September PIPS

We attended our monthly Parents In Progress (PIPS) adoption meeting on September 1st. This month three families had their newly adopted children with them. There were two 10 month old boys from Korea and one 18 month old girl from China...all were adorable. One of the boys is the first child for a couple that we met at the adoption picnic a few months ago. When we met them, they had just received their referral and were proudly showing everybody the pictures of their son. It was nice to see him in person for the first time.

In addition to introducing their newest family member, the parents provide some information about traveling to the country of adoption and some of their new parenting experiences. This month we learned that the Holt adoption agency (that's who we work with in Korea) provides each adoptive family with a bag of baby essentials including diapers, formula, etc. This is good to know so that we don't travel with any unnecessary items. Another tip we heard was that if you're having a problem getting your child to calm down when you first adopt him in Korea, they are often calmed by going outside. The shock of moving from foster parents to their adoptive parents along with a new environment can be difficult for the child to deal with. When you bring them outside, it seems to help settle them down. Who knows if our child will be calm at first or cry. It's good to know that we can try different things that others have tried before us to help him deal with the change.

Our guest speaker at the September PIPS meeting was a pediatrician that specializes in dealing with adopted children. She has three adopted children of her own, so she has extensive experience as both a doctor and a parent. She provided us with a few handouts and decided to have mostly a question and answer session instead of just reciting information from her handouts. Here are some of the highlights...

1. Before you travel, schedule your baby's first pediatric appointment so that it occurs right after you return. This will ensure that you won't have to wait too long for your baby's first checkup.
2. The medical care in Korea is comparable to health care in the US.
3. If children are underweight comparable to their age, it's not necessarily a concern. If a child has a head size that is smaller than the average child of the same age, this may be an indicator that the child may have cognitive issues in the future. The body has a natural defense to provide nutrients to the brain, even when there is malnurishment, so the head and brain can continue to develop at a rate that is close to normal. If there is severe malnurishment, that's when the head and brain are affected.
4. When you return home, your child should have a thorough exam to include lab work. The accuracy of medical records varies from country to country. Korea is normally has very accurate medical records, but it's best to be sure.
5. The pediatrician recommended that if possible you find a pediatrician that has experience working with kids adopted internationally. If that's not an option, you can have one of the pediatricians from the adoption clinic at Johns Hopkins conduct the initial exam.

The PIPS meetings are a great way for us to get educated, have fun, and stay connected with all of the other families that are adopting like us. We look forward to the meetings every month. We're looking forward to next month.

Creating Our Nursery - Part I

Yesterday (Aug 29) we decided to get serious about figuring out what we're going to do for our nursery. After doing a lot of research using our highly recommended Baby Bargains book (http://www.windsorpeak.com/babybargains/default.html) and a road trip to Frederick, MD almost two months ago to check out a baby furniture store to see what we liked, we thought we knew what we wanted. We intended to go back to the store to make our purchase, but decided to check out the Great Beginnings store (http://www.greatbeginnings.net/) in Gaithersburg, MD to see what they offered. According to the Baby Bargain book, they are one of the top 21 independent baby stores in the country so we thought they were worth checking out. After looking at the web site we were a little concerned that it might just be a high-end baby store, but we decided to go see for ourselves to make sure that we were looking at all options prior to making our decision.

As we entered the store, our first thought was "'WOW". It was a huge store! The whole center of the store has bedroom sets, with most setup in a small room setting with bedding so you get an idea of how it will look together. I would guess that there were close to 50 different bedroom sets, so it was all a little overwhelming at first. We slowly worked our way through the store, picking up brochures and making note of the furniture that we liked. Several sales associates came by to see if we needed any help, but we decided to make one pass through all the furniture before we got some help. After spending about an hour looking at everything, a sales associate (Brian) asked us if we needed any assistance or would like a tour of the furniture. We took him up on his offer. He showed us around, pointing out various aspects about the furniture. The first thing that we noticed is that he was very helpful but not pushy. Several times he pointed out things we hadn't considered and he also let us know about areas where people overspend on things that really aren't necessary. It was refreshing to work with a sales associate that wasn't trying to push all the expensive items and add-ons. He focused on the furniture that was the best quality at a reasonable price, not the real expensive furniture. As he showed us the different lines of furniture, we noticed that he even though he had no idea which furniture we had liked when we did our first walkthrough, he ended up showing us the items that were on our short list. After showing us around for close to an hour, we decided to do another walkthrough on our own to narrow down our choices. By this time it was around 2:00 PM. We hadn't had lunch and needed a little break to gather our thoughts. We went to a local Korean restaurant (of course) and discussed furniture as we enjoyed our bi-bim bap. I had the traditional bi-bim bap with beef and Laura had hers with seafood.

