A Quick Update

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we got an email from our adoption agency with the title "Picture of your little one". We had requested to get the originals of his birth pictures, so originally we thought that's what it was. When we saw that there was only one file attached, we started to hope that it might be a new picture. Sure enough, it was a picture taken in the past month. Here he is...

We're definitely biased, but to us he's the most beautiful baby boy in the world!!!

The Happiest New Year

Originally I thought this post would be just a "normal" update about what's happened to us during the holiday season. We thought we still had many months ahead of us before we were matched with a child, but instead we received the best news we could have hoped for at the beginning of the year...we received the referral of our son. This was a huge shock that has us both extremely excited. I can't find the right words to express our happiness. It's still sinking in.

The week started out a little rocky. Late Sunday afternoon, our furnace stopped working. It was a cold day for southern Maryland (highs around freezing), so I hoped we had just tripped a circuit. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I called a repairman, but he couldn't get here until Monday morning. We pulled out a space heater, turned on a bunch of lights, and started the oven for a while to help generate heat. This kept the temperature steady, but we turned everything off when we went to bed just to be safe. By the time we woke up, it was in the 50s. Thankfully, the fix was quick and easy. A fuse inside the furnace had blown because of a loose wire. The repairman got everything going quickly and by the end of the day the house was back to a normal temperature.

Because of the problems with the furnace, I decided to stay home from work. As I was running around town doing errands, I received a call in the truck from a number I didn't recognize. It was our social worker. We had our monthly PIPS meeting planned for Tuesday, so I thought she was just calling to see if we would be there or not. She asked me if we were going to the PIPS meeting. I told her that we would be there. Then, she asked if we could come early because she wanted to talk to us. This was very unusual. She said that it "wasn't anything bad" and that she "wanted to talk to us then take things from there". She wouldn't share any additional information. Of course my first thought was that she might want to talk to us about a referral, but it just seemed too early. It had only been about 6 months since our paperwork had been sent to South Korea. Based on recent referrals, we thought it would take about a year before we received our referral.

I called Laura and let her know about the conversation. This started a very long 24 hour period where continued to run various scenarios through our heads. Was this a referral? Is there some reason she didn't tell us over the phone? Was it a referral for twins? So many thoughts ran through our heads. Needless to say, we had a very restless night of sleep.

As we drove to our meeting, we continued to talk about things. We were hopeful, but a little worried that we might not receive a referral. When we arrived at the adoption agency, our social worker wasn't ready to see us, so this added just a little more drama to the situation. We waited quietly but very impatiently. After about 30 minutes, our social worker came out and let us know she was ready to see us. As we sat down in the conference room, she set down a stack of paperwork and a couple of folders. She started by asking us a few questions then handed us paperwork that provided more information about a little boy that was available for adoption. It was hard to contain our emotions. We had been trying to start a family for many years with several sad experiences along the way, but all of it had led us to this one moment in time.

We went through his file, learning about his birth parents, his foster parents, and his medical history. We quickly felt a special connection. Even though we hadn't seen him we were already starting to form a bond with our son. After looking through the paperwork, our social worker asked if we would like to see pictures of him. We both answered yes immediately...we couldn't contain ourselves. As she handed us his pictures, the emotions of love overwhelmed us. This was the first time we were able to see our son. It's a moment we will never forget.

Here's the first picture that we saw. We really love seeing him stick out his tongue! It makes his picture so unique.

He was born in Seoul, South Korea on July 9, 2009. He was born 3 weeks early weighing 5 lbs, 8 oz and was 18.4 inches long. His birth mother named him Han Se-hun. In Korea, the first name is written last. Se-hun means "world merit" and is pronounced "Say-oon". His birth mother gave him his name in hope that he would grow up as a nice person contributing much to society. We feel very fortunate that his birth mother named him. It's common for the birth agency provide a name instead of the birth mother. It's great to know that he will understand how much his birth mother loved him and wished him a wonderful life. We have named him Zachary Holden Se-hun Townsend.

He had his most recent medical exam right before Christmas. He was a little over 5 months old. Everything looked great. He was described as a "cute and chubby baby". He was over 17 lbs and almost 24 inches long.

Yesterday he turned 6 months old. We decided to celebrate by going to our local Korean restaurant. Laura brought her little baby book that has his pictures (she doesn't leave home without it). She shared them with the waitress and owner. They were very happy for us. All of the reactions we've received have been overwhelmingly positive. The support has been amazing!
I'm sure that everybody is wondering when Zachary will come home. Right now we have to complete some additional paperwork. It should take about 4 months for all the loose ends to get tied up before we travel to pick him up. Right now we're hoping to travel by early May which is a great time to visit Korea. While we wait, we'll have plenty of things to do. We need to get his room ready, purchase baby items (stroller, car seat, etc.), baby proof the house, and have a baby shower. We hope that staying busy will help make the time fly by.

On a side note, we have created a photo site (http://zacharytownsend.shutterfly.com/) so that it's easier for everybody to see photos of Zachary. Right now we only have a couple of images. We don't know exactly when the photos were taken, but we believe it was some time in the first month. The images are scans, so the quality isn't very high, but we're happy to have any photos of our little boy. We're hoping that we can get the original images soon so that we can update the site with higher quality images. Also, the adoption agency in South Korea normally takes a picture at about 6 months of age, so we hope to have a more current picture soon.

Now that we have a referral and know what our son looks like, we can't wait to see him in person and bring him home. We're excited to be nearing the end of this part of our adoption journey and starting the next part with Zachary as a part of our family.

