Heart and Seoul

Ours Forever

2009-12-12T22:17:00.007-06:00

December 11, 2009 is always going to be very special to our little family. It was on that day that we went to the courthouse and finalized Henry's adoption! It was an "adoption" day and we were one of about 18 families finalizing our adoptions together. The courtroom was decorated with balloons and lots of stuffed animals, and since we were the last family to go before the judge, we got to witness many happy families. It was very sweet. Henry was amazingly well-behaved for a 16 month old confined to Daddy's lap for well over an hour. He drew quite a crowd of admirers dressed in his dashing little suit and waving his American and S Korean flags around.

Our son is now officially an American citizen and is named Henry Eun-wu Dalton Jesse. "Henry" comes from James' dad and "Dalton" comes from my grandfather. "Eun-wu" was his Korean name given to him by his birthmother. The last 5 1/2 months have brought about so many changes, amazing joy, and challenges. We feel so fortunate to have Henry forever.

So Thankful

2009-11-28T21:13:00.000-06:00

I am so thankful this year. I have the baby that I've dreamed about for years and years right here in my arms. It still doesn't seem real to me sometimes, even though on Monday he will have been with us for 5 months. I have a wonderful husband who has been my very best friend for the past 13 years. I have my mother, who has many life-threatening health conditions and has been hospitalized most of the past month. I don't know what I'd do without her. I have my grandpa, who along with my sweet grandma, raised me from the time I was 5 years old. He is in a nursing home now and has a failing body and mind, but it warms my heart to go see him. I have my grandma, who went to be with the Lord recently, but she'll always be in my heart. I have a job doing what I love, and even though I'm dreading going back on Monday and leaving Henry, I know that it's what I must do for our family right now. Things haven't been perfect lately, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the stress and recent changes, but I'm so thankful for what I have~~I'm richly blessed.

Henry brag!

2009-11-12T01:19:00.005-06:00

We have all finally recovered from the flu, though our house hasn't. I'm still trying to catch up on the housework that I fell very behind on during that time. I don't know what's going to happen when I go back to work in a couple of weeks! Speaking of that, I am so grateful for the time I've gotten to spend with Henry. By the time I return to work, he will have spent 5 months at home with me. Of course, some of that time was summer, so I didn't have to take those days off work. I know that some don't understand why I chose to take such a long leave from teaching, but honestly, this time was very much necessary for attachment between us. I'm sad that our time together at home is nearly up, but also thrilled that I was able to do this for him. I'm sure there will be future posts about my struggle to leave him everyday in someone else's care.

I think it's time for a Henry brag! There hasn't been one in awhile and he's been making a lot of progress, so it's time! First of all, I took him to the pediatrician yesterday and found out that he weighs 26 lbs 14 oz and is 32 inches tall. That is 75th percentile for both height and weight! The doctor called him a "big, healthy boy" and remarked at how "busy" Henry was. Henry is absolutely obsessed with eating, so I was worried that he was gaining too much weight, but actually he only put on 1 lb in the last 3 months. No worries.
Our ped. encouraged us to wean Henry cold turkey from all bottles. We kept him on the bottle a bit longer for bonding, but I agree it's time. He has gone a day and a half so far without one. He's doing well so far! I expected a much bigger fight from him about this, but he's surprising us. We are also switching him from 2 naps a day to one afternoon nap. He's also doing well with this. My baby boy isn't really a "baby" anymore (sniff, sniff).

Here are the words Henry can say:
Mom "mooomm"
Daddy "dad-gee"
bottle "bah-mmm"
dog
*He repeats lots of things we say but doesn't frequently use those words on his own (such as fan, snack, ball)

Here are the words Henry can sign:
more
please
thank you
hungry
thirsty
finished
milk
bath
brush teeth
night-night
goodbye
mama
dog (for this sign you snap your fingers as if calling a dog---Henry can't snap his fingers but he makes a motion with his hand and clicks his tongue for the "snapping" noise. So cute!!

So between speaking and sign language Henry has a good vocabulary! He definitely knows how to tell us what he wants! He picks up things so quickly. He's such a smart boy, which is funny because some of his adoption paperwork from Korea called him "clever looking." Being a teacher, I am thrilled that he loves books as much as he does. I read to him every night before bed, which is my favorite sweet-time during the day. Our house is overrun with his toys but I think if he had only a couple of books he'd be pretty happy. Oh, and the dog's toys---he loves those most of all.

His latest thing is that he is starting to climb up on things. He learned to climb up on our leather ottoman first, then the couch, and now he's trying to climb into the bathtub! YIKES! I've taken him to the playground several times to encourage him to climb there, but he's still pretty unsure about it. At our last visit, I spent a lot of time trying to get him to climb on the equipment, but he spent it picking up leaves and handing them to me. I know I shouldn't rush it because soon enough I'll be chasing him all over the playground, and wishing he'd slow down!

My last brag for now is about how sweet he is. He gives us kisses and hugs all the time. Some are encouraged by us, but many are just of his own accord. The kisses are these great, wet, open-mouthed ones that just melt my heart. He is very strong willed and has been throwing quite a few tantrums lately when we say the awful word "no." Next time he's on the floor screaming I'll just have to remember those sweet little kisses.

Just a few fun pictures:

He loves dumping all the toys out of these bins and sitting in them.

We've had this wooden toy grocery store for years in storage, but we assembled it and put it out when we were suffering from the flu, and Henry was bored from staying indoors so much. It's huge, but...

Henry loves it!! It's almost worth the annoyance of having plastic groceries scattered around our living room all the time.

Fall Fun---lots of pictures!

2009-11-04T09:56:00.001-06:00

The title of this post is a bit ironic because at the moment fall is anything but fun around here. We have all had the swine flu. Henry had it first, and was horribly sick. Of course just as he began to feel much better James and I came down with it. It is ridiculously difficult for there to be two sick parents and have a little one who is going stir crazy from not leaving the house. Let's just say that our house is a disaster and we are just barely making it. This too shall pass, right?

I want to share some cute fall pictures. The first set is from our trip to Hall's Pumpkin Farm a few weeks ago.

This next set of pictures is from our trip to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. Henry thought it was a blast to just wander around among nature. We definitely need to take another trip there once we are all well. The pictures turned out a bit dark because we were taking them at dusk.

And, finally, the last set of pictures is from Halloween. Henry had been really sick a couple days beforehand, but by that night he was feeling quite a bit better so we decided to take him trick-or-treating at a mall because I couldn't stand for him to miss out on his first Halloween! He really seemed to enjoy it. He didn't seem to mind his ninja costume one bit, and he was fascinated with looking at all of the other kids in costume.

Henry has been home now 4 months and he just turned 15 months old. Things are definitely getting better, but we still have our unexplained rough patches (such as today---he's screamed and tantrumed since he woke up). We plan on taking him to see an international adoption pediatrician just to make sure that everything is ok attachment-wise. Henry is so smart and full of personality. We are constantly amazed by some of the clever things he does. More about that on the next post. Right now, I am a tired, sick mommy who has a little boy who needs me!

Off to Grandmother's house we went...

2009-10-28T13:55:00.001-05:00

We took our first out of town trip recently to visit James' mom and stepdad (Granny and Big Pa to Henry). It was a 4+ hour car trip with a toddler and two poodles--in the middle of mating season, no less--but it went amazingly well. Henry slept a huge chunk of the trip there and was content the rest of the time. Once there, we had a great visit with Granny and Big Pa. Henry warmed up to them right away and made himself at home in their house. He spent much of his time happily taking groceries off of a shelf in their kitchen and rearranging them throughout the house. He was particularly fond of a small bottle of a canjun concoction called "Shrimp and Crab Boil." We visited and watched Henry carry on this way for hours. It's funny how having a kid can become a sole source of entertainment!

Henry and Granny bonding

Henry checking out Big Pa

Henry and the beloved, infamous Shrimp and Crab Boil

Granny successfully wooed Henry with some of her famous homemade cookies that we've been missing. It was pretty much pure love between them after that! It was so precious to watch them bond. As an adoptive mother, I was initally worried that family members wouldn't love him as much as we would. Of course, everyone is crazy about him! I love nothing more than to see how excited everyone is to spend time with him.

While there, we spent an afternoon outlet shopping and spending time with Henry's great Aunt Iris. Aunt Iris is hearing impaired and has inspired us to teach Henry sign language. He's doing really well with it!

Henry, Granny, and Aunt Iris

One of the few pictures of the 3 of us

The rest of the trip was wonderful, and it actually flew by too quickly. The only rough spot we had was on the trip home. Henry was tired and out of his element. He fussed a lot of the way home, so we stopped at a roadside picnic spot to give him a snack. He did well until he fell flat on his face on some rocks. That gave him a giant scratch/bruise on his cheek, which is actually still there 10 days later.