After enjoying our lunch, we headed back to the store, ready to make a decision. In the end, we decided to order furniture from Munire. We went with the classic chestnut finish in the Essex line (http://www.munirefurniture.com/essex_03.htm). As our sales associate was writing up our order, he let us know that every Saturday they offer a way for shoppers to save 15% off the highest priced item of their order. All you have to do is sing a 30 second karaoke in the middle of the store. Laura immediately looked at me and said that I could do it. The only singing I normally do is in the truck when nobody is around to hear me since I know it won't be a pleasant experience for me or the listener. I've never done (or had a desire to do) karaoke. Since I wasn't very excited to expose my poor singing talents all by myself, I told the sales associate that maybe Laura and I should do a duet instead. He thought that was a great idea, but needless to say Laura didn't like that idea. I carefully looked at all the songs they offered, trying to come up with a song that didn't require any signing talent. As I browsed the list, I saw one with potential. I settled on "the hokey pokey" with the condition that if I sang, Laura would have to do the dance with me so that we could share in our embarrassment. With a little pressure from me, she agreed. I sang the first two verses (left foot and right foot) as Laura and I both did the dance. The sales staff was thoroughly entertained, we were slightly embarrassed, but we ended up saving almost $100. It will be a funny story to tell to our child.

Over four hours after we first arrived at the store, we finally completed our order. You think that we would have had enough for one day, but we decided to continue to immerse ourselves in baby "stuff" by walking around the store looking at strollers, high chairs, and other items that we'll need to get some time in the future. On the way home, we even decided to check out another baby store just to see what they had for baby bedding. That will be the next hard choice. There are so many great looking bedding sets. It's going to be tough to choose the theme of our nursery.

As Laura said, we had baby overload yesterday, but it was a lot of fun. Every time we do something like this, we know it brings us one step closer to the day when we have our child.

The Waiting Game

Last Tuesday (Aug 4) we went to our monthly Parents in Progress (PIPS) meeting. While waiting for the meeting to begin, we talked with a woman who is adopting a boy from Russia. She had just returned from her first visit to see her son. She travelled half way around the world, spending almost a week in Russia just to see her son for a total of 6 hours. When you adopt from Russia, it normally takes two or more trips to complete the process. This was her first trip. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to finally meet your future adopted child only to say good-bye because you're not allowed to finish the process in a single visit. I'm thankful that Korean adoptions require just a single visit.

As we do every month, the meeting began with the introduction of the newest adoptive families. There was only one family that was able to make the meeting this month. They had adopted a beautiful 3 1/2 year old girl from China just a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to hear about everything they went through and to see how happy they are after waiting 4 long years to complete the adoption process. Thankfully we won't have to wait that long (but I'll explain that in greater detail in a few minutes).

After getting introduced to the latest Catholic Charities adoptive family, the social worker had more great news to share with the group...there were five families that received their referrals from Korea in the past month. Three of the families were at the PIPS meeting. Each of them had pictures of their child that they eagerly shared with the group. You could see the pride in the parent's faces. As we looked at the pictures, we couldn't help but think what it will be like when we get our first picture of our child. The first time an adoptive family gets to see what their child looks like is at the referral. I imagine that the feeling an adoptive family has when sharing the first picture of their child is similar to the feeling a birth family has when they share their 1st sonogram photo with family and friends.

As I wrote earlier, we hope that we won't have to wait as long as the family that waited four years to adopt from China. When we started our adoption journey, we were told that after we completed our paperwork it would take 14-15 months to get our referral and another 3-4 months before we were able to travel to pick up our child. The good news is that our wait may be getting shorter. One of the five families that received their referral last month only waited one year which is a couple months less than previous families. On top of that, the next families that are waiting for a referral have only been waiting since December 2008. If they get a referral in the next couple of months it means that our wait may get even shorter. It's hard not to get our hopes up. Right now we're not sure where we stand on the wait list. Even though we know how many people at Catholic Charities are waiting for a referral, we have no idea how many families are waiting across the country. Since all Korean adoptions go through just two adoption agencies in Korea, there are many more families waiting to adopt then we're aware of.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost two months since our paperwork was approved. We know that our wait time may fluctuate over the coming months, but we're hopefully optimistic that we'll have a referral sooner rather than later. To make sure we're ready, we're going to start decorating the nursery in the coming months. Stay tuned for updates and pictures on our progress.

