Jadens Journey

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.

About Jaden's Journey Adoption, Korea, Seoul, travel

We got the travel call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I cannot believe it!! Although, I guess I should believe it – I’ve been moaning about it for weeks.

Actually, the call ended up being an email. The agency called our home number, but I wasn’t home. I was in class this morning. I’m glad she didn’t give up and she sent me an email saying “please call me.” I am still in a daze. It is amazing. Things always happen when you least expect it….

My mind momentarily thought “I wonder if we’d be able to make it on a flight tomorrow?” but then sanity returned as I remembered everything I have to accomplish before leaving. So we have a temporary hold on flights that we’ll head to the airport for next Thursday night. We are waiting to hear from our U.S. agency as to whether or not this schedule is acceptable for the agency in Korea. They will let us know in the morning. Once they let us know, we can finalize the flights.

And now the running around begins — I have to figure out how to get ahead in my lesson plans, rearrange the schedule for all my classes, and figure out what I’m packing. We don’t have the crib or changing table yet, so we have a call in to the store to pick up the ‘loaner’ crib they promised us a while back. Hopefully we can pick it up this weekend. Of course we’re still decorating the nursery, so we will try to finish that this weekend as well, and then head to BRU to pick up anything that we still need (which isn’t much, after the shower!) We still haven’t finished getting gifts for the foster family, social worker, and the agency personnel, so guess what else we’ll be doing this weekend…

We haven’t received an update yet on Jaden’s height and weight, so I have no idea what to pack for him yet. I’m hoping to get that information before we travel, or I’m just going to have to take a guess at what to bring.

Next week is going to be an interesting week trying to teach and keep up with the house and work when I am sure my focus will be solely only on boarding that plane!

As it turns out, I have a colleague at work who is currently teaching in Seoul. We were in touch this week and he has offered to show us around Seoul. So I’m sure we’ll have some wonderful pictures to post once we do get there. By the way; his description of Seoul was that it is “a crazy place with a lot of people in it.” Sounds familiar!

About Jaden's Journey Seoul, travel, travel call

Finally, after a couple of weeks that seemed like forever, we have news!! Today I opened yesterday’s mail (I have to get better about that) and we had a letter from the National Visa Center. The letter was dated August 26th and said that our case was forwarded to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea.

If I have my timelines down, this means we could be getting a call as soon as Tuesday – and most likely by the second week of September. If the call comes Tuesday I’m not sure we’ll be able to catch a plane by next weekend… It depends on flight schedules…. and human schedules… but we will sure try!!  

Of course, as we expected, this is timed perfectly with the baby shower that so many of you are joining us for next Saturday. Assuming we get the travel call on Tuesday, and assuming we are able to get flights out and hotels reserved next week (that’s a lot of assumptions), then we will try to fly out on Saturday evening so we can go ahead with the shower as planned. I’m really looking forward to seeing you all at the shower, so we’ll definitely do our best to work around it!

We are super, crazy excited!!! We’ll be running around this weekend trying to prepare as much as we can for Jaden’s arrival… it is highly likely that we won’t have the crib in time, but the company that we ordered it from (USA Baby) was kind enough to offer us a loaner crib until ours comes in. We’ll call them this weekend to see about picking it up sometime next week so that we can at least have the nursery set up. 

The rest of our weekend we will spend baby-proofing the house (lots and lots of window shade cords to take care of), and I’ll be preparing as many of my lectures that I can in advance so that I don’t have to worry about that while we are on our trip. We’re also hoping to go to the state fair in our town tomorrow. I have never been to a state fair before. It’s hard for me to believe there really is such a thing; I’ve only seen them in the movies so I keep wondering if we’ll get there and hear “SOOooiee!” I’ll keep all yooz New Yawka’s posted. LOL

Hopefully I’ll have more to report on Tuesday  — Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

About Jaden's Journey National Visa Center, news, nursery, town fair, travel, travel call

Greetings everyone. I am on day – - oh, heck, I have no idea – - I lost count. I just know that if the phone keeps ringing and it’s not the agency telling us that we can travel as soon as we can pack, get plane tickets, and get to the airport to head on our way to Korea…. I’m going to end up having heart failure. I have never, ever spent so much time staring at caller-id before in my life. 