When Henry met Zoey

2009-10-22T12:35:00.005-05:00

This last weekend we took our first out-of-town trip to visit James' mom and stepfather. (More about that trip in a separate post later). While we were there, we met up with one of my online Holt bulletin board friends, Kim, her husband Danny, and her adorable kids Braedan and Zoey. Sweet little Zoey joined their family last April from S. Korea, and is the same age as Henry. Kim is an adoptee from S Korea as well. They graciously invited us to their home for a homemade Korean dinner and a playdate for the kiddos. The food rocked--Henry was a big fan too! It was wonderful to get together and share info about the adoption experience with each other. I'm blessed to have them as our new friends!

One cute thing that happened as we were leaving was that we encouraged Henry to give his new friend Zoey a kiss. He leaned in to plant one on her, but she blocked him with her hands. Ah, his first kiss rejection from a girl.

This picture was nearly impossible to capture with two tired toddlers.

The babies enjoying their dinner.

I believe Braedan was being a transformer in the background.

There Henry is making that funny squishy face again.

Zoey was hamming it up for the camera!

So cute! I definitely need to remove the price tag from the bottom of his shoe, though.

Please bear with me---I am terribly behind on blogging. I have several things I want to write about, but little time to do so. A few of my upcoming posts will not necessarily be in chronological order.

I just realized that I didn't write about an important event from a couple of weeks ago! We were blessed to be invited to dinner with several more adoptive families with Korean kids who I've been chatting with on the Holt bulletin boards also. It was a wonderful experience to meet with others who have been down that same road we are on. Plus, it was super cute to see all of our adorable kids together. I was a little astonished to discover that Henry was the same size or bigger than the 2 year olds who were there!!

Here is a cute picture of some of us who were there that night:

(from the left)MaryAnn and Rai, Mary and Henry, Melissa and Briana, Marni and Zach

It is very important to me to maintain ties with other Korean adoptive families so that Henry can have friends as he gets older who share his cultural heritage and the adoption experience.

Two playground trips

2009-10-20T12:55:00.002-05:00

All summer I had been very eager to take Henry to a playground, but with the super hot Texas heat, we had to wait for cooler temperatures before we could go. We finally made it to a playground recently. I put Henry in a toddler swing and he loved it. Unfortunately, we were only there a few minutes before a mentally ill homeless man started harrassing us. He was yelling at me from a distance away and saying how sexy I was. I turned my back on him and was determined not to let him spoil our outing. Then he yelled at Henry and said he was as sexy as his momma and proceeded to pee on a tree. You can believe that we got out of there quickly at that point, and a phone call to the police was made. Here are the cute pictures I took before the creepy man showed up.

For some reason he was really excited to find this stick on the playground.

After that bummer of a playground trip, I decided that we just had to give it another try. It had been raining a lot recently, but I didn't let that deter my plans. I took Henry to the small playground at our apartment complex. It was muddy and wet, but I helped Henry climb and slide on the equipment. And, contrary to my personal loathing of getting stains on clothes, I allowed Henry to fully get messy. I accidentally left my camera in the apartment, so I only captured a few post-playing messy photos. Honestly, I don't think Henry enjoyed the dirt. He kept trying to wipe it off....a boy after my own heart.

Cute little shoes! This was probably the last time he'll wear them because they are now too small. We just had to buy a new pair of Stride Rite's to replace them--size 6 extra wide!!!

1st Haircut

2009-10-13T12:42:00.001-05:00

It was time. Henry had a few really long first baby hairs that were out of control, and he was starting to look a little shaggy. We decided on a whim to take him to one of those hair cutting places for kids--you know the ones---they had chairs shaped like cars, TVs everywhere, and odd (but yummy) cookie dough scented hair gel. Also, the entire place was decorated much like The Max, the cool hangout of the Saved By the Bell kids. It was a little bizarre and fun.

I wanted Henry to have a faux hawk (the sterotypical Asian cool-boy hairdo thanks to Angelina's little Maddox), but his overall lack of hair growth prevented it. Poor kiddo--he has the same hairline as his balding daddy. Hopefully we'll see some more hair coming soon. Anyway, he ended up with just a shorter, trimmed up haircut with the hair on top a tad bit longer. I've been putting a dab of gel in it and spiking up the middle portion a bit. Not a faux hawk, but very cute. He seems to enjoy all this new hair grooming. He likes to brush and comb his hair lately and also gets excited when he sees the gel bottle coming (in keeping with the late 80's-early 90's vibe, we use Dep, of course!).

Pre-haircut with Daddy

This is the point during the haircut when we had to

resort to giving him a cell phone to play with.

It ended up shorter than this on top, but I

thought he looked so cute this way.

The end result. Is it just me, or does he look underwhelmed?

Good side view. Overall, pretty cute!

Spaghetti beast

2009-10-05T13:17:00.002-05:00

Here is our little spaghetti beast enjoying his dinner. He cracks us up so much when he's eating!

And here is the aftermath of his spaghetti attack! (Pay no attention to the America's Next Top Model music in the background).

Home 3 Months and Some Important Truths

2009-09-30T11:44:00.007-05:00

Our Henry has been home now 3 months. I still look at him in amazement that he's mine and he's here to stay! Instead of making this post a gush about how much we love him and bragging about all of his accomplishments, I feel called to share some truths about how our past 3 months have been. Many people outside of the realm of adoption do not understand the challenges that adopted children face. Very few of the people I am close to and interact with frequently have any idea about attachment and loss in adopted children. So here is our story:

The day we brought Henry home was the happiest day of our lives. We were thrilled beyond measure and couldn't believe that the day we had waited so long for had finally arrived. Day 2 is a little different story. We are overwhelmed and exhausted....still happy....but reality is setting in. Day 3 has me in tears right along with Henry and wondering if we've made a mistake. We trudge along this way for the first month. We slept very little and had to figure everything out. Before you think, "Oh, that's similar to how it would be with a newborn," please consider that our 25 lb. 11 month old was NO newborn! Think of his life until he got to us: He was placed in a loving foster home at 8 days old and remained with that same family for 11 months. They cared for all of his needs and provided him with the love and stability that most orphans do not get. To him, he HAD a mother--a kind Korean woman who has fostered children for the past 11 years. Her voice, her smell, her touch were all familar and comforting to him. Imagine what he's lost--his family, possessions, routine, familiar surroundings, even his language!

Needless to say, these losses have been traumatic to Henry. During the past 3 months Henry has been learning to trust us. We won him over quickly in the beginning (as he won us over!), but his sense of safety was very much shaken when he left his Korean foster family. In those early weeks we were together, he grieved at night for his other family--sobbing and screaming in his sleep. We got past that, but then he started acting out with temper tantrums. Things would get better, but changes seem to send Henry back into his stressed out state. For example, following the move from our house, he became very clingy and stopped sleeping well. Just as we get him settled and secure here in his new surroundings, he loses ground yet again when we leave him in a church nursery for an hour without us 2 weeks in a row. Even leaving him with James while I go elsewhere upsets him. This Monday evening I had to go help out my mom and James stayed here to give Henry his bottle and put him to bed like always. Henry, however, cried much of that night and was extremely clingy to me yesterday and acted out all day with temper tantrums and even hitting me. Today he was back to his usual silly, sweet self.

Honestly, looking back, I realize that I also had problems. I was overwhelmed, tired, and very stressed with my huge new responsibility. I didn't talk much about it because I felt inadequate as a mother. After all, what kind of mother sobs right along with her baby or gets so frustrated that she has to literally leave the room to protect the safety of her child? Tremendous guilt comes along with these feelings, and I didn't want anyone's help because that would amount to me admitting I needed it!

At the 3 month mark, we have all come a long way. He still has quite a long way to go before we can say he's completely happily attached to us, but I know that he will get there in his own time. I'm getting better too. Talking about it helps, especially to adoptive parents who know exactly what we've been through. This has been the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's also been the most wonderful. I love Henry Eun-wu more than I can put into words, and I'm so grateful that God gave me the awesome task of being his forever mommy!

Toothies

2009-09-25T09:59:00.001-05:00

Henry has a new favorite thing--brushing his teeth! No doubt that it has something to do with the special sweet toddler toothpaste, but I'll take it! When we park him on the bathroom counter and the toothbrush ready he gets very excited and opens up really wide for us.

I just think he's the cutest thing ever!

A Trip to the Hospital

2009-09-19T23:01:00.002-05:00

It has been a rough week for us! Henry went to Cook Children's Hospital on Wednesday to have his ABR hearing test and CT scan of his auditory canal performed. Because of the duration of these tests, he had to undergo general anesthesia and be intubated. In retrospect, I was more nervous about all of this than I realized at the time. He could not eat or drink (except water or juice) all that morning, which for a little eater like Henry was torture! My mom went with us to the hospital and we arrived at 11:00, and waited around until 3:00 when they were ready to start his tests. You can imagine what state he was in by 3:00, not having eaten or napped like he usually does. I was feeling very frustrated trying to keep him entertained in the small pre-anesthesia room. By the time they came to get him, I was DONE (and so was he). However, all of my frustrations melted away when I saw my sweet baby boy on the table being put to sleep. Even though he wasn't having surgery or anything invasive done, I was still emotional about the situation. He did great, though! I expected him to wake up screaming, but he was sweetly drinking a bottle of apple juice when I saw him in recovery. I held my wobbly boy as they took out his IV and gushed over how cute he is.

