Update and Prayer Request!

 

UPDATE:

Today has been two years since we started this journey! Two years ago, Bryan and I took a huge leap of faith and sent in our application to our agency to adopt a child from South Korea. Little did we know that God had our little Jack (soon to be conceived) in mind for us when we sent it in.  
Other big news today was that we received our I-600! It states, "The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has provisionally approved your Form 1-600, Petition to Classify Orphan as an immediate relative, that you filed on behalf of Dohyun Kwon." :) So, I like that! ;)
Approval means everything is sent to Korea now and we are basically waiting for a travel call.
Everyone wants to know when that will be and, to tell you the truth, so would we! ;) Our original estimate for travel was to be 3 to 4 months after receiving our referral. It has been two months tomorrow that we have received ours.  Unfortunately though, there are some complications that might interrupt this process.

PRAYER REQUEST:

Which brings me to my prayer request. Back in June, I posted this update and briefly mentioned how our agency (and all agencies working with Korea) had run out of EPs for the year. EPs are "exit permits" and only a certain amount are released by the Korean government each year. Once a child is issued an EP, that means they are officially approved to leave to country and the adoptive parents will get their travel call to come get their baby. The complication is that there is now a huge backlog of people waiting to receive an EP since June of last year. Usually the Korean government issues them at the beginning of the year, but so far, there has been no movement! It went from we should hear something at the beginning of the year, then February, then middle February, and the latest is middle March now.  We also do not know how the government will choose to distribute the EPs. If they divide it up between all the agencies, we have a good chance that our wait won't be that long because our agency has no backlog of waiting families. However, if the Korean govt. decides to issue them to only the ones that have been waiting, we might have an even longer wait on our hands. No one is really sure what the hold up is and there are hundreds of moms and dads anxiously waiting to get their babies and can do NOTHING about it. These children are getting older and older (hence why Jack was so old at his referral), making transitioning and grieving very difficult for the child and foster family. Not to mention the ache the adoptive families have as they wait, missing milestone after milestone of their precious babies. The adoption agencies in Korea are running out of space and are having to turn women down that wish to put their child up for adoption. It's just a big big mess over there and they desperately need our prayers. I am trying very hard not to get caught up with all of this, because I know that I can do nothing about it. I know that the orphan is very close to the Lord's heart and I'm positive that He has already been and will continue to be at work in this situation. I also know that our travel call will come when the Lord wants it to come.  So, in the mean time, I have been keeping myself busy and praying continuously. Praying for all us waiting parents, that the Korean government hearts will be softened for these orphans that need to be home with their families and that EPs will finally be submitted! Please consider joining us in prayer for this situation. Other adoptive moms and I plan to pray every evening at 7pm until we hear something. You can join us or just pray for it when you remember. Again, I am thankful as always for your prayers.

Getting Closer and Lifesong Fundraiser!!!

UPDATE: OUR GOAL HAS BEEN MEET! THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL WHO GAVE!

Yesterday, Bryan and I had a travel meeting via conference call with our agency.  It was an hour and a half conversation, and once we got off the phone we were pretty much overwhelmed, but excited at the same time! There is so much to know and be prepared for, and while we are thankful we are getting so close to traveling, we feel like we don't have a lot of time to get ready for it.  We are expecting our I-600 approval any day now and then everything will be in the hands of the Korean government. At that point, we will just be waiting on a travel call!  

All of sudden, this has gotten very real! ;) 

Since our travel is approaching so quickly, Bryan and I wanted to remind everyone about our last fundraiser we are doing with the help of Lifesong for Orphans (www.lifesongfororphans.org).  They set up an account for us so that we may raise the rest of our adoption expenses.  Any donations made to them (on our behalf) will go toward our travel costs and will be tax deductible for you!  We have been so blessed already by such amazing donors and we just want to take the time again to thank you for your generosity, love, and support!  We are less than 2 weeks away from our deadline and we are getting so close to our goal!!!

If you have prayerfully considered supporting our adoption of Jack with a donation, but haven't been able to yet, now would be a great opportunity to give through our Lifesong account.

You can send your tax-deductible gift between now and February 29th, 2012 to the address below or give online.