So I took another look today at the I171H approval and it seems that CIS received the I600 on July 22nd, but didn’t approve it until August 7th. Somehow I had myself believing that it was approved on July 22nd (wishful thinking!) – so my calculations are slightly off. That means that this Thursday will be 3 weeks since the approval, and according to the agency if we fit into the ‘average’ category we will have another week or two before we get “the call,” affectionately known as “TC” on the Korea adoption boards. 

I was sincerely (and selfishly) hoping that it would work out that we could go the first week of classes. This is possibly why I convinced myself our approval date was 2 weeks earlier. It would be so much simpler for me to go that week for a number of reasons, one of which is that there is not one college student in this universe that actually pays attention to anything a professor says on the first day of class. They are too busy figuring out which class is next, where the class is being held, how to get to the building, picking up the syllabus, making a judgement call as to whether this class seems like too much work to add to an already overwhelming schedule, determining which professors they like the best, dropping those they don’t like and adding those that they do like, changing their schedules around to match with their work schedules…. etc, etc. etc. So it’s pretty much a “Hi Professor, nice to meet you, give me the %@$! syllabus, and I’ll see ya next week!” 

In short, the first week of class isn’t a horrible one to miss, if you have to miss any. After that it gets stickier, and it screws up the entire schedule that you spent so much time putting into the syllabus in the first place. All the left-brained students hate it when the schedule gets messed up, so we try not to change the schedule at all, if possible. (All the right-brained students never realized there was a schedule in the first place, so they are usually okay.) 

The other reasons are also selfish, so maybe I should shut up – (but I can’t…  bloggers plight) – for instance, Neville is stuck going away for a week if we are not heading to Korea soon – and it’s not something that is really fitting well into our lives right now for a number of big reasons. Alas, we will manage, as we always do, but it really begs the question as to whether or not there are some things in our lives that we need to give serious reconsideration to, especially with our precious one so close to being home (yes, this is purposefully nebulous – sorry to those who have no idea what I’m talking about. If you PM me I’ll fill you in on all the gory details).

So I see I just went off on tangent number three  - odd numbers are considered lucky in Korea so three tangents seems like a good place to stop….

I wonder if anyone else is jumping out of their skin every time their phone rings this week?

About Jaden's Journey agency, blogger, I-171H, I-600, Korea, phone, schedule, school, syllabus, TC, timing, travel

As of today we haven’t heard anything more than the last update I posted. I was hoping for some information this week but it didn’t happen. I am thankful that we are fortunate to at least know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we expect to be traveling within the next 2-4 weeks. That is a lot more than some of my friends can say, as they are still caught up in the difficulties being faced by the parents waiting to adopt from Vietnam. I think of them every day.

This weekend my parents held a gathering with a few cousins since it has been many years since we were all able to get together. I wasn’t able to make it to the last one (long story for another day) so it was really terrific to be able to be there and spend time with everyone. Some I hadn’t seen in ages. We had such a beautiful day and it was a lot of fun. All of my cousin’s little ones are so adorable. I don’t think I have laughed that much in ages. The things kids will say and do….

About Jaden's Journey Adoption, family reunion, kids, Korea, travel, Vietnam

Today I received a call from the director of adoption at agency #2. It was a pre-planned call to go over the travel information packet they sent me in the mail. She confirmed we will likely travel within the next 3-5 weeks (usually it is 4-6 weeks from approval, and our approval was 8/7). The next steps are a whirlwind of occurrences: we will get “the call” that Jaden is ready to travel. We will travel the same week (on the nearest Friday or Saturday). We are to immediately call the travel agent (who we don’t have yet) and put a 24 hour hold on our flights. After that we contact the agency and let them know what our tentative itinerary is. They will contact Korea, get the confirmation that the itinerary we gave them is peachy, and call us back so we can purchase the tickets (or make other plans if the itinerary doesn’t work). 

They prefer if we travel out of NY either on a Friday or Saturday and then return to NY from Korea on the following Friday. While we are in Korea we will visit the foster home on Monday to meet the foster family and Jaden. We go to the foster home with the social worker who will hopefully speak English well enough to help us communicate. Then we leave (without Jaden – boohoo) and tour the city on Monday evening and Tuesday. On Wednesday morning we go to the Korean agency and the foster mom meets us there with Jaden. We get to bring him back to the hotel with us, then spend Wednesday evening and Thursday getting adjusted and finally fly home on Friday.

The way they do things is very specific – they like everything just so — which is why we won’t be able to take Jaden until Wednesday. Their rule is that we cannot take him with us until 2 evenings before our departure. Once we have him in our care we are not allowed to leave the city limits of Seoul except to board our flights. This is to avoid having health complications before traveling. 