On Friday, we went back to the ENT to discuss the results of the hearing test and CT scan. The news is very good!! Henry has normal hearing on his left side (the unaffected ear)...good hearing actually! There is no way to know what he's really hearing on his right side since the canal is completely closed, but the potential to hear is there. The audiologist compared it to having an ear plug. Probably some sound is getting through now, but not much. The doctor said that the CT scan shows that Henry is a good candidate for the surgery to create an ear canal so that he can use his right ear. He will have that surgery when he is around 4 or 5, depending on his size and development. Also, around then, he will have reconstructive ear surgery with a plastic surgeon. The ENT we go to is in a partnership with a facial plastic surgeon and they will collaborate on the surgeries. We will have our first appointment with the plastic surgeon next month to get an idea of what Henry's future surgery plan will be.

Our ENT does still recommend that Henry wear a hearing aid on his right side, despite having normal hearing in one ear. Both he and the audiologist explained that the main importance of having 2 functioning ears is to locate where sound is coming from and being able to distinguish conversation from background noise. He said that Henry would not have to wear the hearing aid all of the time-- just during important learning situations or when we are in noisy places. I will say that I've noticed that I have to make Henry look at me to get his attention in a loud place.

How does a kid who has no ear canal and a misshapen outer ear wear a hearing aid, you might wonder? Well, he will wear a hearing aid that conducts sound through the bone on a nifty little headband, that's how! Soon, we will be headed back to Cook Children's to get one of these Baha hearing aids on a headband. http://products.cochlearamericas.com/baha/baha-sound-processors-and-implants/baha-for-children Don't worry. There are several headband colors. Henry will not be stuck with a pink one! Once Henry has his ear canal surgery, he should not have to wear a hearing aid ever again.

Here are some cute pictures to make up for all of the reading you just did!

Waiting to see the doctor. He looks like he's ready for a fight!

Too bad this is a bit blurry. He looks so cute all dressed up for church!

I love this one! He looks like such a big boy!

Relaxin'

This is his new favorite face to make. It's like he's trying to smell his upper lip. (shaking head)

Absolutely precious.

Tickled

2009-09-14T07:09:00.002-05:00

Henry is very ticklish, though sometimes the mood strikes him more than others. The first person to discover this about him was his PawPaw, who was holding and playing with Henry only a few days after his arrival. It was so sweet to see Henry open up and be so trusting with his new grandpa! Ever since that day, we have tried to play with Henry and get him to do those adorable deep belly laughs. I finally had the video camera charged up and ready so that I could capture it and share it. Make sure you have your sound turned up!

Big changes

2009-09-04T16:35:00.003-05:00

I admittedly have gotten behind on blogging. There has been a lot going on lately! First of all, we moved this past weekend. In a last minute decision, we chose NOT to buy the new construction home I last wrote about. Honestly, looking back, I'm glad we didn't. We were just making a fast decision because we had to be out of our house so quickly. That house just never felt "right" to us. We are currently living in a nice apartment. The main downside of this is that we will now have to move yet again, which is something I do NOT look forward to. This move was difficult with Henry. The change has made him clingy and unsure of himself again. The night before we moved, James and I stayed up late to pack. By the time we finally made it to bed, we were zonked. Henry, however, spent most of that night waking every hour and wailing. It was horrible. Fortunately, we are slowly getting back into our routine and things are looking up again.

Henry has been to the doctor three times in the last two weeks. The first was an appointment with a regular pediatrician just to get established and have a check-up. His doctor said he's really healthy and doing very well developmentally. He is in the 85th percentile for his height and the 80th percentile for weight! Later that week we went to an ENT doctor for his ear atresia. That doctor examined him and then admitted that he wasn't the right doctor for Henry. He referred us to another ENT who specializes in ear disorders. We saw that doctor yesterday. He had a lot of interesting information for us. First of all, Henry will need to undergo an ABR hearing test (auditory brainstem response) to find out what level of hearing he has. He had this done as a newborn in Korea, and it showed hearing loss in both ears, however we have been told that the results can change over time. We do know that Henry can hear on some level since he is talking and repeats words/sounds that we make. The same day they perform the ABR, they will do a CT scan of his head to check out the formation of his inner ear on the right side. It will help determine if he is a candidate for surgery later on to open up his ear canal. He will have to be sedated for these two procedures, which is why they will do them on the same day. Also, the doctor talked to us about Henry needing to wear a hearing aid on the ear that is affected by the atresia. The doctor explained that it will help Henry's language development immensely. He placed a hearing aid on Henry just to try out. It was amazing to watch Henry's face as he was hearing out of both ears for the first time! Down the road, Henry will also have plastic surgery on this ear to make it look more like it should. I feel sad that my little man will have to go through so much, but I know that he is blessed to be with a family that can provide him with the treatments he needs.

Here are some new things about Henry:

*He calls me "Mom." We taught him to say "mama" but he decided that I'm Mom instead! It's the cutest thing ever to hear him say it. When he's sad, he wails "mooooooom".

*He learned how to say "more" in sign language. He not only signs it when he's hungry, but he says "mo". Or, if you are feeding him something really yummy like chocolate pie in a restaurant, then he'll shout "MO" at the top of his lungs over and over.

*Henry is learning animal sounds. He roars like a tiger, moos like a cow, and we're working on barking like a dog and hissing like a snake.

*He will kiss you on the lips if you ask for a kiss.

*He's really ticklish and will let out a deep belly laugh when Daddy tickles him. We are trying to capture it on video.

*His language is really blossoming all of the sudden. For the first time in 2 months, I can say now that he's understanding some things we say. Until now, he was just repeating words, but lately he is developing understanding of what those words are. For example, I asked yesterday if he wanted his bottle and he toddled to the kitchen and stood by the fridge waiting for one!

Looking at a magazine while waiting to see the doctor.

He loves bath time!

We've been working on teaching him "nice touches" with the doggies.

Silly monkey

2009-08-16T17:46:00.002-05:00

We have been having a lot of fun being silly with Henry lately. Here are some fun pictures.

Our little monkey jumping on the couch.

Trying out a lemon for the first time. He actually liked it and wanted more!

This is a Jessica Simpson hairpiece we stuck on him at TJ Maxx. Doesn't it look like a hilarious baby wig? She might want to remarket them for this purpose.

Enough!!

James gave the hairpiece a try too. Yes, people stared at us.

Coming...

and going!

Henry is really doing great!! Our biggest brag about him is how well he's sleeping. He takes 2 naps (about 1 1/2 to 2 hours each) during the day, and he has been sleeping through the night for the last 3-4 weeks. There have been nights here and there during that time when he would briefly wake and fuss a little bit, and one night of really sad grieving/sobbing when he got a little overwhelmed around his birthday. Otherwise, he has done very well! He's definitely a good sleeper (in addition to being a good eater!). I'm so grateful for the sleep I've been getting.

My next brag about him is how well he's walking! He was cruising furniture when he came home 6 weeks ago, and he began taking some independent steps very soon after that. However, in the last few days, he's really gotten confident about it and has really taken off! Even the pictures above where he's walking holding on to James don't reflect his current walking ability. Even though those are recent pictures, he has already surpassed the desire to hang on with every step. He has already figured out that he can go really fast if he wants to. Oh boy...

Our big thing coming up is our move to the new house (literally brand new!) next week. We really haven't started packing yet, and I know it's going to be challenging to do so with Henry.
I'm a little worried about how he'll do with the transition to the new house, but I know overall it will be better for us. I'm excited about him having a safe outdoor play area, and I'm excited about me having a large wonderful bathtub!

Henry is one!!

2009-08-04T10:39:00.001-05:00

Henry's Tol was Saturday and it went really well. We decided to continue with our monkey theme for the party because James really wanted to make a special monkey cake for Henry. Fortunately we had several family members at our house the morning before the party. I know we couldn't have gotten it all done without them! It is traditional for a Tol party to have towers on the table made out of special rice cakes. We couldn't find any premade ones at the Korean market and decided it was best if we just made ours out of sandwich cookies instead. My mom and sister-in-law Debi patiently stacked the cookies for us. We served banana pudding to go with the monkey theme, and we also served goon mandu (Korean fried dumplings) with a homemade dipping sauce. Yum!

James gave Henry a large piece of his cake (it was an entire ear from the monkey), and that kid chowed down! He shoveled it in with obvious joy and ate every bite. There was mass destruction of both his party clothes and the high chair afterwards. My camera battery died just as he was getting super messy. When he had devoured every bit of cake, we took him and wiped him down with nearly a pack of baby wipes and then changed him into his hanbok. Oh, and he spit up quite a bit in the process, which wasn't surprising in the least.