The Hard Part's Over (or is it just beginning)

Over the last few weeks we've completed a couple big milestones with our adoption.

First, we successfully completed or home study on June 17th. Our social worker arrived at about 9:30 am. We started by going over some of our paperwork to make sure everything was complete. Once this was done, we filled out our medical issues checklist. The checklist is used to show a variety of different medical issues that an adopted child may have. We reviewed each item on the list and had to answer whether or not we would like to adopt a child if he/she had the medical condition. It's was a very extensive list that covers everything from low birth weight to genetic conditions such as Down's Syndrome.

Next, we reviewed the results of the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory test that we took when we had our initial interview with our social worker. We had each taken the test on our own and didn't know the results until the home study. The purpose of the test is to determine your parenting beliefs. We had to answer 40 questions giving a rating of strongly agrees, agrees, disagrees, strongly disagrees, or uncertain. A couple of example questions are...

1. Spanking teaches children right from wrong.
2. Good children always obey their parents.
3. Parents need to push their children to do better.

A couple of the questions were a little ambiguous, so we reviewed them, discussing our thoughts. After that, our social worker met with one of our neighbors who we used as a reference for our adoption. She talked to him for about 15 minutes, discussing our interactions with him and his kids and what kind of parents he thought we would be. We finished up the home study giving her a tour of the house, showing her where our nursery will be. She let us know that everything in our package looked good and that she would discuss it with the other social workers in a few days and recommend that we be approved to adopt.

On Wednesday, June 24th we received some great news...our social worker said that we were officially approved to go forward with the adoption. Two days later (Friday, June 26th), our package was sent to Korea.

So now that the paperwork is complete and on it's way to Korea, some would say the hardest part is done. I'm not so sure. We have a long time to wait until we receive our referral with apparently little to keep us occupied. The waiting might be harder than what we've done so far. To make the wait a little easier to tolerate, we have plenty of plans to keep us focused on our adoption. Everything from trying to learn a little bit of the Korean language to getting the nursery ready. I'm sure the time will pass quickly, but right now it seems like 15-18 months is a very long ways away.

Paperwork, Picnic, and a Surprise

Paperwork

It's been quite a while since our last post. A lot has happened in the past few months. The most important news is that we finished all of our paperwork about a month ago. Everything is now in the hands of our social worker. She is putting together our adoption package in preparation for our home study. During the home study she'll come visit the house and interview one of our neighbors that we used as a reference. After that, the package is complete and get's sent to Korea. Unfortunately we'll still have a long wait, but it's a big relief to know that we've taken a big step forward.

...Picnic

Today our adoption agency held their annual "Catholic Charities Families' Annual Picnic". I would guess that there were around 100 families in attendance. The picnic was in Severna Park, MD at the Kinder Farm Park. It's a beautiful county park that has a large playground, trails, fishing, and a farm supported by 4H that has chickens, goats, pigs, cows, and sheep. Everybody met at a couple of the pavilions for a picnic lunch. The majority of the families have already adopted children. Previously we had met a few couples that are still working through the adoption process like us, so we decided to eat lunch with them. We also met a couple that got their adoption referral about 2 months ago. They expect to be traveling to Korea in about a month to pick up their son. They had several pictures of him, including one with his foster mother. You could see how excited they were to be going to pickup their son in the near future.

It was great being around so many adoptive families. There were adopted children spanning ages from infant all the way to young adult. We couldn't help but smile every time we saw a beautiful adopted child. In many ways all of the adoptive families make you feel like you're a part of one big family. Everybody has either been through or is going through the adoption process. It's like a huge support network. Everybody is always willing to listen to you, answer your questions, or just provide moral support.

...and a Surprise

As the end of the picnic neared, we were in for a little surprise...they were raffling off an item. When we arrived at the picnic, we were given two tickets. We didn't think much about it at the time. After everybody had finished their lunch, they decided to hold the raffle. They drew the first ticket, but nobody was there to claim the prize. The next number was called, and to our surprise, it was one of our tickets. We had no idea what the prize would be. I walked up to the front and was presented with a beautiful cross-stiched baby blanket.

I was speechless. As I brought it back to Laura and showed it to her, I could see tears come to her eyes. It was such a special gift. This is the first gift for our future child. I know that it will always hold a special place in our hearts and will be part of a great story that we'll share with him.