Our Next Steps

As I was driving Auden to daycare one morning this week, I heard an advertisement on the radio for the Adoption Expo at the Grand Hyatt that we went to exactly one year ago on Saturday which started us off on this crazy journey.  In some ways, it feels like we have come so far in one year- chose an agency, got through the “paper chase,” completed our home study, and we have been on the Korean program’s waitlist since July.  But due to the unpredictable nature of adoption, in many ways I feel like we have barely taken any steps closer to finding our daughter. 

This brings me to an update on some decisions we’ve made recently in light of the increased wait times for the Korean Program.  By the way, since I last wrote the estimated wait times have increased again (sigh).  The first decision we made is that we definitely want to wait for a girl.  It saddens me that there are so many more boys available for adoption (internationally and domestically) because I think boys are the absolute best (of course I’m biased, ha) but we feel in our hearts that a little girl is right for our family at this time.  So, then the question is, do we stay in the Korea program even though we probably won’t be able to go get our daughter until 2014?  Cody went to an informational meeting at our agency last week to discuss the future of the Korea program since things have been slowing down significantly lately.  The consensus is that things aren’t going to get better, if anything, they will just get worse (no surprise there).  So it seems pretty unnerving at this point to put “all our eggs” in this basket.  We also decided against moving to domestic adoption.  We’ve invested so much time and money with this agency already; I really don’t think I can handle starting all over again with a domestic agency.  However, if we were starting the process right now, knowing about the severe slow downs that occurred in many international programs this year, we probably would have went the domestic route.  But international is where our heart is now. 

The past month has been a whirlwind of learning as much as I can about the China Waiting Child (special needs) program, and then relaying that information to Cody, ha.  We had the opportunity to meet with a family that has adopted two boys from China who had cleft lip/palate who were gracious enough to have us to their home.  We also had an appointment with Auden’s cardiologist which gave us the opportunity to ask him about various congenital heart defects (CHDs) that are typically seen in the special needs program.  These two issues are typically the most minor/correctable in the special needs program which is why I focused on them.  Cleft lip/cleft palate is minor in the fact that you are just dealing with oral and cosmetic surgery (nothing life-threatening or serious), however, there are typically many surgeries involved throughout childhood and speech therapy is typically necessary on a weekly basis into grade school.  While, CHDs on the other hand can be more serious in that you are talking about the heart.  However, Auden’s cardiologist reassured us that many of the CHDs (or at least the ones we would be open to- ASD, VSD, PDA, PFO and maybe TOF) are generally no big deal, some requiring no surgery, some requiring just one surgery.  It was wonderful to hear that he actually has experience in looking at adoption files from China and he would be happy to review our potential daughter’s file when we get matched.  He is an extremely well respected doctor affiliated with Georgetown University and we trust his opinion.   

So with all this information we have decided to pursue the China WC program. Cody has decided he wishes to pursue CHDs only at this time.  I am still open to cleft, but will of course respect Cody’s decision.  Because young girls with correctable CHDs are typically the most desired by potential parents, we will have to wait longer for this type of match.  Especially because the China WC program, just like the Korea program, is composed of 75% boys.  Still, our agency has promised us that the longest it has ever taken for them to find this type of girl match for a family has been 8 months, so that would still put us in the 2013 time frame that we have been hoping for.  We are actually going to stay on the Korea wait list for now, and do what is called “dual listing” (which I found out I could do since my last update).  Our agency will let us be on two waitlists at the same time but as soon as we accept a match, we have to get off the other waitlist.  We figure, no sense in getting off the Korea waitlist now since we already paid for the Korean homestudy.  Now we can get started on China right away. 

So, what’s next?  More and more paperwork.  Korea was the easiest program to apply for because they didn’t belong to an international treaty called the Hague Convention that most countries belong to.  So we got away with doing less paperwork.  Unfortunately, for China we have to now do that additional paperwork.  First, we had to do two more background checks of two states we didn’t need for Korea.  We submitted them last week and New York will likely take 6-8 weeks to come back.  In the meantime, we needed to complete a couple more hours of education requirements (webinars) and we had to bug some more of our close friends and Auden’s daycare provider to write a recommendation letter for us for China’s specific requirements.  As soon as our background checks come in, our social worker is then able to write a homestudy report specific to China.  After she writes our homestudy report, we can then start to compile what is known as a “dossier” which is the additional paperwork that Hague Convention countries require.  I will discuss this more in detail when the time comes.  They can’t start looking for a referral (or match) for us until our dossier is sent to China.  I’m hoping we can get our dossier sent to China by April, but we will see. 