Then we took him back to his guests so that he could perform the toljabee, which is where there are symbolic objects set in front of the baby for him to pick from. In this tradition, Koreans believe that the first object a baby picks will represent what he will become as an adult. The baby then selects another object and that has a secondary influence on the baby. We set the following items in front of Henry: 100 dollar bill (wealth), bow and arrow (brave/warrior), spool of thread (long life), cell phone (technology), baseball (athlete), book (scholar), Korean rice stick (wealth...yes, we had two money representations!). He immediately went right for the baseball and in that process grabbed the 100 dollar bill too. We decided he got the money by accident and let him chose something else. Not surprisingly he went for the rice stick. He is a little eater! So...it seems we have an athlete who will be quite wealthy (picked money twice!). I guess Daddy should start sharpening those athletic skills.

Following the toljabee it was time for presents, and believe me---there were GOBS of them! Gift bags, tissue paper, and toys were everywhere. Henry got so many fun things to play with.

Henry likes his cousin Coby (and the Wii too!).

His grandma gave him this. Very fun! Love the drooly shirt.

It turned out to be wonderful. Henry was on his best, cutest behavior and seemed to really enjoy having so much fuss made over him. It was wonderful sharing his special celebration with so many close family and friends!

I also want to add that we sold our house!! After going back and forth several times following the buyer's inspection, it's finally official! They close on Aug. 26, so we are trying to quickly make decisions about where we are going to live. I also am about to set my classroom up for this year (even though I'll take FMLA leave until November). Setting up my classroom involves lots of unpacking and preparation, which is really stressful when combined with the packing/moving to a new house. More to come about all of this on a later post.

First post-placement visit

2009-07-26T08:04:00.001-05:00

We had our first post-placement visit with our social worker Saturday. Henry had an upset tummy, a shorter than normal nap, and was very fussy all day so we were a little concerned for how it would go. Fortunately, after some initial fussiness, he did very well. He was cruising around the furniture and even smiling at her. Then he charmed her by blowing a kiss, and that pretty much sealed the deal! Thank goodness he saved up his HUGE meltdown for a short while later as we were in the car coming home from the party supply store. Oh yeah...my kid is about to turn 1!!! We are having a Tol party for him next weekend, which is the traditional Korean 1st birthday celebration. You can learn more about it here: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/culture/tol/tol.cfm

I've had several people ask me about this lately, so I think I should explain that we have not adopted Henry yet. Korea allows families to finalize the adoptions in the US 6 months after receiving the child. In the meantime, however, we are required to have 3 post-placement visits with a social worker and complete monthly reports on his development/progress. At the end of 6 months we will go to a judge here and then Henry will "officially" become a Jesse!

Here are some new pictures of our little man:

Blowing kisses--the cutest thing ever!!

I took him to Barnes and Noble and let him play with the train set.

He was very excited about the books there too. Yay!

Mommy forcing some smooches upon him.

We took him to our favorite Korean restaurant for the first time and he loved the rice and Miso soup!

Doesn't he look like a man in that pose?

A Trip to Daddy's Office and......He has a head made for hats Part II

2009-07-16T10:25:00.001-05:00

Henry has been home 2 weeks now! He is learning to trust us more and more each day. We are working hard to create a structured daily routine to help him adjust and feel secure. He has been sleeping better lately at night, though we have had a few rough nights recently. I dread those nights when he doesn't sleep well because he is an absolute cranky-pants all the next day.

He's such a silly, fun boy who loves to play. He is very close to walking--he'll take 8-10 steps by himself before plopping down. I know that there'll be no stopping him once he gets going because he is very active!

I also think it's great that he loves to go out. He seems to get bored at home and really likes when we go for a walk, a trip to the mall, etc. I'm glad about that because I like to get out and do things too. Yesterday we went to visit Daddy at his office. Henry got to play with Daddy's computer keyboard and mouse, which, I can assure you are some of his favorite things!

Doesn't he look handsome in hats?? Amazingly, there is still ONE more hat that he hasn't worn. I admittedly went a little crazy when shopping for him!

Why mealtimes require extra supervision around here

2009-07-12T07:55:00.001-05:00

What can I say? Our poodle Rocky loves the baby for this reason only. Henry doesn't mind sharing with him one bit. By the way, Henry's first real word was "doggie." He says "mama" and "dada" but he mixes us up. "Doggie" is very much intended because he shouts it (in a slurred baby way) whenever he wakes up and sees them.

By the way, please ignore Rocky's glowing red eyes. He's not possessed....I promise.

He has a head made for hats!

2009-07-09T07:50:00.001-05:00

The past couple of days James and I have been delighting in a new kind of baby torture (according to Henry). We love sticking hats on his cute little head!! I must say that he looks quite dashing in them. He disagrees. He will initially allow us to put them on him, but he promptly yanks them right back off. It's funny, but we actually have 3 more hats that he's never worn. Those pictures will be coming!

We have a ridiculously small little above the ground pool in our backyard that we bought just for him. We also bought a neat little baby float that has a shade over it. We decided to try it all out yesterday. At first he had this reaction:

We think that his little cry face is so cute.

Then after a bit, he felt more like this:

Not exactly happy, but at least not mad either. Perhaps after a few more tries he'll grow to love it. That's what happened with bath time---he absolutely hated it at first, but now it's one of his favorite things (though I think that eating will always be #1).
On a sad note, Henry went through a rough time Tuesday night, which was exactly 1 week from coming home. He woke up around 2:30 am crying his head off. This wasn't his usual crying. It was wild, uncontrollable screaming for about 20 minutes. He was resisting our comforting him as well. Even though he's not really talking yet, he was trying to say something over and over. It was the most horrible thing to watch him go through. This grieving is a normal (though extremely difficult) part of the process. If you think of this past week from his perspective, then it's amazing that he's done so well! Last night, our sweet boy slept through the entire night without waking once. It's the first time he's done that with us.

Fourth of July Weekend

2009-07-06T18:09:00.001-05:00

Our little Korean-American on the 4th of July.

It's nearly been a week since Henry joined our family, but the time has really flown by! He's such a true blessing to us. We are falling more and more in love with him each day. He's still not sleeping well, but I think we are getting accustomed to a certain level of constant exhaustion. We have switched him from our bed to the Pack and Play in our bedroom. We all seem to sleep a little better that way. Eventually we will work up to him sleeping in his beautiful new crib, but we aren't going to push it for now.

Henry passed out from exhaustion.

Good news! He has decided that he loves taking a bath now! Yipee! The past 3 days he has played happily in the tub. Bathtime is no longer dreaded. However, this boy really hates diaper changes/putting on clothes. We have tried playing with him during it, but it just makes him crankier.

Henry in his cute little diapers and monster jammies.

On Sunday we went to visit some our family who had not met Henry yet. He got to meet his great-grandparents in the nursing home, his great-aunt Marcia and great-uncle Mike, his great-aunt Meemo, and his PawPaw. He charmed everyone with his cuteness, of course. He made a special bond with his PawPaw, eagerly sitting in his lap (he hasn't wanted to do that with anyone else) for quite a long time. It was so sweet to see that!

Henry with his Pawpaw and his favorite toy...a cell phone.

Well, this is all I have time for. I will, of course, continue to brag about my adorable baby....when I have time. :)

This is Henry with his new teether. It vibrates. Muy delicioso.

Finally...pictures!

2009-07-03T15:23:00.003-05:00

Our family waiting at the airport with us...

The moment we first saw Henry through the glass...

The first time he was in our arms...

After we got home...

Bonding with Mommy in his room...

Exploring his toys...

Trying out the sippy cup...

Looking awfully cute with those big cheeks...

Knocked out after a long night...

He's here!!!

2009-07-02T16:29:00.001-05:00

I'm going to have to cut back on my usual ramblings today because I'm fighting some serious exhaustion. Also, I only have a very small window of time before Henry wakes up.

Picking him up at the airport Tuesday night was wonderful!! It really couldn't have gone any better. He went right into my arms without tears and was just looking around at everyone for the longest time. Just before we left the airport, he began to laugh, smile, and play pat-a-cake. It was so cute!

Here are some quick things that I've learned about our new son:

He LOVES to eat! His escort told us several times that he ate a lot. Anytime he sees food he gets really, really excited.
He hates to be strapped into things (carseat, stroller, highchair).
He quickly became fascinated with the doggies and wants to play ball with Rocky all of the time.
He hates taking a bath...with a passion.
He quickly attached himself to me and won't really let me out of his sight. It's very sweet, but also sad too, because it shows how scared he is.
He really likes having his picture taken. Our family was his personal paparazzi on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and he really hammed it up!
He is having a hard time sleeping at night. He tosses, kicks, flips around, etc. most of the night. He is sleeping in our bed with us because that is the usual way families sleep in Korea. Thus, we are really not getting much sleep either. I know that he's also jet lagged, so that's a big factor too.

***Okay, this post has been on our computer for 24 hrs, and since it doesn't look like Mary is going to have time to finish it, I'm going to submit it for her.

Things have been going well. We are very tired, but very happy. We have lots of pics and video, and when we have time, we'll put them up on the blog.

Today's the day

2009-06-30T10:53:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe we will meet our baby in a few hours! His plane just made it from S Korea and landed at the San Francisco International Airport where he and his escort are likely going through customs at this very moment. Then they will fly to Denver and finally be on their way here! It still seems very surreal to me. James and I have spent the last few days relaxing, shopping for last minute things we need, and imagining what it will be like! Ironically, this morning we discovered that we had an email from Holt, and it was his June "well-baby" report. It's so funny to receive one now because during our 4 month wait, those reports were our lifeline to him, and now we are finally going to meet him!

