update from Korea

Yesterday we got an update on our baby Grant!  Not sure what took so long because the pictures and measurements are from a month ago, Dec. 24th, when Grant was 8 months old.  He is growing great, 19 pounds on the nose putting him at almost 50th percentile.  His height is 60th percentile and his head circumference is 50th percentile.  So nice and average all around:-)  

The pictures were awesome, thanks to Grant's fostermommy.  As warned, the two pictures that the social worker took at his agency check-up were poor.  He was sitting on a table looking down so you could barely see his face (just his awesome hair, ha).  I would have been so disappointed if these were the only pictures we got.  However, it was amazing to see him with our 1st care package we sent.  He had one of the toys that we got him in his mouth already in one of the pictures.  Feels like a little piece of us is now with him in Korea as we know he has the blanket, toys and storybook with our voices.

Grant's fostermom came through for us big time, she gave the social worker three more additional pictures that were likely taken on her phone since two were a little blurry from Grant's movement.  It was cool to see her house in the background of the pictures to give us a little glimpse into his life.  One of the pictures is an adorable close-up with a smirk on his face and the two other pictures are him standing up (holding on to things).  This tells us he is doing amazing developmentally considering the pictures had to be taken when he was only 7 months old since the social worker got them on just about his 8 month birthday.  My little smarty pants.  I love the one picture as he is standing on the couch with a mischievous smile on his face like he knows he is doing something wrong/dangerous:-)  These pictures tell us he is happy, healthy and doing great.    So thankful to his fostermom for providing them!  Hope she continues to send her pictures along with the social worker's pictures.

If anyone would like to see the pictures, feel free to email me since I can't post them on this public website yet.

Care Package #2

Our second care package to Grant is all packaged up and ready to go!  This time I focused on clothes.  Yes, the hand me downs are beginning already and he's not even home yet, ha.  Sorry Grant, these are gently used items from your big brother Auden:-)  They are some of my favorites and they smell like our house, so they mean a lot more to us then any new clothes we could go out and buy.  I hope and pray we will get to see pictures of him in them one day.  As you can see, we also included some little toys.  Nana and Pappy gave Grant the little dump truck for Christmas:-)  

Since we recently found out our Korean social worker is a slacker when it comes to update photos, I asked the agency if there is anyway for us to get the disposable cameras back during out wait (instead of when we go to Korea).  She agreed to letting me send a note asking Grant's fostermom to give the cameras back to the agency when they are full and asking them to forward them to us.  Sometimes fostermoms do this on their own, but it is rare.  So, I'm hoping the note does the trick.  My biggest fear is that the cameras get lost going through two agencies and so many hand, please keep your fingers crossed this doesn't happen!  I have a dear friend from high school that through the power of facebook I have been able to keep in touch with...she knows Korean and was nice enough to translate a letter to Grant's fostermom for us.  It was so nice to be able to tell his foster mom that we can't wait to meet her one day and are forever grateful for taking care of our son for the first years of his life.  We are so lucky to have my high school friend be able to write this note for us, she has also graciously offered to help with any questions I have regarding Korean holidays we hope to incorporate and Korean recipes I would like to try.  

After going through about 5 Ziploc bags, I finally managed to stuff it all in without tearing the bags.  It's definitely an acquired skill that many adoptive parents are getting good at. 

Tomorrow we are attending a waiting parents group at our agency where there will be a panel discussion with families that recently brought home their children.  We will get to meet a couple other moms that I've connected with through facebook, so we are looking forward to it!

our big boy!

Our little boy is growing up!  He wore underwear to school all week and only had one accident the first day.  And this weekend we were out shopping, went out to dinner and went to a neighbor's party and sucess all around!  So, I hope I can officially say Auden is potty trained:-)  It's been a long process but we were pretty relaxed about it and I think that technique really worked well for him.  About three months ago we realized that he wasn't ready for underwear but he was very good at going to the potty when he was naked from the waist down, so we worked on that for a while at home.  Then, he was able to do underwear but not pants, so we just did that for a while at home.  Then the next challenge was playing outside our house with pants on.  Then leaving the house!  Finally when we thought he mastered that we got the courage to send him to school in undies (with maximum distraction of 15 kids to play with).  And he did great this week and we are so proud of him!  All in all it was a pretty stress-free experience and I'm glad we just waited until he was ready for each step!  Can't believe our little boy is going to be 3 next month!  Getting rid of diapers really feels like he is not a baby anymore:(

                                      

great find!

Happy new year!

My favorite children's book is "Guess How Much I Love You."  It is a sweet story of a son rabbit and daddy rabbit saying how much they love each other.  I heard of a great website that sells books and films in Korean and ordered this book in Korean so Grant's fostermom could read it to him.  We hope to send the next care package out in the next week. 

Sorry for the blurry pic, here's Grant's Korean version next to Auden's English version.

Recently I found facebook groups of others waiting to travel to Korea in the process of adopting.  It has been great because I even have connected with other families with our agency.  The bad news is that I learned we have a slacker for a Korean social worker.  Two other families that have her as well say ever since Sept. she hasn't been sending hardly any pictures and updates of their little ones (and when she does her pictures are lousy, like toy in front of the face, ha).  I didn't realize this all depends on the social worker in Korea.  Some families have awesome social workers and get monthly pictures and updates.  So, this was a little sad to learn...it doesn't seem fair that it's up to the social worker to decide when to send.  Oh well.  Praying we get new pictures and an update soon...on the 20th of January, Grant is going to be 9 months old! 