 It’s hard not to all of a sudden feel “behind the game” with China since I feel like we are starting over in many respects.  But I have to keep reminding myself that we couldn’t have started earlier anyway because of Auden’s age.  Since they match children in the China WC program when they are typically over 12 months old, our agency wants Auden to be 2 years old when they start looking for a match so there is a least a year age difference between the children (which makes sense to us too).  Also, China requires parents to be at least 30 years old, which Cody just turned in May, ha.  Although the paperwork is obnoxious and getting on another country’s waiting list means considerably more expenses, it feels good that we are going to have options.  I like the idea of doing all that we can, then having God lead us to the path that is right for us.  A big thanks to our friends and family who have been so supportive the past month as we worked through our next steps. 

Not so good news...

We were warned that there are bumps in all adoption journeys, but I don’t think we were expecting a bump this early in the wait.  Unfortunately, this week, we were informed that the wait time for Korean girls has increased substantially.   For whatever reason, the agencies are just not receiving a lot of girl referrals (profiles of girls to be matched with waiting parents).  The majority of referrals are boys (which we knew), but even more so than usual lately and the agency is unsure as to why.  Therefore, instead of being matched with a baby girl by February like we were originally told, it now could be as late as July of 2012.  If that holds true and we don’t get matched until next summer, it is a very real possibility that we will not be bringing our child home until 2014 instead of 2013 like we planned on.  This news was very heartbreaking, as 2014 just seems so far away.  So in typical Courtney fashion, I needed to research back-up plans and different options in the event that we don’t think we can handle waiting until 2014. 

Option #1- If we switch to requesting a boy instead of a girl right now, the program director said we would probably be matched in the next month or two.  Which means, we would most definitely be able to travel to go get him in the beginning of 2013 since it is a 14 month wait to travel.  The question is: how bad we want a daughter vs. a son.  There is no doubt about it, Cody and I both want a daughter, but we also believe we want three children right now…so the daughter could possibly come later.  However, life changes and there are no guarantees that our plan of three children will become reality.  As we see, the adoption process is not an easy one and while we hope we will be able to do it again, who knows what the future could bring.  A definite pro to having another son is that he and Auden would likely be 18 months apart and grow up being very close to one another. 

Option #2- We wait and see what happens until June and if things still aren’t looking good with getting a girl referral in the Korea program, we switch to the China “waiting child” program (as the regular China program is not an option because it is an upwards of 5 year wait time).  This program is for children with minor/correctable health conditions as well as major health problems.  We could specify that we are open to a girl with a minor/correctable health issue, for example, a girl with Auden’s minor heart condition would be in this group of waiting children.  The majority of the minor/correctable issues are heart problems and cleft lip/palate.  This program moves very fast (for an international program) and we could be matched with a girl in 3-4 months (they are typically around 14-20 months old at time of matching) and travel to go get her in only 4 short months.  So the whole process would only take about 8 months and this would allow us to bring home a daughter in 2013 (like we originally planned with the Korea program).  Of course, with this option we need to open our minds and hearts to a child with a known medical condition which is not a decision to be taken lightly.

So, with both the Korea and China Waiting Child program, we would be bringing home an 18-24 month old girl.  The difference is, with Korea, you are matched with her when she is 6 months old and you virtually watch her grow up on the other side of the world for 14 months (updates, pictures, sending care packages).  While, China, you are matched when they are already a toddler and then travel in 4 months to go get her.  Each obviously having pros and cons.  The biggest pro for China Waiting Child is that the program moves so much faster than Korea and we could bring home a daughter in 2013. 

Option #3- We wait and see what happens until June and if things still aren’t looking good with getting a girl referral in the Korea program, we bail entirely on International adoption and go the domestic route.  Typically, domestic adoptions take a 1.5 years or less.   However, like I explained in an earlier blog post, with domestic, you are completely at the whim of when (and whether) a birth mother chooses you.  This is quite tricky because we would probably have to move to a bigger house before we decided to go this route as it would not be optimal putting a newborn in the same room as a toddler (and I’m sure the agency and birth mother would agree).  Going domestic would also mean that we would have to become comfortable with the idea of at least a semi-open adoption with the birth parents, as closed adoptions are pretty much unheard of today.  To be honest, Cody and I are not completely psyched about having a newborn again…I guess we have been a bit traumatized with Auden’s first year.  So, this option is definitely at the bottom of the list right now. 

This is where our heads are at right now.  I know ultimately only we can make the decision what is best with our family, but we would really appreciate any insight or advice from family and friends.  Sometimes people looking from the outside in, can offer a different perspective that perhaps we cannot see right now.

