is, Cody and I won't accept a referral for a child that we don't feel 100% comfortable with as far as medical/background issues go. And if that means we have to wait longer for the little girl that is right for us, then that is okay:-)
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