If you feel led to give, please remember to include the following steps:

  

If you would like to send a Check:  

•  Checks should be made payable to:  Lifesong for Orphans  
• Indicate how the donation might be used by writing, “Preference Getty #1808 Adoption” in the memo section of your check. 
• Mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans

PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St

Gridley, IL 61744

If you would like to Donate Online:

• Go to http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html, and click the “DONATE” button. 
•  Indicate how the donation might be used by typing, “Preference Getty #1808 Adoption” in the “Purpose” box. 

**Please note that PayPal does charge an administrative fee (1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction). The donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee.)**


 Again, words cannot express the gratitude we have for your continued prayers and support for us during this time. Thank you for investing in the Kingdom through prayer and finances – it will be an investment with an eternal return (Matt 6:20)!

BEST Update So Far!

Today was such a wonderful day, I just had to share our JOY!  Bryan and I received an update of our little man today. I got word yesterday that it would be coming this afternoon, so I was so excited! I kept myself busy all day and then when I heard the Fed Ex truck pull up, I ran downstairs and met him at the door before he even got there. ;) He just smiled and handed me the package. I immediately called Bryan and told him we got it, and he said that he was on his way home. Once he got there we opened up the package and saw his sweet face and read the letter which opened with:

"Dohyun is getting very well care under the foster family's love and affection. He had his first birthday party on January 16, 2012..."

He had what they call a dol ceremony with the other babies at our agency that had January birthdays.  This is a traditional celebration for one year old babies in Korea. You can read more about dols here.  It is a very big deal in Korea when your baby turns one year old and they have a big party to celebrate! The children wear a colorful ceremonial garment called a hanbok during their dol (they also wear it during certain holidays). Here's Jack in his hanbok! ;)

I make pink look good!

I can't believe how big he has already gotten in two months! No official word on his weight, but it looks like they are feeding him well. :)

The highlight of the party is a ritual they do where the child is placed in front of a table of foods and objects such as string, books, paint brush, money, etc. The child is urged to pick up an object and it is believed that the object picked will foretell the child’s future. For example, if the child picks up a book, he is destined to be a scholar. If he picks up money, he will be wealthy.  If the baby picks up a paint brush, he will be an artist. So on and so forth. Wanna guess what our little man picked??

That's right, he picked the golf ball! They said he will be a golfer! Can I tell you how happy his daddy got when he read this?! ;) He's going to be a daddy's boy for sure.

Not only did we get to see his pictures, but we also got video! Of course, this mama cried at this clip. I cannot express the joy I had in my heart to see him smile. I am so in love!!

Here's Jack!!!

I'm so excited to let people know that our legals are in!!!! Which means we do not have to do a homestudy update!  Praise the Lord!   This is such a relief to Bryan and I!  Thank you all for your prayers in this matter.  The next step is that we are waiting for our I-600 and then we will be waiting for our travel call!!! So, to celebrate, I wanted to tell you a little bit about our son and finally show him off!

A few weeks ago, we sent out an announcement of Jack to our family and friends and in the letter we stated the following, and wanted to post it again, because I feel it is so important to include in why we rejoice so much in him!

"After years of waiting and praying, we are so excited to announce our son, John “Jack” Dohyun Getty, born to us through the miracle of adoption! On January 21, 2011, our prayers were answered, as our Jack was born and handpicked by our Father to be our own.  I have said this before, but I must say it again: we are so happy that God chose adoption for us as a means of growing our family. Once we saw Jack’s face, we could not deny how much we loved him. Now more than ever, we could understand the parallel of when we were alone and needed someone, God loved us and adopted us as His sons and daughters (Romans 8:14-16). What an amazing testimony our son already is to his momma and daddy! "

So, without further ado, here's Jack...

"I sure am full of it!"

"Check out my cool sweater vest, Mom!"

"Like my mohawk?"

I'm over the moon for this little guy!! 

As you can see we named him John. I mentioned before, we picked this name because it means, "Gift from God." And that he is!  His middle name is Dohyun, which means, "Kindhearted Way." The name Dohyun was given to him by his birthmother, so we kept it to honor her.  He was born on January 21, 2011 (The year of the Rabbit). At birth, Jack weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 20.1 inches in length.  On November 14, 2011, he weighed 22 pounds and measured 29.7 inches in length. 

Here are some fun facts about him that were written in his report
(at his 10 month checkup):

- He can't bear hunger.