A letter to Auden- 18 months old

This will likely be one of many letters I write to Auden and our future child in hopes that this blog will give our children some insight into what was going on in our lives at a particular time. 

Dear Auden,

You are 18 months old now, that is 1.5 years old to be exact:-)  I’m not sure how this happened as it feels like just yesterday we were celebrating your first birthday.  But one thing is for sure; you are a little boy now and not a baby (of course you will always be my baby).

Our prayers and hopes for the year 2011 to bring you good health have come true and we certainly feel blessed.  Unlike last year, the months of 2011 blur wonderfully together and can’t be identified with a particular hospital stay, heart episode, illness, specialist visit, or diagnostic test. Hopefully I’m not jinxing it by saying the normalcy of the past 9 months has been nothing short of beautiful. 

One big change in June that you took in stride was the transition from being cared for by a nanny to an at-home daycare.  When Odette had to leave us due to health issues we thought it would be a good opportunity to try daycare again since your eating had significantly improved.  We found a great place for you two miles down the road, it is run out of a woman’s home and there are 8 other kids, primarily boys ranging in age from 1.5-3 years old (still Monday-Thursday schedule).  She has a huge blow up pool and a big backyard and shares our (and your) belief that kids should spend lots of time outdoors.  Besides the frequent bug bites, we couldn’t be happier with the arrangement and judging by the smile on your face when you arrive every morning, I think you agree!  Every week the daycare tells me what a happy and energetic boy you are and how you have no fear when it comes to playing with the older boys…they say you run, climb and dunk your head under water like you are 3 years old already, haJ 

Another change that the last few months have brought has been switching your speech therapist from working on eating issues with you to solely speech therapy now.  In the last 3-4 months your eating has been very good, you have the ability to eat all things now without gagging and/or throwing up (yippee!).  Of course, Mommy and Daddy always wish your quantity was a little greater; but we are thrilled with the quality and variety of food you eat now.  Speech therapy has been going well, we actually have only had three true sessions and you are already saying five or six words now!  Your vocabulary consists of DADDA, GO, UP, BALL, HI, BUBBLES, WAWA (water) and for some reason you can say BYE-BYE BALL when we leave the balls at the park or pool but curiously won’t say BYE-BYE alone, ha.  Please note, that you still don’t call me MOMMA…rather, DADDA for both your father and I…so let’s try to work on thisJ  The speech therapist says the goal is 18 words at 18 months.  So you are definitely still considered delayed but we are SO proud of all the progress you have been making! 

Here’s a list of things that you are up to lately:

• You love hiding things in bizarre places, i.e. we found your wet swim suit in the kitchen drawer with the granola bars.
• Your favorite book right now is "What's that Noise?" that has pop-ups of trains, tractors, cars, and planes.
• You are a little show-off...when I come to pick you up from daycare you run around the room laughing and being silly so that all the parents have to watch you and comment about what a cute and happy boy you are.
• You are very shy around adult men that are not Daddy or your grandpas....but you love all women:-)
• You used to be terrified when you heard planes, helicopters and sirens.  Now you point when you hear them and happily start waving at them.
• You love riding on Daddy's shoulders and use this mode of transport quite often. 
• You. Never. Stop. Moving.  You only have one mode right now- running!  (and you have the constant bruises, bumps and scrapes to show for it)   
• Very fittingly, your first word was "GO!" 
• Much to your parents’ dismay, you only truly snuggle/cuddle when you are sick. 
• Nothing brings more squeals of excitement from you then playing a good game of hide-n-go-seek. 
• The jury is still out regarding whether you are going to be left handed (like Mommy) or right handed (like Daddy).  Currently, you are favoring the left about 70% of the time. 
• Whenever we walk to the park, you insist on smelling the neighbor's rose bush because we did it once when it actually had roses on it, but now you are just smelling leaves and you think it’s hilarious. 
• You blow kisses goodbye to the ladies at daycare when we leave for the evening...it is the cutest!

Auden, despite all the challenges you have had to face in your short little life, you have grown into such an energetic and happy little boy.  Every morning after our alarm goes off; I reach over to look at the baby monitor screen and can’t help but to smile…because every day you fill our world with such joy and happiness.  We love you little monkey. 

Below are some of my favorite pictures from this summer!  We’ve had so many fun trips and you have now been on a plane 5 times since you were 6 months old!   

                                                                                    

                                                                

                                                                       

                                                                               

                                                                         

Pregnant on Paper!

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!

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. 

Hopefully, by the end of the week I can tell you that we received approval!

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). 

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=195

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1215

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1758

http://www.nacac.org/postadopt/transracial_identity.html

http://a4everfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=229&Itemid=108

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!    

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!