Jaden’s passport will have his Korean name on it. We won’t get to change his name officially until after the social worker visits us at least three times at our house once we return to the U.S. and provides a report back to Korea. After those three visits, we will have all the documentation necessary to complete the final paperwork — at least, that’s the way I understand it right now. As these things go, there are so many intricate details it is very difficult (especially for right-brained people; teehee) to absorb all at once, so you learn as you go. 

The agency representative warned us that Wednesday, when we meet the foster mother to take Jaden home with us, will be a very emotion-filled day. She said it is not uncommon for the foster mother to cry a lot, and Jaden may become very emotional too. I have been having nightmares about this…. for a couple of weeks now… maybe it is my mind trying to prepare me for the emotional exhaustion of it all. Our brains are amazing. 

We should bring gifts for the staff at the agency in Seoul, as well as the social worker. I read some suggestions on the message boards about Korean adoption as to what types of gifts to bring…. they suggest things made in the USA (hahahaha – is anything anymore?) or related to our local area. I also saw a hint on one of the  boards suggesting we bring flowers to the foster mother the day she brings Jaden to the agency to go home with us. I thought that was a great idea. 

The agency rep also told me a few interesting tidbits about Korean culture: proper dress usually means no jeans, sneakers, or open toe shoes. Slacks, dresses, and button down shirts are the norm for restaurants. It is proper etiquette to wear socks or nylons when entering someone’s house — no bare feet. How different from here! I’m always barefoot in the summer (but obviously not pregnant- LOL).

So this is totally off-topic, but a number of you have asked me for websites or other resources on green housecleaning – so tomorrow I’ll post some of the things we’ve been doing around here to be more ‘organic.’

Until then, nighty-night!

About Jaden's Journey ceremony, culture, flight, itinerary, Korea, travel

After the insane day I had yesterday running around to all of my engagements, it has finally hit me that we were approved by CIS!!! I think I was in a daze yesterday – the email was so unexpected. In the adoption process, this is truly a significant milestone. CIS is usually the biggest holdup, according to the adoption community circles I’ve run with, in the entire process. Having them process our paperwork in less than two weeks is utterly amazing. I have watched as waiting parents have sat on the edge of their seats for 30, 60, sometimes 90 days, biting their nails, waiting for the OK from the US to travel to pick up their baby. We are so blessed to have this portion of the process go off so quickly. CIS has just given us the gift of two more weeks with Jaden during his infant months. This is tremendous. 

I did hear back from agency #2 and they are jumping up and down for us too! They are sending us a packet of materials covering travel details, and we have to give a call to another representative (let’s be original and call her rep #2) to discuss travel plans. Here is part of their response, outlining the next steps: 

“From this point, we generally receive travel notice about 4 to 6 weeks. The notice will come in the form of “[Jaden] is ready to travel at any time” – at which point you will arrange to travel to Korea on the first Friday that you are able – it’s definitely a whirlwind!”

Whirlwind – no kidding! The way I’m thinking about it, if we are really, really fortunate, the process in Korea will go as quickly as it did here in the US, and we could potentially travel in 2 weeks! I guess that is my optimism carrying it a little too far… but it is fun to imagine!! I guess I really, really do need to get the nursery together now! So much to do and so little time!

About Jaden's Journey adopt, Adoption, approval, blessed, Korea, nursery, time, travel

I just stopped home between two appointments to grab something to eat…. and I thought – what the heck – I’ll check my email…. and there it was!!! I received an email from USCIS letting us know they mailed us the I-600 approval today!!!!!!! 

The I-600 approval was estimated to take the first 4-5 weeks of the 8-10 week wait we were last quoted (only two weeks ago), which means, if everything else goes well, we might be traveling in another 4-6 weeks! I am so excited – wouldn’t it be wonderful if we traveled in the beginning of September?!!!! – I just can’t believe it is moving along so quickly (… knock on wood). )

I put a call into our contact at agency #2 to find out what we have to do next, if anything. Somehow I lost track of whether or not we’re supposed to send them a copy of our approval or if CIS sends it directly to Korea for the next step. Maybe it is just the excitement making me loopy. I’ll write more when I hear from her… in the meantime….

I’M JUMPING UP AND DOWN!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Off to my next appointment.

About Jaden's Journey agency, approval, travel, waiting