-He loves baths very much.

-Has taken one to two steps recently.

-He says, ''Umma" and ''Appa" (Mom and Dad)

-When told "No!" he asks "No?"

- He opens drawers and likes to "take out the stuffs in there." ;)

-He is shy of strangers.

-He likes his foster father best.

-He "rather sweats a lot" :) This one was one of my favorites!

-He is gentle, curious, and smiles often.

- He doesn't stay still for a moment.

-He is short tempered and stubborn. :) Just like Mommy!

-And his social worker says, "He looks like a naughty boy." :)

So, it seems we will soon have our hands full!  :)  And we just can't wait!  We are so happy to know that Jack is being loved and well taken care of in his foster family.  What wonderful people they are to make such a sacrifice for a child. We will forever be grateful to them for being there for our son, when we couldn't.

Thank you for letting me share my son with you!

Registering!

So, when you are expecting a baby, whether by adoption or not, you just look forward to the day you get to do the nursery and the day you get to register! And when you have been waiting as long as Bryan and I have, you definitely look forward to it! It's not that we want to get all these gifts, it's more about that you finally reached a point where you realize that This Is Going To Happen!!! I would go by the baby aisle for years, just wishing and wondering when that special day will be and what kind of things I would want to get for my baby. Also, after many years of being a nanny, I felt like I knew exactly what things were good to have and what things weren't necessary. So, I have been "busting at the seams" to do this, and when some friends of mine offered to throw me a shower (almost right after we got our referral!), Bryan and I finally decided to do it last week! So, we made a plan to go up to Target one day during the week (yeah, we couldn't wait until the weekend). ;) Before we left I starting making a list of stuff we needed. Because Jack is older, we don't necessarily need a lot of that "baby" stuff you typically register for, but I was surprised how much stuff we still needed. So, with my list in hand, we were off to Target. We got there and with a big smile on our face, we said we were there to register! Of course, after a little while of being there, I thought I had to explain that we were adopting, so they didn't think we were making it up.  I definitely felt there were questions running through their heads since I was lacking a "baby-bump!" ;)  So, we signed up and with my list in hand, I handed Bryan his "gun" and we were off! Well, within 20 minutes we were already done! I was so disappointed!  I don't know if it was just our Target, but they didn't have ANYTHING! And then once I got home, I pulled up our registry and there were no pictures or prices of the things we put on it! Then I just decided that I was going to just delete it and put everything on a Amazon.com Baby Registry. I liked them better anyway, because I can put anything from any site (places like Etsy or even Walmart) on it and I'm not just stuck with whatever one store has to offer. Plus you can also look up an item and find which store has it cheapest and put it on there!  I know I sound like I'm advertising for them or something, but I'm not. I just really like them and I don't think a lot of people know about it! ;)  It took me a few days, but I think we finally have it done! You can see it here:  http://www.amazon.com/registry/baby/2U5BWJRLJC7KA. You can also see a little peek of my color theme for the nursery too! ;) Also, let me know if I'm forgetting something that is a must-have for an 18-month-old! :) Some things I left off on purpose because I think I will be able to buy it off of craigslist.  So anyway, registering wasn't the experience I imagined it being, but we are ultimately just glad we got to do it!  I can't believe the day has come that we are finally expecting Jack to be home VERY SOON!!!  I'm just so excited!

Surprise Birthday Party!

Have I mentioned that we have some of the BESTEST friends ever?!  Well, we truly do, and here is just one of the reasons why..

Bryan and I planned on having a little celebration for Jack on his birthday. I considered inviting people over, but our sunday school class was supposed to be having a girl's night that night, so I figured we better just keep it between Bryan and I.  So that was the plan until we were approached by our friend, Marie, and she offered for Bryan and I to come over to their house and we can just celebrate it there with her hubby, Will and son, Walt (Jack's future best buddy). I really didn't think anything of it and just thought it was so nice of her to offer that, just to make it a little more special.  So, we made plans and decided we would just come over, have some cake, and try to cook some Korean food.  Well, turns out, our sweet friends had other plans. When we showed up at the house, we walked in to see this...

Our friends decided to throw a surprise birthday party for our Jack!  The whole girl's night get together was to throw us off!  And they had been planning this since we got our referral!!!  I was blown away!  They sang Happy Birthday to Jack and of course I had to cry...