Here are some updates from the report:
He weighs 23.1 lbs (75th percentile!)
He is 29.5 in tall (25th percentile, so he's on the short, chubby side!)
He has 6 teeth (3 on top and 3 on the bottom)
He pulls to standing position, stands alone, and walks holding on to furniture.
He has good fine motor skills.
He waves bye-bye and plays peek-a-boo.
He prefers his foster mother.
He babbles.
He was assessed to be right on target at an 11 month developmental age.

We cannot wait to meet him and discover everything about him. More to come later!

Tuesday, June 30, is a VERY special day!!

2009-06-24T21:54:00.001-05:00

I doubt there's anyone left in America who hasn't heard our news, but I am so very, very happy to announce that Henry Eun-wu Jesse will come home to his family next Tuesday, June 30. The plane will land at DFW airport at 10:05 pm. I was so struck with happiness when I got the call this morning that I began sobbing and jumping around excitedly immediately upon hanging up. I think I terrified our dogs, but I just couldn't help it. James and I celebrated tonight by going to our favorite Korean restaurant. Bulgogi never tasted so good.

Nursery 2.0

2009-06-22T09:39:00.001-05:00

James and I had a busy week last week and an even busier weekend. Our niece Jenny, who will be a senior in high school in the fall, was visiting and helped us out a lot with preparing our house to be put on the market. We scrubbed all of the little nooks and crannies and have packed and stored about half of our belongings. It feels good to finally see the "For Sale" sign in the front yard, even though I'm still sad about leaving.

After we tirelessly worked on the house, we decided to finish up the little details of Henry's nursery that we were too busy and tired to previously complete. Jenny sanded down the dresser in Henry's room all by herself so that we could repaint it with brown and green stripes. The finish on it previously was a dingy, nasty shellacked sort of paint job that we've hated ever since we bought the dresser 5 years ago at the antique store. Here's what it looks like now...

We also added this big comfy chair from Ikea so that we could sit and cuddle him as we read to him at night. I love that it was very affordable and has a machine washable slipcover that can be replaced for less than $30!

Here is a close up of the crib skirt and fitted sheet that my sweet mother-in-law made for Henry's crib. She's still working on the bumper pad and quilt that will tie it all together. We love it and think that she did a great job!

James was carefully hanging Henry's name letters on the wall on Father's Day. It's cute how much he wants him to come home too---just as much as I do!!

And here's our beautiful neice Jenny who helped us so much all week and went to dozens of baby stores with only a little complaining :) ....
So...now everything is 100% ready for our little guy--our house we've been working on fixing up for months is finally on the market, he has a cozy little nursery (that can also easily be set up in our next house), he has a full wardrobe of clothes for the next year of his life, he has all of the important baby accessories, he has his travel visa, and most importantly, he has LOTS of people who love him already and can't wait to meet him!

A little bit of impatience

2009-06-16T12:26:00.001-05:00

Henry's visa was issued yesterday and I am really, really hoping to get that travel call very soon! It is SO hard to be patient. I want to hold him so badly, and I know that I will soon, but it's the uncertainty that is nearly killing me. Everytime the phone rings, I run for it! I know that our good news is right around the corner, but I'm ready RIGHT NOW!!!

Lots of good news!!

2009-06-07T07:23:00.001-05:00

We just got another new picture of Henry on Wednesday. We have definitely been blessed to receive so many! Even though I was excited to get this new picture ( he just so cute!!!), I was bummed that we got that instead of news about him coming home. This has been such a long, hard week. It was the last week of school for me, which is always crazy. Have any non-teachers ever stopped and thought about what 22 9 year olds are like on the last day of school? ;) Besides all of that, my mom was in the hospital all week. I won't go into all of the specifics, but she has many health issues that she has to face everyday, so prayers for her would be appreciated. She was very down about having to stay in the hospital, undergoing many procedures and still having the doctors not know what's causing some of her health problems. But when we brought in this new photo of Henry, she brightened up right away and was showing him off to all of the hospital staff who walked in the door. I know that is further proof of God's work in this adoption. Here is the picture of my 10 month old son:

Then on Friday, it was a teacher workday so that we could pack away all of our classroom materials for summer. At my district, this means packing everything up and storing it. Basically it's like packing and moving your house! Elementary teachers have lots of "things." In the midst of all of this hard work, I received a call that I have been WAITING for!! Nope, not his travel call, but it was from our agency telling us that Henry had his visa physical exam. The doctor noted that he has a "right ear deformity" on his paperwork, which means we have to sign a Class B Waiver. All that means is that we are officially aware that he has a problem with his ear. Our agency emailed us the waiver to sign. We had to get 4 copies of it notarized and then overnight FedEx it back to them Friday. Possibly on Mon or Tues the agency will send the waiver to Korea. Once there it takes "about 5 business days" for them to submit for his travel visa. Add to that the time needed for them to find an escort to bring him here, book the flight, etc....so we are likely looking at him coming home mid-to-late June. That is longer that I had been hoping for, but right now I'm feeling extremely happy to know that he's almost here. I'm looking at these next couple of weeks without him as a chance to enjoy my last moments of freedom before mommyhood! Summer is here and I can spend these upcoming days doing whatever I please. I plan to enjoy them!
Last but not least, we had a huge yard sale at my school yesterday as a fundraiser towards our adoption. Lots of staff members pitched in to help by donating items for the sale, and several people came to help set up and clean up (thank you SO much Eva, Susan, Wezie, Rachel, Yodit, Jeannie, and Dennis C.). A select few stayed ALL day with us in the HOT sun. (I love you and thanks again to Jennifer, Sherri, Kathy, and Michelle!!!!) We worked hard, got sunburned and sweaty, but it was so worth it! The yard sale brought us very close to $900! Add that to the jewelry fundraiser that we just had and we are over $1,000 raised this week! Amazing....

Almost done with the nursery!

2009-05-31T18:09:00.001-05:00

I love his crib! I can't wait to see the gorgeous baby bedding that his Granny has been working hard to make for him (see earlier post for crib fabric picture). The sign above the crib says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

We are going to repaint that dresser with a few brown and green stripes going down the front of it. The low console with green and white plastic bins is from Ikea. I love how it provides storage for his toys that he can easily get into and that the top is a perfect surface for play. I think we are going to either paint it or stain it darker. Oh, and yes, I realize that his little wooden Noah's Ark play set is a choking hazard. I will put it away before he arrives. James and I were just playing with it. ;)

I brought in this brown velvet chair from our dining room. It's pretty small and uncomfortable to sit in, but it does look really cute in the room! I really want a cushy armchair in here so that I can snuggle and read books with him, but this will work for now. Also, notice the green circle rugs. We have 5 of them scattered around the room instead of one large rug. I like them, but I'm not sure that we'll keep them...still deciding.

A close up of one of his monkeys and a soft "lovie."

My sister-in-law Debi had this plate painted for Henry. It matches his room really well!

We spent this weekend working hard to prepare Henry's nursery for him. A lot of work was involved in this project! We are just about to put our house on the market so we decided to just paint the walls a neutral color. Also, the nursery has 7 (!!!!!) windows and all of them had glued-on masking tape from when our house was rehabbed before we moved in. Long ago we tried to scrape that tape off but eventually just gave up and put up window coverings. We worked on scraping those windows today for about 2 hours. We still aren't done yet...we have some "conflicting" wood-tones in the several furniture pieces and the floor that we plan on correcting. Also, his crib bedding is pretty offbeat and I think it will add a lot of funkiness to the room when my mother-in-law is done with it. I'm so happy that we finally have a space for him! It definitely makes everything seem more real. I hope that we get our good news soon!

Baby Shower

2009-05-30T07:17:00.001-05:00

This week my amazing 3rd grade teammates threw me a baby shower. They did a beautiful job!! It was so much fun to open all of our presents!

James and I ordered special fortune cookies that had custom fortunes inside about our adoption.

Yes, I made James go to the shower!

The very next day James' office surprised him with a big basket full of really cute baby stuff. I love all of the monkeys!

Last night James and I went to Babies R Us armed with the gift cards we received and bought a lot of the essentials we were missing (such as bottles and a crib mattress ) and a few fun things (bath toys and wall art). Somehow we were in that store for 3 hours and didn't realize it!

Today Henry's crib will be delivered also. We finally are beginning to create a nursery for him. Since we know we will be moving we aren't going to be able to do as much creative stuff yet as I'd like, but what have done so far has been a big improvement! Before, we just had a guest room with his stuff just piled all over the place, but now we have moved some furniture in from other rooms in the house that will work well in there, and we have been organizing his things. One thing that bugs me, though is that the room is painted blue (from when it was a "beachy" guest room), but all of his stuff is green and brown. It stinks to have to repaint it when we're likely going to be moving soon, but I think it must be done! James disagrees. He thinks that would be a big waste of time. We'll see....