Parents in Training

At the end of our last update, I mentioned that we were waiting to hear about a little boy. A few days later, we found out that he had been matched with another family. Because it had been about a month since we first showed interest, it wasn't a huge surprise that we were not his family to be. We were hopeful but realistic. This little boy wasn't meant to be part of our family, but we know that somewhere out there, our child is waiting.

We've been occupying much of our time by attending various parenting classes. Our first class was an infant and toddler child care class on Saturday, October 10th. The adventure actually started a few days prior to the class when we received a call from our social worker letting us know that the Baltimore marathon was going to be run the same day. Our normal route to the adoption agency happened to pass right through the start location of the marathon. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to drive that way, we decided to get up a little earlier and drive around to the north side of the city to bypass the race. Our alternate route worked well. We didn't have any problems getting to our class.

The class was very informative. It was taught by a nurse that is also an adoptive parent. In four hours, she went over an enormous amount of information. The primary topics included:

1. Physical Care (bonding, bathing, diaper changing, and sleeping)
2. Feeding
3. Medical
4. Safety (childproofing and car seats)

The class was an excellent overview of baby care topics with a focus on special challenges we may encounter as adoptive parents. In addition to the information we gathered in the class, we also were fortunate enough to meet a couple that also lives in southern Maryland. The majority of the couples that are adopting from Catholic Charities seem to be from central Maryland. It's nice to know that there is another family that isn't far away from us. They are a nice couple that we look forward to getting to know better.

In addition to our Saturday class, we also decided to take a series of classes covering parenting skills. For 6 consecutive Wednesday evenings, we drove to Baltimore to attend the "Hurricanes to Hugs" classes. We were taught a systematic approach to raising children using a proven parenting style. There was too much information to cover in this blog, but basically the training covered a step-by-step technique that parents can use for child development. The steps are...

1. Empathy (identify feelings, needs, and messages behind a child's words and behaviors)
2. Personal Message (communicate adult's feelings and expectations to the child in respectful and productive manner)
3. Structuring (break down problems into manageable steps, anticipate obstacles, and develop plan to reach goals)
4. Reinforcement (increase desired behavior)
5. Inductive Discipline (guide child's behavior by introducing limits and establishing consequences while explaining rationales that support them)

At first, some of the concepts seemed a little counter intuitive. But as we progressed through the classes, we started to gain a better understanding of the concepts and how to apply them in parenting situations (and other situations in our lives). It's going to take some practice and focus to put the principals into use, but the benefits to our child will be huge.

We know that we are only scratching the surface of what it will take to be great parents. The classes we've taken are just the foundation. We still have much to learn and will be challenged every day as parents, but we look forward to those challenges.

Adoption Rollercoaster

Much has happened in the past month...

Everything started just two days after our last blog update (September 9th). An email was sent from our adoption agency to everybody on the Korean adoption email list. The adoption agency was letting everybody know that there was a little boy waiting for adoption. For those that don't know about the adoption process, this isn't the normal way that the adoption agency notifies adoptive parents of a waiting child. Traditionally, adoptive families are placed on a waiting list that's based on when their paperwork was completed. If the adoptive family is next on the list, the agency will review the file of the waiting child and see if he/she looks like a good match for a waiting family. If everything looks good, the family is notified that they have been matched with a waiting child.

In the case of the email that we received, the little boy was a little older than children normally are from Korea. Because he was older, our adoption agency decided to notify everybody to see who may be interested in adopting the little boy. As you can imagine, we were very excited. At the time, it had been about 2 1/2 months since our paperwork had been sent to Korea. We thought it was going to take close to a year before we were matched with a child. This was an opportunity that we hadn't expected. Laura and I discussed everything we knew about the little boy and decided to let our agency know that we were interested. From then on, we anxiously awaited any news about the little boy.

A few days later (it felt like forever), the adoption agency sent out an email letting everybody know that many, many families had let the adoption agency know that they were interested in trying to adopt the little boy. For us this was happy and sad news. I'm sad to say that from a selfish perspective, it was tough to know that so many other families were interested. This meant that our chances for adopting the little boy were reduced. We've been waiting a long time to start our family (both before and during the adoption process) and it was tough to know that what looked like good news a few days prior wasn't looking quite as good. But from the other perspective, it was happy news to know that so many families wanted to welcome the little boy into their family. We've met so many awesome families on our adoption journey and this just illustrates how much love everybody has to give.

Of the families that expressed interest in adopting the little boy, four were identified as good candidates for adoption. To ensure privacy for the families, the adoption agency didn't release names of the families or additional information about the little boy. We didn't know if we were one of the four families or not. The adoption agency said that they would start by notifying one family at a time. If the family decided that they wanted to proceed with the adoption, that would be the end of the selection process. If the family decided that the match wasn't right for them, the adoption agency would go to the next family on the list. It was very difficult not knowing whether we were one of the families that the adoption agency felt would be a good match for the little boy. One consolation was knowing that our adoption agency is very good about matching the right child with the right family. I certainly don't envy the decisions that they have to make. I know it can't be easy. They do a great job in very difficult situations.

At this point (October 11), we haven't heard if the little boy has been matched with a family. We don't know when more information will be released. It's been tough waiting to hear any additional information. We're not sure if we'll be the family for this little boy or not, but what we do know is that there is a little baby out there that is the perfect match for us. It may happen tomorrow or it may happen months from now, but some time in the future our child will be with us...filling in a missing piece of our family.

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.