There was cake and decorations...

Some Korean food...

Some American food...

Helping blow out Jack's candle...

Pinata for the kids...

Jack even got gifts!

Jack, your mommy and daddy, and all of these wonderful people have prayed for you for such a long time and even though you aren't home yet, they already love you so much!

       

 

 

 

It never ceases to amaze me how great our friends are and how we couldn't have made it through this process without them! We are beyond blessed! Thank you all who made this special day possible!  It will be a memory we will never forget!

Happy Birthday Jack Dohyun!

Well, it's January 20th here, but it's already January 21st in Korea, so that makes it officially Jack's birthday! We are planning to have a celebration tomorrow, but I wanted to do something special for the little guy tonight. I decided to make him a cake. I have always had an interest in making cakes, but never had the initiative to make them. I just always thought I would wait until I had kids. Well, now I do! And even though he isn't here, I wanted to try to do something special for him. So, I made him a little cake and Bryan and I prayed a special birthday prayer for him.  I am sad we couldn't be together to celebrate his first birthday, but I'm sure he is being loved on greatly by his foster family!

Characters say Jack in Korean.

We also sent "Jack-Jack" our care package last week for his birthday. We sent him his first Yankees hat (a must have) :), a little red fleece jacket, a star wars onesie (yes, he will be a nerd like daddy) ;) , an Alabama football (from Grandpa), and a lovie that Bryan and I have been sleeping with for a month so it will have our scent. We also found this really cool picture album that you can put pictures in and record a message for each one. So we had a couple photos of us, one of each of us, one of each set of grandparents, and of course, one of Sam and Rosie. We also sent the foster mother a bag, coffee, Almond Rocca (heard it was really expensive in Korea), and a thank you card. Hope to get a picture of him receiving it, but I will try not to get my hopes up.  Love you Jack Dohyun! Happy Birthday Little Man!

I'm a Busy Bee!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted much since our referral! I honestly still can't believe we are PARENTS! We were so blessed to get our call during the Christmas break so we could really enjoy the news with our family and friends, and not be too distracted with things. Well, now that we are back to work, we are definitely busy!  And I suspect this will continue for the next few months! :)  It has been difficult to get things done, but we are doing it, one thing at a time. We went to go apply for our passports recently, but that wasn't as easy as I hoped (but really, what is during this process?) ;)  Bryan was fine, but they didn't accept my birth certificate, so I had to wait, order another one, and then come back and apply once I got my new one in the mail. I finally got that done last Friday. I'm praying I get our passport before we get our travel call! We've also been working on a care package for the little guy.  We are allowed to send over one care package, so I'm really trying to make it count. I'm almost done getting that together, just have to write the foster mother a thank you and have someone translate it for me. Hopefully that will be ready to go in the next day or two. Of course, I'll post pictures when I'm done with that. We are also working on our next fundraiser and getting an account opened with the help of Lifesong for Orphans, to accept tax deductible donations for the remainder of our adoption funds! More information will be coming on this as well. Our acceptance paperwork took up the most time, but it has recently been sent and was in Korea by January 9th! We are just waiting for our legal documents to be sent back to our agency, and then the next step is to apply for I-600.  I know it doesn't make much sense, but just know we are busy with paperwork and getting ready for our little Jack! ;)  I can't wait to share more about the little man, and his picture with you, but we are waiting just a little longer until we have our legals in.  Hopefully that will be VERY soon! Pray those legals come in FAST too so we don't have to do a homestudy update! By the way, I updated the post, Referral Day, to include more about the day we got the referral call. I was so over the moon, I didn't know what to say at first. :) Thank you all for being so happy for us! We have been overwhelmed and so so thankful for all your kind words!

Referral Day!!!!

December 27th was the day! The day God knew all along would be the day our waiting would come to an end! WE GOT OUR REFERRAL AND IT'S A BOY!