Photos coming soon!

Blessings

2009-05-24T08:05:00.001-05:00

We have an earlier post about our worries about affording this adoption. I will say that when we first began this process, James was very concerned about the financial aspect (it truly is incredibly expensive), but I wasn't focused on that. I had a sense of peace that it would all come together somehow if this was God's plan for us. That sense of peace was shaken, however, when 5 banks refused to loan us anything towards this adoption despite our good credit scores and good income/debt ratio. We both began to panic, realizing that our agency would not let our precious boy come home until we have paid all of the fees. I am happy to report that major progress has been made lately in regards to this! First of all, our agency awarded us a $2,000 SNAF (special needs assistance fund) grant. Also, a local credit union gave us a $6,000 low-interest rate loan. And then, best of all, a foundation called A Child Waits awarded us a $4,000 grant due to Henry's needs. All of this, combined with what we have already paid, puts us very close to the fees due. We are only about $5,000 away, which is still quite a bit, but completely do-able compared to where we started!
I would also like to say that throughout our marriage, James and I have realized that God's plan unfolds in miraculous ways! He has placed some very special people in our lives--my entire fellow teaching staff has been incredibly supportive of our adoption journey. They bought hundreds of baked goods to help us pay for our homestudy, have rejoiced in our happiness (certain people check on me every day), and now they are going to host 2 more fundraisers for us. One of them was thought of by my dear friends on my 3rd grade team: It will be a big staff yard sale sponsored by PTA that will be held at our school on June 6. I'm very excited about this!
The other fundraiser was thought of by the sweet Speech teacher at my school. She sells Premier Jewelry and is going to have a show this Tuesday for the staff where a portion of profit will go to us. I am just in awe of our many blessings.

"And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." 1 John 5:14,15

Look! New Henry Picture!

2009-05-16T07:22:00.001-05:00

We just received a new picture of Henry with his foster mother and all of the stuff that we sent in his care package. We cropped out his foster mother's face for our blog to protect her privacy. We are so happy to have a picture of him with his foster mother so that later when we talk about his adoption, he can see how loved and cared for he was.

Also...no orange hoodie! Doesn't he look so cute?

We are so excited. Several other families who are in last stage of their adoptions like we are just received their travel calls. That means that he could be coming home any time now.

Oh my gosh...are we ready? (YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

My first Mother's Day

2009-05-10T09:28:00.001-05:00

This is my first Mother's Day as a mother! Of course, I wish that I had my baby with me, but it still counts. This past week I had several surprises from my wonderful husband and mom. The first was a really pretty orchid teacup flower arrangement that I recieved at school from Henry (my mom). Also, this week packages kept arriving from Amazon.com. James ordered some wonderful children's books from my wish list there about Korean adoption/Korean children. Of course, since I'm a teacher, I love reading books to kids. It's important that Henry has lots of them!

Also, another fantastic gift from my sweet husband were two shirts--one for Henry and one for me. Check them out in the photo above. Mine is sweet and Henry's is hilarious! James designed both of them online. Last, but not least, ANOTHER flower arragement arrived yesterday (beautiful pink roses and lillies). These were from my mom also, who said on the card, "I can't believe my baby is a mother."

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Check out our timeline on the right--we're nearly to the end!!

2009-05-02T07:03:00.001-05:00

We had 2 fantastic pieces of news this week. #1-Henry's Emigration Permit was approved (this is a big step in the coming-home process #2-the NVC (National Visa Center) has electronically sent his documents to Korea so that he can have a visa. Now that both of those are done, we only have a couple of things left before he will be travelling. I asked the wonderful adoptive parents on the Holt discussion board, who by the way, have been EXTREMELY helpful with this process, approximately how much longer do they think it will be until he comes home? Almost all responses indicated that sometime in May is the most likely time. I can hardly believe it! I've been telling myself July (and hoping for June) this whole time. I might need a substitute to finish out the school year...oh, how I hope!! He might be here for my baby shower May 27!!! Everyone please help us pray that our sweet boy's remaining steps will continue to be speedy. I can't wait to kiss those sweet little cheeks.

New Henry pictures...same orange hoodie...

2009-04-16T21:46:00.001-05:00

Today, we got new pictures of Henry from our adoption agency. We were hoping that he would be wearing some of the new clothes we sent him, but apparently his foster mom loves that orange hoodie...and some pink socks. :) We think he's super cute anyway.

We also requested an updated picture of his cute little ear. So many of our friends and family have been asking about it that we thought it was the right time for it to make its blog debut. Henry has auricular (ear) atresia, which means that his ear canal is partially closed. His outer ear is also misshapen...a bit. We are going to consult with specialists, and later on he will have surgery to open up his ear canal and reshape his ear. From what we know, there will be two surgeries starting when he is about 5 years old.

He seems to have slimmed down a bit also, which makes us hopeful that he will at least be able to wear some of the clothes we have for him. We'll have to wait for his next checkup to see how he is progressing. We also just want to thank everyone for their kindness and concern for us as we go through this process. Everyone has been very supportive of our adoption, and it is comforting for us to know that Henry has been welcomed and loved by so many even before he has arrived.

The Waiting Game

2009-04-12T21:57:00.001-05:00

It's a question I get asked on a near daily basis:
"How long until Henry comes home?"

I always put on a brave face and say, "Sometime this summer. Hopefully before his 1st birthday in August." I really, really hope that this is the case. If things go as planned, then he should be, but keep in mind that the GOVERNMENT (US and Korea) is controlling everything at this point. Very terrifying when you think of it that way, huh? Some of my prayers for the USCIS office were answered last when when we received approval on his I-600a form. That's a biggie that we've been waiting a couple of months on. Now they just need to approve his I-600 (not to be confused with the other one...sigh) and then the US government will have done it's job, and we'll be waiting on the Korean government to finish the process.
It has been an interesting few months since we decided we wanted to pursue adopting Henry. He's been ours officially since Feb. 23, but we've been in love with him since early January. There have been rough patches in our wait, such as the development of anxiety induced insomnia, which has mostly gotten better, but I still struggle with sometimes. Here are some of the little distractions I've had to find to help me deal with the day to day longing for my son to be in my arms:

The Twilight book series. Don't laugh. I know it's for teenagers, but those books have been tremendously helpful in giving me something to do during all of those looong sleepless nights that I've been having. I added up the pages from all four books and figured out that I've read 2,444 pages in the last 2 months.
Gathering things for Henry. This is hands down the most fun thing I've been doing during the wait. Those of you who know me know that I love nothing more than to shop, and that I also am very talented at finding bargains. Yes, the photo below looks like a lot of stuff (and it is) but keep in mind that it was all on SALE!

Searching for a new place to live. James and I have decided that we need to sell our lovely historic house and move to a more family-friendly one. I am extremely sad to leave, but I think it's so much fun to look at houses on the market. Each time I see one with a lot of storage I get really excited. Can you tell that we have no closet space here?? One thing that is going to be a big job is getting our house ready to put on the market. I'm not looking forward to it.
PUPPIES! Our miniature poodles, Fifi and Rocky, have had their 3rd litter of puppies. The puppies, two dashing boys named Bruce Lee and Rambo, are 5 weeks old and have been greatly entertaining to us. They both have talents (much like their father) in barking, giving kisses, playing with toys, and peeing on the floor. Snuggling with them has made our wait for Henry infinitely easier. They are so cute that they make me cry. I don't even want to think about how soon they will have to go live with their new families.

Frustrations with Financing

2009-03-28T18:30:00.001-05:00

Well, today we mailed off some more of our paperwork, and a care package for little Henry. We sent him some of his clothes that will be a little too small for him by the time that he comes home. :) We also sent a baby album with pictures of our family, a couple of stuffed animals, and some disposable cameras. Hopefully, we'll get lots of pictures back soon.

We did get some distressing news over spring break. It turns out that we owe our adoption agency all of Henry's fees, right now. To date, we've paid in a lot of adoption costs, most of which we have been able to do because of the money we made baking and selling stuff. The problems that we are experiencing with the financing are for two reasons: 1) Because we adopted Henry as a Waiting Child (his medical needs), the process for us has gone much faster than we expected. If we hadn't decided to adopt him, we would probably be waiting a year or more longer, just to get a referral for another baby. So, instead of having another year or so to raise the funds, we owe them all now. 2) The credit markets have frozen up from the problems with the economy. Just a year ago, we had credit offers coming out of our ears. Now, we have applied at 4 banks, and all of them denied us.

So, I called the adoption agency, and they are working out a payment plan for us. Unfortunately, it is only over the next 3 or 4 months. So, we have a lot of money to raise in a very short amount of time. Our house is going on the market, and we are applying for every adoption grant we can find. Hopefully, we will find some help. Everything about this adoption so far has been God-sent, so we have faith that the money will be there when it needs to be. We will just keep praying that everything will work out for the best.

