Forever family

Every once in a while the excitement just bubbles up inside me and makes me want to jump up and down yelling “We’re going to Seoul!!!!! We’re finally picking up our son!!!!!”

Last night Neville and I realized it was our last weekend as a ‘dual income no kids yet’ couple.  It was during one of those “overwhelming excitement” moments.  We’re moving on to a new phase in our lives – one we have waited and waited for – one that we’re so happy to be entering. It is almost hard to believe. Yet, here we are!

We confirmed our flights and started making our packing list. Yesterday I spent a few hours with Mom’s and Dad’s help decorating the nursery. It looks so adorable – I’ll post pictures soon. There’s a lot to get done this week – we have to pick up the loaner crib (our furniture is not in yet) and set up a makeshift changing table for the time being. I need to figure out how to operate a car seat and a jogging stroller. We are completely in the dark about what they are feeding Jaden right now – we’ll find that out when we visit the foster family’s home next week, so there’s really no planning for that at the moment. We don’t even have an update on how big he is so we’re guessing based on the last medical exam we have information for, which was in May. Our SW tells us that they “feed babies a lot in Korea” so since he’s about 8.5 months now, we should be prepared to put him in 12 month clothes! 

The baby shower could not have happened at a better time. We made a list of everything we need to get this week at BRU to be completely set up for bringing Jaden home – it is a short list. We realized that after thinking for so long that we were adopting from Vietnam (where the babies tend to be about 2 months younger but much smaller) that Jaden’s closet is full of clothes for 3-6 and 6-9 months. We received many shower gifts that were sizes 12 months and up – so that’ll help a lot – but we have to do some clothes shopping this week too (poor me – how I hate to shop for baby clothes -jk -LOL).

Our plan is to arrive in Seoul on Saturday, tour the city Saturday and Sunday, visit the foster home on Monday to meet the foster family and Jaden, tour the city on Monday afternoon and Tuesday, then meet the foster family on Wednesday to take Jaden back to the hotel with us. 

It turns out that Neville’s new associate at work is from Korea, and his family has asked to meet us while we’re there. I just found out last week that I have a colleague that is teaching there for the semester – he is also from Korea – and he has offered to meet us at the airport and show us around Seoul. It is uncanny how these things come together.

We were lucky enough to get the two bedroom unit at the agency’s guesthouse. It is quite a lot less expensive than a hotel in the same area – so we’ll have plenty of Korean won left to spoil Jaden with. LOL 

We are jumping up and down inside, and nervous at the same time. It’s the first time we’re taking a 14 hour flight, no less to pick up our first child! We’ll be flying back 14 hours with an infant – which would probably be a challenge for any first time parent. (Heck, flying 14 hours is going to be a challenge for me!)

I don’t have the details worked out yet as to whether or not we’ll have regular access to the internet, but I’ll try to keep posting while we’re there, and adding pictures to the blog. I realized last week that there is a way to do as slideshow directly in the blog- if I can figure out how to post one I’ll do that rather than add in the snapfish links. It might be easier on your end to just flip through a slideshow.

Thank you everyone for all your support and the wonderful, heartwarming comments and emails. It is so great to hear from all of you and to know that you are following us through this unbelievably exciting, life-changing journey.