Our first care package

Last week we sent our first care package to Grant!  They only allow you to send what will fit in three ONE-gallon size ziploc bags, so space was limited.  Below is a picture of some of the stuff we sent.  I also threw in a couple more small toys that Auden doesn't play with anymore that aren't pictured.  Cody and I slept with the blanket for almost two weeks to get our smell on it, ha.  We had a great time with the recordable storybook "Under the Same Moon."  For the dedication page we did our best to say a couple Korean phrases that we learned..."Hello," "I love you," and "thank you" (to his foster mommy).  I'm sure Grant's foster family is going to get a big kick out of it...hopefully it sounded remotely close to what it was suppose to! 
 

Countdown has begun!

Our "wait to travel" has begun!  Our agency received our acceptance packet on November 7th, so that is our official start date of waiting.  Although our baby boy can't be with us physically yet, I wanted something that could be with me during this long wait to go get him.  I had this necklace made (gotta love Etsy!) which says "LOVE" in Korean on the front and his name on the back.  It helps to know he is close in my mind and heart despite the thousands of miles that separate us right now.  Since I have been wearing the necklace whenever I carry Auden around he naturally holds onto to it, it's so cute.  He knows it says "love" and is quite infatuated with it.  We can't wait to tell him about his little brother one day...but not yet, it is too soon...14-18 months is hard for us to comprehend, let alone a 2 year old:-) 

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

It feels like a dream when I say-we have another son!!!  He is on the other side of the world right now, but he will be ours and we will be his forever family!!!!

Many of you are probably very confused right now since the last thing you knew is that we were pursuing domestic adoption, so let me take a step back to explain. 

After our last failed match with a domestic birth mother, Cody and I were pretty disappointed (and stressed) with how things were going.  I was spending so much time, energy and emotion speaking to these potential birth moms that called us and we just ended up getting hurt in the end.  I know that if we continued we would have eventually been successful but our heart just wasn’t in the domestic process any longer. 

That is when we suddenly found out that if we switched from the Korea girl line (which never moves) to the Korea boy line we would move to #1 on the list (since we have been waiting 15 months) and we would likely be matched within two weeks!  It didn’t take us much time at all to know this is definitely what we wanted!  After all, Cody and I already decided we would be happy with either gender when we embarked on the domestic adoption journey (since usually you can’t choose), so why were we spinning our wheels with domestic  when we could have a baby boy from the program our hearts called us to in the first place two years ago? 

Even though wait times and travel times have gotten longer since we began this journey, there is still so much to love about the Korea program.  The children get top of the line medical care in Seoul and live with loving foster families until you are able to get your child.  Since unwed mothers typically live in special homes during their pregnancy you have the opportunity to get extensive background information about the child’s birth family, which is very rare in the world of international adoption. 

So, now onto the fun stuff!!!

This week we received a referral for a beautiful baby boy!!!  He is now six months old as he was born on April 20, 2012.  He is a super healthy little guy and this was confirmed by our pediatrician and an international adoption doctor that reviewed his file for us this week.  We officially accepted the match today and are in the process of putting our acceptance packet together to be sent to Korea! 

We have more information about his birth mother and birth father than we ever imagined!  We even have heights, weights, occupations and even childhood histories for both parents….such a blessing for our baby boy!  Please understand we will not be sharing this information with anyone as this is his story to tell one day if he so chooses. 

But I would love to share stuff about our little cutie!!

-At 6 months, he weighs 16lbs, all his stats are 50^th percentile

- He sleeps 10 hours at night, with three one hour naps during the day

- He poops 2-3 times a day (hehe) and loves taking a bath

- Speech and Response: "He makes eye contact and babbles a lot and

laughs out.  He moves his limbs vigorously and turns over.  He

controls his head and sits for a while when placed in a sitting

position.  He bares weight on his feet and bounces when placed in a

standing position.  He grabs object within his reach and brings it to

mouth.  He stares at and plays with his hands.  He brings his hand to

mouth to suck.  He turns head in the direction of sound.  He tracks a

moving object at the angle of 180 degrees.  He responds to a feeding

bottle.  He talks a lot during play.  As he spends most of the time

with his foster mother during the day, he gets happy to see other

foster family members coming home in the evening (two school age boys

and father)."

- The social worker states that he is "a cute and clever 5 month old

baby boy. He looks up at people and laughs out if he is called by his

name.  His social response is good.  He has developed good feeding,

sleeping, and bowel habits: his motor skill development is

age-appropriate."

And last but not least…..we are naming him Grant but keeping his Korean name as his middle name.  So his name will be Grant JoonHyeok.   Very eclectic with our last name, eh?  His birth mother named him so we wanted to honor her by keeping it in his name.  “Joon” means “hero” and “Hyeok” means “sincere” in Korean. 

 It still feels like we are dreaming.  We are so excited to become a family of four, even if it is “in spirit” until we are able to travel to Korea to go get him.  Auden and Grant will be a tad over 2 years apart in age which will be perfect.  Perfect for playing together and of course perfect for fighting with each other like brothers do!

So now we have to exercise more patience than humanly possible and wait 14-16 months to go to Korea to go get him.  This may sound horrific to some but Cody and I have always known about this travel wait, so we have been mentally prepared for it (it was the wait to get matched we were not prepared for, ha).  We will get updates and pictures every two months and be able to send him care packages as well.  In the meantime, we can rest assure that his foster mommy is taking good care of him. 

Thank you to all our friends and family for all your support since we first started this journey just about two years ago!  It’s amazing what a rollercoaster ride it has been and we are so lucky that we’ve had so many cheerleaders along the way.   It is easy to see now that every day and every bump in the road was meant to be, as it lead us to our little Grant.  Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we begin our wait to when we can finally hold our baby boy in our arms.

Continue to check our blog for updates about our little guy as we receive them!  The agency discourages posting his pictures on public websites so we may have to stick to emailed pictures until we get to Korea:-)