Our chunky monkey by Mary

2009-03-15T09:30:00.001-05:00

On Friday we were suprised with these updated photos of Henry. We knew from his Well Baby checkup reports that he was getting chubby. We were amused to see just what a little chunky monkey he really is! Our latest report, which was when he was 6 1/2 months old in February states that he is 20 lbs, and that his nutrition is "good." It will be interesting to see what his March report will show.

Also, we expected that he would have more hair--he seems to have even less than before. When my mom saw his new pictures for the first time, she squealed with delight and said he looks like Buddha.

We love that he seems so happy. He has personality for sure. Just look at those pictures where he is kicked back on the crib--adorable. I have to admit it was a little strange to see his new pictures at first. I had been staring at his first two pictures for so long (ever since early January) that those images of him were all I could imagine. It was slightly difficult to transition to the idea that this is him now. Some adoptive parents never do receive updated photos, so the first time they see their baby in person is probably quite a shock. We are blessed that we have gotten these pictures.

On a funny note, a couple of weeks ago when we went nuts and shopped for Henry at the outlets in San Marcos, we (and the grandmas) had purchased quite a few baby clothes for him despite warnings about "you don't know how big he will be."

Well, very few of those clothes are going to fit our little chunk. We had purchased 12 month clothes for the summer when he first comes home and 18 months for the fall/winter. Yesterday we went to several stores to swap out sizes for what we could. Now we are getting 18 months for the summer and 24 months for the fall/winter. If Henry continues to get "fluffier" then none of the new things will fit either. James and I laughed about imagining going back to the stores again and again to size up.

Baby FEVER!

2009-03-07T07:52:00.001-06:00

Last weekend we went to San Antonio to visit James' mom and stepdad. My mom went along too and visited with her dear friend Betty. While we were there, we went to several fabric stores to pick out material for Henry's crib. James' mom Anne bought all of the fabric and is going to sew all of his crib bedding! We are so excited about having fun, custom baby bedding. It's definitely not going to be traditional baby! It's hard to tell in the picture, but the brown and the stripes are corduroy fabric. I know it's going to be super-cute. I'll let exactly what it will look like be a surprise for now.

**I also need to give credit to Brandy Webb, the lovely and talented wife of James' cousin Kevin. She went with us to help us put together the bedding. She creates gorgeous handmade baby/children's items. Check out her website: http://www.simply-adorable.com/.

Also on our trip we spent an afternoon at the awesome San Marcus outlets. James' mom and my mom both went with us as we shopped for baby gear and clothes at stores like Pottery Barn, Gymboree, Carter's, and Baby Gap. We found a lot of great deals on some extremely cute things. It was sweet to see both grandmas getting so excited about Henry. He is going to be one spoiled little guy for sure!

James and I are experiencing some major baby fever. We try not to, but Henry is almost all we think and talk about lately. We are both obsessed with finding the perfect things (on sale, of course!) for him. One of our prized findings lately was a Maclaren stroller at TJ Maxx. We are also trying to find a crib for him, but cannot decide on one. We want it to be affordable, but yet good quality and attractive. I am not exaggerating when I say that we've been to Babies R Us 20 times in the last 2 weeks! My friend Jennifer pointed out that we seem to be nesting, ha ha.

Finally, I want to say that we got a new "well-baby" checkup on Henry from February. He was 6 1/2 months old at the time and was assessed to be developmentally on target. He is starting to crawl and is teething. He is still not too steady at sitting up. I hope that he doesn't start walking before we bring him home. Also, I hope that the March "well-baby" report will include an updated photo.

Meet Henry Jesse

2009-02-23T19:55:00.002-06:00

The little boy we previously wrote about is going to be ours! We have been waiting patiently (well, as much as we could) for almost a month to hear if we would get him, and we got a call from Holt this morning. He was born on August 3, 2008, and has a minor medical condition called auricular atresia. Basically, the ear canal on his right side is mostly closed, and that ear is a little misshapen. Later on, he will need a surgery to open the ear canal, and one more to cosmetically fix the outer ear. We think he is perfect and just too cute. Even his little ear is super cute.

We still have a lot of paperwork to complete, so please pray with us that the process will be quick. We expect that he will be home within the next 6 months. We are especially hoping that we have him before his first birthday.

His birth name is Eun-wu (pronounced oon-oo), but we are changing his first name to Henry. We will use at least part of his Korean name as his middle name to honor his cultural heritage.

We are super excited and blessed. We can't wait to bring him home!

Praying and Hoping for our Waiting Child by James

2009-01-28T12:23:00.001-06:00

Mary and I met with our family physician on Friday to discuss the medical needs of a few of the little boys on the Waiting Child photolisting. He was very helpful at sorting through the medical records, and pointed out some of the challenges each child might face. We took his advice to heart, and decided to submit to Holt our desire to adopt one of the boys. He has what we would consider to be a minor medical problem, and his little face is just too cute. Its weird to say that we feel spiritually connected to him through just a couple of photos and his medical records, but we both feel like he would be a good fit for our family.

Right now, Holt has stopped taking requests for his records, and the other families who requested his information have two weeks to make their decisions. If either of them also want to adopt him, our applications will go before a committee, there will be a phone interview, and Holt will decide which family will be the best fit for him. So, we are continuing to pray for faith that if it is meant to be, it will be. We are trying not to get our hopes up too much, but it is very hard. So, until we know something, we aren't going to post anything about him. Until then, we will just continue praying and hoping.

Yay! Homestudy is done! by Mary

2009-01-19T20:22:00.002-06:00

Good news! Our homestudy is complete and was sent to the Holt USA office on Friday. They will review it and then send it on to Holt Korea. Once that happens, we will officially be "waiting." In the meantime, James and I have to complete the USCIS immigration paperwork. Apparently this can be a lengthy, annoying process. On the Holt discussion boards there have been several postings complaining about the Dallas USCIS office. Hopefully things will go smoothly for us! Another bit of good news is that our Heart and Seoul holiday bake sales earned us enough money to pay to file for the USCIS paperwork, plus more that will go towards paying for our homestudy.

Right now James is in the kitchen making 8 dozen homemade cinnamon rolls that were purchased by my school's PTA president to give to the teachers at my school tomorrow. Have I mentioned that the PTA president, James Atwood, is a really awesome guy? His adorable wife, Michelle, who teaches kindergarten at my school is also really great. Not only have they helped us out by generously supporting our Heart and Seoul baking efforts, but they also are sponsoring our Heart and Seoul website. Plus, they are having us over for dinner tomorrow night, too!

One last thing: I'm trying not to get my hopes up or dwell upon it, but yesterday we spotted a couple of new additions to the Holt waiting child photo listing that we are very interested in. Both are baby boys who have some correctable special needs. I won't go into details at this time about them, but my heart was racing as I studied their profiles yesterday. They are SOOO cute! Since they are on the photo listing and have not been referred to us, the process is a little different. We have to let Holt know that we would like to be considered to adopt them, and then it goes to a committee that selects the couple they think is the best match for the baby. I'm sure there will be many families who are interested in those precious boys (which is good). James and I are praying that if one of them is meant to be ours that it will work out. It's a little funny to think about getting a boy b/c in our minds somehow we have been stuck on adopting a girl. However, one look at the WC photolisting and it's clear that more boys are in need of adoption, so that comforts us.

A New Experience by Mary

2009-01-03T11:34:00.001-06:00

On New Year's Eve, James and I decided to try something new and go to "Koreatown" in Dallas. Many of you, like us, have been to part of "Koreatown" by shopping at the awesome store Sam Moon. Sam Moon, however, is a pretty diverse shopping experience. It is a store that is owned by Koreans, but is popular with people of many ethnicities. The part of "Koreatown" that we visited is the opposite. We went to Komart, which is a market/restaurant. Right when we walked in, we noticed that we didn't see anyone who wasn't Asian. It was a pretty strange feeling, and I think at first we were both a little intimidated. We walked around and marveled at all of the unknown grocery products. Some of our favorites were: Wooly Booly apple flavored gum, Chew and Sing gum, honey powder, and shrimp chips. They also had a little area in the back where a lady was cutting up fresh eel and squid for customers.

There is also a small restaurant inside that serves popular Korean dishes. I really wanted to try something because I've never had Korean food. I kind of had to talk James into it, but he was soon glad that I did. I ordered bulgolgi (a kind of barbecued beef), and it came served on a interesting metal tray. It was also served with a broth, some sticky white rice, some marinated seeds/nuts of some kind, and kimchi (a very spicy, marinated cabbage that most Koreans eat at almost every meal as a side dish). It was surprisingly very good. James ate jin man du, which were some very yummy steamed dumplings.

This was a great experience for us to get a small sampling of Korean culture. We are excited to go back and try out other markets and restaurants in the area. We are lucky to live so close to such a large Korean population. I know that one day it will be fun to take our child there.

Wonderful Christmas by James

2008-12-26T09:15:00.001-06:00

I've got a lot to write, but I'll try to make this quick. After a wonderful Christmas Day with Mary's family, we are going to another "Christmas" at my dad's house in Eastland today.

