With a referral comes paperwork. We mailed ours to our international adoption agency on Tuesday and it should be on its way to Korea right now. This paperwork is to allow us to leave Korea with Natalie and to allow us to enter the US with her too. Korea processes all of that paperwork and will send Natalie's legal documents to our adoption agency, it will be routed with another US Immigration form through Wisconsin state government and then to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office for the visa. Once the visa is approved, the US Embassy in Seoul is notified, the Korean adoption agency will need to get the visa with Natalie's passport and then, we will get a call saying Natalie is ready to travel. So, lots of paperwork and correspondence across the ocean a few times before we can go to Korea. But, we sent Natalie some pictures of us and we're excited that she will be seeing those soon.
In the meantime, I have been enjoying buying some baby girl clothes, planning Natalie's room, and trying to find new homes for the few things that are in Natalie's closet. And we are working in the yard, adjusting to Andrew moving to the 2-year old room at day care (he's fine, I'm the one trying to figure things out!), and anticipating some summer camping trips. We know things will change once Natalie comes home and we are trying to savor this time with Andrew while also looking forward to bringing Natalie home.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Paperwork and Planning
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
It's a Girl!
I think my restlessness started on Monday night when I finished the scrapbook of our journey to Andrew, starting with our decision to adopt and finishing with Andrew's adoption finalization and pictures of the three of us - our family. I wanted to finish his scrapbook before returning to Korea to bring home our second child. We knew when we returned from Korea with Andrew that we wanted to adopt again and soon. So, in February 2007 we sent in our application to the adoption agency and our paperwork went to Korea in August 2007. But here we were in the middle of May still without a referral but with a finished scrapbook. And on Wednesday morning, May 14, 2008, I decided that I was done waiting. I wanted my baby. I wanted to know if our second child was a boy or a girl, what he or she looked like, and when he or she was born. Before Christmas or after? We would be thrilled regardless of the gender, but I was at the point of just wanting to know about our baby. I called my social worker, Judy, Wednesday morning to basically hear some supportive words and also to express my deeper concern - that we would be waiting longer than expected. The original time estimate for a referral was 5-6 months, or January or February 2008. Then the estimate was May or June 2008. It is one thing to wait; it is another to not know how long you have to wait. But, Judy indicated that she thought we would hear something soon. That calmed me down some and I went to the gym to work off the nervous energy that was consuming me.
At 1:45 that afternoon, Judy called me at work. "Hello, how are you?" Good, I replied, thinking she was following up on something from that morning's conversation. "Guess what?" I think all I could say was "no, really?" and in my head was the cry it's THE call!!! And then she shocked me even more, saying that "it's a girl!" At that point, I was jumping around in my office, saying "Oh my gosh" about a zillion times, and completely and totally overwhelmed with joy, relief, and unbelief that the call was finally here and that, against all probabilty, it was a girl. I also felt a complete sense of rightness, as just like that, our family grew to include a little girl who is living on the other side of the world and whose face I had not yet seen.
Paul was at home Wednesday on vacation, working on putting in a new garden bed in our backyard so he didn't answer the phone when I called since the phone was inside and he was outside. But, my sister was at home just down the street and when I called and asked her to please go to our house and have Paul call me NOW, she started the "oh my gosh" mantra as well and apparently jumped in the car, drove to our house and with her car still running in the driveway, ran to the backyard to find Paul. She handed him her cell phone and then I was able to tell Paul that we had a little girl. He quickly came and got me at work and off we went to Judy's office.
When we received Andrew's referral, we were on vacation and his paperwork and pictures were overnighted to us, so we didn't have the excited mad dash to Judy's office, so this part of the experience was new for us. But it was so nice to read the paperwork together and learn that she was born December 2nd (exactly three weeks before her cousins Anna and Emma) and now at 5 1/2 months old is living with Christian foster parents. Judy then handed us her pictures and wow - how do you describe that moment? It was just amazing. The first picture we saw, she is smiling with her tongue sticking out. That was just another confirmation that she was my daughter because she had the same look that I did at 6 months old - a big smile with my tongue sticking out.
We decided to name her Natalie Margaret Sunjoo, incorporating both Paul's mother's name and her Korean name.
That evening we showed Andrew pictures of his sister. He seemed to know that these were important pictures, as he studied them for a number of moments before smiling and saying "baby" and "Natalie." So far, so good.
So, now as we finish the paperwork to bring Natalie home, we are feeling so very blessed to be on this journey. We are expecting a 4-5 month wait until we can go to Korea, but in the mean time, we have preparations to do and I have another scrapbook to start.
