Hi ladies it's been a while since I've been on, our process has been so slow there wasn't much to write about but now we are almost in the home stretch.
Oct. 23rd we finally received our referral. We were matched with a beautiful baby boy. He is now 11 months old, healthy, and as cute as a button. With all the hold ups in Korea our referral took a year and a half. We are hoping to travel in Oct of this year but we are still waiting to see how the new court procedures will go. No one from our agency has traveled yet but 5 people have their EPs (exit papers) in the courts hands. My case worker is still very confident we will meet our little guy this year and I hope to have him home before the holidays!
Since I haven't been active lately I was wondering if anyone else is currently adopting from Korea or waiting for a travel date for international adoption.
-Michelle
Re: Korean Adoption
Congrats!! Wasn't it was so exciting to finally see his/her little face?
The time has been flying by. We just hit the half-way point. I'm thinking that it will be 1 year, so we just went over 6 months into the wait.
Have you started making any preparations? I'm just starting to look at furniture and getting the room ready. I didn't want to move too fast with that and I'm still taking baby steps. We bought a bedspread to get a theme for the room.
Does your agency allow you to send care packages?
After 2 years of IF workups/treatments and 2 IUIs, we have closed the door on fertility treatments.
We are very excited to be pursuing international adoption from China!
6000 miles and a day
I'm so glad to hear that the time has been flying for you. It's only been three weeks for us, and I feel like it can't move fast enough!!!
We haven't started with preparations. I want to, but nerves and the fact that there is so much time are holding us back. We are probably a little strange, because we haven't told anyone that we are even adopting, except for our 5 references, and we probably won't until the fall. I anticipate that there will be a CRAZY amount of excitement in our families, and we want the timeline to be semi-similar to what it would be if we got pregnant. Both of us are pretty low key, and our families are more anxious. We don't think we could handle their anxiousness and constant questions for 12-15 months! I think because we are waiting that will limit the preparations that we make too, because we don't want anyone to suspect anything.
We can send care packages! Our agency recommended that we wait a few more weeks before we send our first one so that all our acceptance paperwork gets to Korea and distributed to wherever it needs to go. Have you gotten any information since the match?
After 2 years of IF workups/treatments and 2 IUIs, we have closed the door on fertility treatments.
We are very excited to be pursuing international adoption from China!
6000 miles and a day
No, not strange at all... We planned to tell all outside family when we got the referral. So we waited quite a bit before letting anyone know too. Everyone is really excited and we send the picture updates each month but if there are a bunch of questions our parents must field them for us.
My agency sends group packages, so they send them all in one box every other month. It sounds like you can send them on your own.
As for time, it did start out slow but once it picks up momentum it feels like it will be here before we know it! I'm even a bit nervous about not having things ready in time. lol
Each month with the photos we get height/weight/chest&head circumference and teeth count. Other than that our case worker says no news is good news. Our foster mom has been great; she hasn't missed one checkup, so we feel very blessed to have her.
just wanted to say hi!! We adopted our son from Korea 9 months ago :-) we waited almost exactly a year from referral to travel- so i know how tortorous the wait is!! especially when you get all of those WBCs every month saying how well they're doing and updated pics and stuff :-(
I know things are absolutely CRAZY with the Korea process right now, so i'm thinking of you guys who are in process. What I can tell you is that it is SOOO incredibly worth it!!! my son is the most amazing little guy, and was completely meant to be our son- seriously a perfect match! :-) Hes just about 2 1/2 years old now, and hes the funniest little thing.
PLEASE feel free to message me if you have any questions, or just need to vent! And also, you're not strange for not telling anyone. We did the same exact thing. The only people that knew we were even adopting were the people we used as references. and even for them we didn't tell them when we got our referral. We just didn't know how long the wait was going to be, and couldn't deal with the constant "when is he coming??" "have you heard anything??" questions. We told our parents/siblings about 6months after we got our referral--- and didn't tell our close friends until we were submitted for EP. That way we could just say "we're adopting a son, and he should be here in a few weeks" :-)
Again- would love to talk to you guys if you have any questions or need to vent!
Thank you Miss1180! I needed to read this right now! Funny how things work so perfectly sometimes.
A couple weeks ago the first family that had been waiting got thier travel date of June 10th and we also found out that Korea may require both parents to stay in the country for over a month. This was a bit of a shock. We are fine with complying but it definitely puts a new spin on any plans we had. On top of that, my little boy just turned one and my agency wouldn't allow us to send him a package, so I had to get over that. Today I asked why we hadn't received his pictures/update yet and my case worker let me know they haven't received any in a while. Probably due to the court work. Thanks for the information!
I know I'm complaining and it will all be worth it, but I just needed to vent. It's hard not having anyone be your advocate through this process but yourself.
Thanks again! and I would love to chat more!