We finished both of our meetings with our social worker, Kristin, last weekend. She is a very kind person, and we think that she will be great to work with. She had long conversations with us about parenting, adopting, and our own childhoods. She also checked to make sure that the home environment is safe for children. Although we passed many tests, including having a bathroom, running water, and food, we were surprised to learn that a medicine cabinet above a sink is not sufficient to keep medicine away from a child. We actually have to put them so far out of reach that Mary can't even reach them, or else lock them in a box. We think that is very funny.

Other than that, everything seemed to go well, and Kristin will be writing up the report and giving us a copy to review at the start of the new year. After that, we will need to attend a few classes on easing the transition for our adopted child, hopefully by the end of January, and then the homestudy will be sent to South Korea. At that point our wait time officially begins, and it could be up to a year before we get a referral for a child, and then another 6-8 months before we are able to travel to get him/her.

The timing of the travel is important, and something that we are thinking and praying seriously about. I'll post more on that later.

On the very, very bright side, we have finished all of the baking for the holidays, and although I haven't run the numbers officially yet, I think we did pretty well. We have been so blessed by the generosity of all of our friends and family, many of whom have given very generously in support of bringing our yet unknown baby home. To them, we can not express our gratitude enough.

As many people may know, Mary and I decided a few months ago not to give many gifts this holiday season in order to continue to save for our adoption. The deal we made with our family was that we weren't going to buy for them, and so they can't buy for us. Otherwise, it would make us feel terrible. It turned out to be much harder to do than we initially thought. It has been especially difficult because we enjoy so much finding gifts for our friends and family members. Mary still feels like we should go out and get something. She just asked me again for the 100th time if I think we should go ahead and give presents.

We did buy gifts for Mary's mom because she doesn't really have many other people to celebrate Christmas with. And we didn't want to deprive her of the joy she has in giving gifts. Sylvia is truly one of the most generous people we know, and looks forward to birthdays and Christmas so much for the chance to give gifts. In the end, we did also give each other some small stuff for our stockings. So, it still felt like Christmas.

As a side note, and a conclusion as I wrap this up so that I can get ready to leave for my dad's house, I've kind of lingered on about the gift exchange, but I think that this Christmas we have felt the presence of Christ more than ever before. We went to the candlelight Christmas service at church this year, and I can say that we were both very moved. We know that it is in God's plan for us to adopt our baby. Just as He blessed Mary with the infant Christ, He will will bless my Mary with the baby she is meant to have. We keep faith in that at the end of this long and sometimes harrowing experience, we will experience the joy of parenthood that is in His plan.

Here we go again... (by James)

2008-12-10T21:16:00.001-06:00

So, after many, many long hours, Mary and I were able to just barely make our deadline for the baked goods for Thanksgiving. I think the menu we chose was a bit ambitious. I don't believe in taking shortcuts, so we used only name-brand, premium ingredients, and made everything from scratch, including the pie crusts. We literally baked non-stop for over 36 hours. But, when everthing was said and done, with the generous support of our friends we were blessed with making in profit almost half of the emigration fees that were our goal. We are and will always be grateful to those who have supported us in this sometimes overwhelming endeavor.

And...so...here we are again. It seems like only yesterday we were compiling our 20+ page homestudy application and now we have our first appointment with our social worker. Her name is Kristin, and she seems very nice. Now, we are officially very nervous. Our first meeting will be on Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 7:00 p.m. I am confident that everything will be fine, but when someone prefaces a meeting by sending you two pages of things that must be in place before they arrive, it does give you some anxiety. With things progressing, I think it kind of woke us up to the fact that we need to get our emigration stuff going as soon as possible. On the adoption boards, it seems that sometimes it takes acts of Congress to get the paperwork approved, and we don't want any more delays than necessary.

Today we passed out flyers for another bake sale. This time, I will be off work for the week ahead of time, so I will have more time to prepare and plan out a schedule to get everything made on time. Its exhausting to think about it right now, but we are getting excited about it again. We picked a more modest menu that will be a little easier on us. Hopefully, we will be able achieve the same success as we had before and will reach our goal of filing for the paperwork to bring our baby home.

We did also decide recently to apply for the Holt Waiting Child Program. The WC Program is a special program at Holt that helps children who are more difficult to place in homes. It includes sibling groups, older children, and children with special needs. This was not an easy decision for us. To begin with, we had to answer an awful questionnaire about the conditions we were willing to accept for a Waiting Child. It was heartbreaking for both of us to go down the list and say, basically, "Yes, a deaf child is fine, but not a child with cerebral palsy." That is just an example, and not necessarily what we decided on. Each choice felt like a judgement, and we both struggled with those calls. The most interesting part about it, though, was that it forced us to really consider each outcome. Obviously, nothing is certain, and any child could develop any kind of disability, just as a biological child could be born with a special need of some sort. We just pray, as we have been praying, that God gives us the child who is meant to be ours.

Our Fundraiser

2008-11-16T07:50:00.001-06:00

Lately we've been working on completing all of our homestudy paperwork. There was A LOT of it, but thankfully we are pretty much done. We will be mailing it off this week in a giant envelope! There are some expenses coming up that we have been nervous about. One thing is that we will have to pay around $3,000 for the homestudy fee, and another is that we have to pay over $800 to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), which is a crucial step that will get the ball rolling on the citizenship for our baby.

Since we felt called to adopt so suddenly, we really had nothing saved up ahead of time. So, we were brainstorming ways that we could earn some extra cash to help pay for this early portion of money due (oh believe me there will be MUCH more coming up!). James loves to bake and has been making cakes and cookies our coworkers ever since we started working. He's talented at it, partially because he loves sweets so much, and also because he's a PERFECTIONIST! And since I am also a perfectionist and have always been very entrepreneurial myself, I had the idea to start the Heart and Seoul bakery fundraiser. We have a menu of some really yummy treats perfect for Thanksgiving, and we are taking holiday orders from people we know. If it goes well, then we'll do a different menu for Christmas. So far we've had a great response! We are going to be extremely busy getting all of these orders ready, but we aren't afraid of a little hard work. I am so excited that we have a way to show off our talents and earn money to help with the adoption at the same time!

Q and A about adoption

2008-11-09T10:01:00.001-06:00

There are so many kids who need to be adopted here in the US, so why not adopt one of them?
We chose to pursue international adoption because almost all domestic adoptions are "open" or "semi-open," which is referring to the level of contact with the birth parents. Also, in domestic adoptions the birth parents have up to 6 months after placement to change their mind. We just decided we weren't ready to face that heartache.

Why adopt from Korea instead of another country?

We did a lot of research about this.

Korean orphans live in loving, stable foster homes instead of orphanages.
Korea has excellent medical care--comparable to that of the US. We can expect regular medical updates about our baby once we are matched with one.
Unlike most international adoptions, Korea accepts the US homestudy as documentation enough, which means much less terrifying paperwork for us!
Travel is optional. Several countries require lengthy stays abroad, which would be difficult for us considering the nature of our jobs. Korea, on the the other hand, has optional escorts for babies to the US. If we chose to travel to Korea, (we'd love to!) then the stay is only 3-5 days.
Korea is a stable country to adopt from. Korean adoptions first began in the 1950s with Harry and Bertha Holt. We have selected their agency, Holt International, to represent us in this process.
Mostly, it just feels right to us!

How long until your baby comes home?

That's difficult to answer because it depends on so many factors. A lot of those factors are out of our control, such as processing time from our agency and the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services). However, some of it is in our control--how fast we complete and send off paperwork, etc. Also, if we chose to adopt a "waiting child," our wait could be shorter. Our wait will approximately be 21-24 months from application until the baby comes home.

Do you want a boy or a girl?

We would be blessed and thrilled beyond belief with either one, but as of right now we are leaning more toward wanting a girl. In Korea, however, there are more boys for adoption than girls, due to Korean families wishing to adopt girls (opposite, I know, from China). So, our agency will not allow us to request a girl unless we go through the "waiting child" program. We could just see what we got, but odds are high that we would be matched with a boy. Right now, we are praying about the WC (waiting child) program, and if it is right for us. WC means that the babies have some level of medical need, which can vary from very mild and/or correctable, such as crossed eyes, premature birth, cleft lip/palate....all the way up to some very severe lifelong disabilities. We will be looking further into this program to see if it's right for us.

How will you afford it?

Good thing we have thousands of dollars in savings, huh? Seriously, we aren't too sure about that still. Right now we are brainstorming a few fundraising ideas that make good use of our talents.

Are you giving up on having your own baby?

Of course not! We will continue to have hope of our own child if God deems that it is right for us. What we are giving up on is the heartbreaking, roller coaster of fertility treatments. I am not regretful of going through that process, though, because I think it took that for us to be ready to open our hearts to the idea of adopting.

You know you'll get pregnant as soon as you adopt. It happens all the time!

I can honestly say that I'm already getting tired of hearing this one. Maybe we will and maybe we won't. We're leaving that in God's hands. And, we are NOT adopting out of some hope of a "magic" pregnancy. Also, I want it to be known that we aren't adopting as a last ditch effort to have a child. We decided to stop our infertility treatments without pursuing all options because we felt it wasn't what was meant for us.

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.” Isaiah 43:5