I decided to stay home that Tuesday, because I knew that if a referral came in to our agency, they would let our director know that day. And I knew that we were next in line, so our chances were pretty high that we would hear something, but even though my hopes were high, I definitely didn't expect anything. I was upstairs at my parents house watching "The Chew," and chatting with my dad. Bryan went downstairs to take a shower. It was about 1:15 in the afternoon and I heard my phone ring. At first, I didn't think anything of it, because I set my phone to ring a special ring tone when my agency called, so I knew it wasn't them when I went to get it. But when I picked up the phone it had a weird area code on it, and my heart stopped. I held my breath and said "Hello?" It was our director from our agency! She greeted me and asked how my Christmas was. I don't know why at this point, I didn't realize that this was THE call. I mean, our agency wasn't even open this week because of Christmas, so there would be no other reason I would be getting this call. But I just chatted with her like it was just a normal conversation. It wasn't until she said, "Well, I just received a referral for you..."  that's when I just lost it and started bawling. My dad went in my mom's room to let her know, "I think Monica just got her baby." Everyone was crying, and then I realized I had to pull myself together and tell my husband! I told her, "I have to tell Bryan!" So, I ran downstairs and opened the door and Bryan was there just about to come up. He saw me crying on the phone and said, "Is that it?" I just nodded my head and we hugged each other in the stairwell. We went into our bedroom and I put our director on speaker phone. She said,"I think Monica has some news to share with you, Bryan." To which I said, "I think he already knows!" ;) She laughed and told us it was a boy and his birth date was January 21, 2011! I thought immediately about how cool that was because that was Bryan's number! :) His basketball number was # 21 in high school, so he has kinda kept it since then. She told us a bunch of stuff about what our next steps would be, and that she was going to send us the official referral and pictures in the morning. We were going to have a hard time sleeping knowing that we would see our baby's face for the first time in the morning! Before we got off the phone, I asked her if we could have his name, and she said it was "Dohyun," meaning "Kind Hearted Way." Once we got off the phone, we looked at each other and just started crying! We immediately began to pray and thank God for answering our long awaited prayer! It was such a special moment that I will never forget!

Can't wait to tell you all about him! Pictures and more details to come once our acceptance is official, but just wanted to share our happy happy news!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your prayers! We are absolutely filled with joy!

 "Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!" Psalm 47:1-2

Hard Times...But Worth The Wait!

 

I've been so busy lately now that I'm working full time, and haven't had much time to keep up with my blog, but I know that people have been wondering what's been going on, so I thought I would do another update.

Well, we are STILL waiting for a referral.  I didn't think we would still be waiting at this point, but there are a lot of things that have happened in our adoption that we didn't expect, and probably still more to come. For those of you who don't know, there has been some movement in our agency. They have had two referrals so far, but nothing at all last week. Referrals are definitely not coming in order (this was no surprise, but we secretly hoped they would anyway). ;) The children are cute (of course) and seem to be a bit older now (around 12 months).  Seems like they are referring the ones that have been waiting the longest because of the EP delay, so that's what we are kind of expecting at this point, but you never know with Korea. ;) We don't care about having an older child. There are some concerns about attachment, language, and other issues associated with adopting an older child, but we know that God has handpicked this child for us and we can rest in His decision! 

The past few weeks have been up and down for us. One day we are encouraged by movement, the next day, we wonder if will hear anything at all. We also have been hit hard by some financial issues too. We had been told that it would be in our best interest to go ahead with the homestudy update. We are too close for comfort now and if something goes wrong it could cause us some major delays in accepting our referral. Our update is another $1000 we didn't expect to pay!  We also were recently reminded that we will likely need to hire an attorney to finalize our adoption. I had known we needed this, but just forgot about adding it to our final adoption expenses. In the midst of all of this, we also found out our dog, Rosie, needs to have surgery to remove her bladder stones.  Again, we know the Lord will provide. It's the timing that is hard for us right now.

We thought we would be celebrating a referral during Thanksgiving, but now we aren't even sure we will have one for Christmas.  We also aren't really sure how to pray lately. Should we believe that God will give us a referral soon, or should we be praying for continued faith to trust in His timing? We know that God is capable and wants to provide the desires of our hearts, but our past has shown that God often has other plans for us. We would love it if you all would pray for us and help fill in the gap during this time. This waiting is really getting to us!

Throughout this whole journey, I have always heard adoptive parents say,

"Adoption is hard...but it's WORTH THE WAIT!"

I'm VERY much looking forward to the day when I can know this truth!  Thank you all for thinking of us during this time. Don't know how we could get through this without you!