I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Many things have happened since my last entry....I will try to recap the last 6 weeks! There have been rumors swirling around that Korea's international adoption program is shutting down. As you can imagine, we were concerned by this. Our heart has always been to adopt a child/children who are in need of a mommy, daddy, family and forever home. After some thought, we decided to meet with an adoption attorney to inquire about domestic adoption. Around Thanksgiving we met with the attorney. She gave us some advice and told us to prepare a "profile" book to show potential birth mothers. I distinctly remember leaving her office and feeling pretty discouraged...the meeting didn't go as I expected. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what my expectations were in that meeting, but we both left feeling overwhelmed and overall discouraged. Mickey and I had a conversation on the car ride home about how we felt our adoption didn't seem it would ever happen. I think its pretty safe to say, when you pursue adoption there are a multitude of emotions, feelings and concerns that you encounter. I thought I had prepared myself for it...clearly I had not. There is no preparing yourself for having to look at a referral, praying he/she is your baby and receiving a call from the pediatrician with unexpected bad news. Or, inquiring about a baby on a photolisting and he/she goes to another family and of course the waiting. Though there have been some lows in this journey there have also been many highs. Mickey and I are experiencing this together. Adoption is uncharted territory for us and it has strengthened our marriage. It has taught me patience (which is still a work in progress:) and how desperately I need to take my worries, concerns and fears to the Lord. I have found peace in knowing that God has a plan and purpose in all of this.
Thanksgiving came and passed and Mickey and I diligently worked on our profile book. On December 9th, I received a call from our homestudy specialist. She advised us a birthmother would like to look at our profile book. Her adoptive family backed out and is due to give birth soon. As you can imagine I was ecstactic and then panicked...we had just finished our profile book, but had not ordered it yet. Mickey and I scrambled to print out our profile book and turned it into our specialist. We knew the birthmother would look at our book along with other family's profiles the next day. As you can imagine, there was a lot of anticipation as we waited for that phone call. By 8 pm we had not received it...we assumed she picked another family. Mickey and I were getting ready for a Christmas party when my phone rang...it was our homestudy specialist. It was the phone call that literally changed our world. The birthmother had chosen us! There were still a lot of unknowns and we made plans to meet with the her on December 12th. By Monday Mickey and I were a ball of nerves. We were so excited to meet the birthmother who had chosen us! On the way there, we received a call from our specialist. Birthmother was not going to be able to meet with us...she was in the hospital. The doctors had decided to schedule a cesarean for the next day!
On December 13, 2011 we met our baby girl. She weighed 5 lbs 12 oz. and measured 19 inches long. In a matter of days, God revealed His plan for us.
Life with our baby has been surreal. I'm still in awe that this little bambino is mine. Though she has only been with us 13 days, we love her unconditionally! Our entire family has welcomed her with open arms and they are overjoyed she has found her forever home with us.
Once we got home from the hospital I called Holt ( our placing agency) to find out what this meant for us in terms of our international adoption. As long as Korea's international program is still open we wanted to continue to pursue it. We were informed that Korea announced they would not close the program in 2012 and that we would be on "hold" for six months then could go back on the waiting list to pursue our Korea adoption. By May 2012 our holding period will expire and we can go back on the waiting list. What wonderful news! All this was truly a good and perfect gift from above.
James 1:17
New International Version (NIV)
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
