Our Story

We formally started our “wild ride” (adoption process) in January 2006.  Jeff and I had talked about it sporadically for 2 years prior.  After losing my Grandmother and Mother (within 1 year of each other) and with our boys getting older and being more interested in having Dad assist them with things, I was feeling somewhat left out.  Jeff and I also knew that we didn’t want to add to the population, so we decided that we would love to adopt a little girl.  We learned that was much easier said than done.  It took us 4 months to complete our home-study; which is a thorough report on EVERYTHING in our lives.  I have learned that if I ever meet anyone who has adopted, they have very clean backgrounds, are very healthy and deemed “acceptable” parents by our government.  During the 4 month home-study process, Jeff and I were focusing on adopting from South Korea, but they abruptly closed their International Adoption process down, so we went with our second choice, which was China.  Because of the over-abundance of abandoned little girls, we felt our daughter was in China.  At the time our home-study was sent to China (June 2006), we expected a 7 month wait till we would get our “referral” (which is a picture of the baby girl China matched to our family and any medical information they had.)  For various reasons, many of them unknown, China has been referring fewer girls every month since early 2006.  By the time March 2007 came around (when we had expected our daughter), we learned it was going to be another 1 year wait.  Jeff and I decided we wanted to continue to wait.  By June of 2007, it was estimated the wait would be another 2-3 years with China stating there were approximately 35,000 families “waiting” for a daughter from China. 

Now Jeff and I had to make a decision because our boys were getting older, we had to consider college tuitions, retirements and being physically able to chase a toddler around when we were over 40!  We decided to look into other countries, where we thought the wait was quicker.  Unfortunately, my agency had a policy that only allowed us to be “waiting” for 1 country at a time as well as our Social Worker (Sara) whom we LOVED, found a new career (in teaching), so we were in limbo during the summer.  After a lot of discussion, we decided we still REALLY wanted a daughter, and we couldn’t afford to start with another adoption agency, so I started to push my temporary social worker.  Luckily I asked the right questions at the right time and we were allowed to sign up with another country.  Now the question was, which one?  I researched Vietnam and S. Korea.  Vietnam was VERY popular at that moment, but I was leery that too many people had left the China line and were waiting for Vietnam, so the line would quickly grow (unfortunately for many families that is what happened, and if we would have made Vietnam our country of choice, we would still be waiting!)  So back to Korea we went, although our (temporary) social worker said there would be an 18 month wait, since I was back on the bottom of the list. :(   Now it is September 2007, and I am tired of waiting, feeling like this is NEVER going to happen and was sent a letter introducing us to our New Social Worker!  So I contacted the Director of my agency and politely expressed my concerns ,or as Jeff likes to say, “I became a squeaky wheel.”  This was the BEST thing I EVER DID!  The director started giving me weekly updates; I started learning more about the Korean program (which is NOT cut and dry like China's), and I started moving up the list.  Luckily for us, the months of paperwork I originally did for China helped us with Korea because my agency started receiving A LOT of babies from Korea.  And most of the families on the Korean list didn’t have all of their paperwork completed.  In October I was told there were 4 families ahead of us who were requesting a baby girl from Korea.  My agency had been receiving 1 girl a month, so I hoped to have a referral in February.  On November 8, 2007 my social worker confirmed (by email so I have it in writingJ) that the soonest she thought we would get a referral would be February 2008.

THEN I GOT THE CALL!!!  On November 12 there was a message on my desk to call Kristin, my social worker.  I called Kristin and she said, “I have some exciting news for you!  We have a baby girl for you!”  And all I could say was “You're kidding me, you have to be kidding me!” and Kristin said, “I would never kid you about this.”  Which of course I knew, I just say that.

I was faxed Min Yeong Jeong’s medical and social information as well as some basic information about her birth parents.  I was able to pick up her picture the next morning at my agency.  I didn’t sleep a wink that night, just thinking and imagining that I would see my future daughter’s picture the next day.  So at 10:30am on Tuesday, November 13, I drove (like crazy) over to the agency and picked up her picture.  What a cutie!  She looked so tall to me in the pictures!  I also felt like her pose in the gold chair said, “Hello… I am waiting for you to pick me up!”  I met Jeff for lunch and outside on the sidewalk showed him our daughter.  What an amazing thing, to have a picture of your child.  It is much different than an ultrasound, because “it’s a picture!”   Then my next stop was the pediatrician’s office.  We needed the medical OK before we made the formal acceptance with our agency.  My pediatrician said her medicals looked great!  Yaw hoo! 

The next night we told the boys.  They had no idea until this point that the adoption was still on.  Unfortunately, time is a mystery to children, and when the adoption wait was taking so long, we told them that maybe we weren’t going to adopt a baby sister.  So we needed to be sure before we told them it was back on.  We made a copy of her picture, put them upside down on the table, and called a family meeting.  Jeff asked if they could guess whose picture was on the other side.  They couldn’t.  So we let them flip over the page, and they both knew right away.  Evan (age 10) REALLY understood.  He just kept repeating, "This is my baby sister, this is my sister.”  Trenton (age 8) had a few more questions, but within 5 minutes wanted to call his best friends and tell them he finally had a sister!  Both boys took her picture to school the next day to show her off.

Our agency said we will now have to wait 3 to 6 months until we can pick her up.  Although once we get the approval to do so, we will only have 10 days notice to get ourselves in Korea.  We had a scare when I called a few airlines and was quoted anywhere from $900.00 to $4700.00 ONE WAY for a plane ticket!  We have never been very lucky at gambling, but have decided to take our chances and pick her up.  The experience of meeting her foster mom (who has had her since she was 1 month old) and being in her country can never be replaced.  To have her escorted to our country would cost $2500.00 ,but she would fly with a stranger from the orphanage, and that I wasn’t comfortable with.

In the last month since I received THE CALL, I had to complete about 50 pages of paperwork (AUGH), have started to move bedrooms around, and we had to get re-fingerprinted.  But my social worker calls weekly (which throws me into a tizzy!) with updates and things are moving along quickly.  She stated just this week (12/10) that we should be prepared to travel as soon as January, but it’s not a definite yet.

So please visit our site periodically because when we are in Korea we will be able to add pages on this website sharing what occurs daily while there as well as pictures (if we can figure it out.)

 

This page hosted by