Wahe's World

03 Jul 2008

Paperwork sent!

Michelle Here……well, this is my first Blog post ever……I’m finally inching my way into this century, and becoming a Blogger.

Thanks so much to everyone for your many kind emails! Stefan and I really appreciate them.

We took the information to our pediatrician immediately on Thursday (day of referral). At that point, we had a faxed copy of the info. The only thing we did not have were the clear photos of our little guy. The following day (Friday) we picked up his packet that had arrived via FedEx from our agency in Illinois that morning at the office of our local Lifelink Rep. In it, we had 3 pages of information on him, along with 3 photos. We feel fortunate because we got a lot of info on him. We got one page of medical history, one page of daily ‘stuff’ ….what he eats, how much he eats, what he likes to do, how much he sleeps, his temperament, etc. The final page was information on his birth mother and birth father. We got a fair amount of info on his birth mother. We feel very lucky to have all the information.

So on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday we filled out the required paperwork. The paperwork wasn’t too big of a deal, just a lot of busy work of pulling stuff together…once again. In this batch, we had to send 10 photos of ourselves, our family, and one photo each of the front and back of our house. Overall, this paperwork starts the process of the US granting a visa for our little guy, and then Korea issuing/relinquishing our little guy to leave their country. He will be issued a passport when everything is said and done, and we will be ‘approved’, as far as both governments are concerned to be his proud parents. He will become a US citizen 6 months after he is with us.

Then on Monday, we got approx. 12 documents notarized, and we sent off the packet to our agency! A relief it was! We also had to get together some stuff for our Lifelink person, and that got mailed off on Tuesday.

So now….it’s back to waiting 🙂 We’re shopping for a crib/nursery furniture this weekend, so that should be fun.

Stefan and I have been really excited about everything. It took me about 2 days for everything to sink in. The first 2 days, I logically ‘knew’ he was coming, but I didn’t feel like he was ‘mine’ yet. I started to feel very attached to his picture around Sunday. Stefan embraced everything right away, but I took a little longer for everything to sink in. I felt a gambit of emotions from excited, to overwhelmed about being a mother, to a shift in my identity from a ‘entrepreneur’ to a ‘mother’ to being very excited to hold him. Also what came up was my own sense/fear of abandonment (I was adopted myself when I was 3 months old). I look at little Soo Min, and can feel just what he is and will be feeling…..I especially feel a sense of empathy the day he will leave his foster mother. I find myself looking at his picture constantly, and wanting to hold him and pinch his little cheeks!

So we’re going to keep ourselves busy these next few months, and hopefully the time will pass by more quickly.

Again, thanks everyone for your mutual excitement, support, and happiness.

Posted by Michelle in About, Adoptions and tagged referral

27 Jun 2008

3 Comments

Look! Its Soo Min!!!

We met with our adoption agent this afternoon and we now have a picture of Soo Min!!! We are very excited to see the picture and to share him with you …

The first pictures are Soo Min at 5 months and the other is at 1 month old.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions

26 Jun 2008

Ring …. Ring …. Ring …. (It’s Good News!!!)

Today, June 26, 2008 at 10:53 a.m. CST, Soo Min entered our lives (at least on paper). Our adoption agent called us about Soo Min. He is five and a half months old, currently weighs 16 pounds and is 25 inches long. He was born on January 9. He appears healthy and happy. The information we received is very positive.

This afternoon we met with the doctor to go over the medical information. He did not have any concerns regarding the report. Tomorrow we meet with our agent when we will get an actual photo of the little guy (we have a faxed photo, but it is not very legible). The picture shows a pudgy looking little guy with a full head of dark hair.

The report identifies Soo Min as “manly with a round face”. He is currently in a foster home and is reported as eating and sleeping well. He has been going to bed at 10 p.m. and awakes at 6 to 7 a.m. He is sleeping through the night. And if you are even more curious about him: “he is having a stool a day in good condition.” Still want to hear more?Â Â Soo Minn means prominent and clever. He is rolling over on his stomach and raising up. Oh, and he is already saying “eomme.” the Korean word for mother. Pretty good for a five month old (guess I am already a proud father).

I am very excited about becoming a father. I am keeping myself contained knowing that we still need to complete some paperwork. We also have to wait for Korea to process the paperwork on their side of the Pacific. It may be five or more months before we can travel to meet Soo Min on his turf. Michelle is feeling a combination of being overwhelmed, excited, anxious and joyful. She has been waiting to become a mother for a long time. As her husband, I love the fact that she has been strong and patient through the process (to be direct, I appreciate that she has not been neurotic). For both of us, this has been a very surreal day. We are becoming parents without going to the hospital, without the labor pains, without the swearing through clenched teeth while trying to breathe in some rhythmic pattern. However, we have questioned our abilities to be parents; we have fretted over if we are fit enough; and we have felt our own angst while waiting for that phone to ring. Now it is are time to rise above our questions and be the foundation for little Soo Min.

We will post the picture as soon as we get it tomorrow. Please feel free to post a comment or send email us at stefan@wahe.us.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged Referal

25 Jun 2008

About Michelle and Stefan

Michelle pointed out that we haven’t told the world much about ourselves. Actually she said that we should post a picture (I’m the one who likes to type). So here is the skinny. Michelle and I have been married for just over three years. We live in Madison, WI. Michelle owns a business designing and wholesaling paper mache and resin home decorating gifts. I work as an Information Security Analyst. We are just starting our family so our little guy from Korea will be our first. We also have our paperwork in for China and have a login date of February 5, 2007. We have three cats and one big fuzzy dog. That is us in a nut shell!

We are interested in corresponding with other sho are in the process of adopting for Korea and China. Especially if you are traveling soon

Stefan and Michelle

Posted by swahe in About, Adoptions and tagged Adout Us

25 Jun 2008

Ring ….

Well the phone did ring this morning at 7:42 a.m.Â With a little hesitation and a crack in her voice, Michelle answered with a hello.Â However, it was not Lifelink in this case but an employee calling in sick.Â We hope to hear something soon.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions

24 Jun 2008

Clock Watching

Do you remember the waning days of the school year? The clock would tick off the minutes with glacerial speed. The second hand seemed to tick the seconds counter clockwise, passing time abnormal redundancy. That is the same feeling that Michelle and I are experiencing as we anticipate our call from Lifelink regarding our adoption from South Korea. We are at the top of the list! The last posted referral were from May 22. Normally referrals occur every three to four weeks. So as we get more and more questions from family and friends about the status our answers have gone from an upbeat, high-pitched “Any day!” to a low grunt of “any day now”

However, we are not deterred and are still of course very excited. Michelle has been staying current with other who have been traveling to Korea and China through various blogs. She and I have been watching one blog with a little guy adopted from Taiwan four months ago. It has been a lot of fun to see how they have grown in that short about of time and how much he enjoys eating vegetables. We also have been planning the nursery. The other day we went to check out cribs. There seems to be a lot of varrieance in price, quality and functionality. We are going to waiting for Michelle’s parents to vist to go crib shopping.

As a side note, I hope to begin posting more frequently as we anticipate that call.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged adoption, Waiting

15 Apr 2008

Excited (but no news)

Yesterday marked the one month from our three year wedding anniversary. Why is our three year wedding anniversary so important? That date marks when we can officially be matched with a child. One of the requirements for being qualified to adopt from South Korea is that a couple has to be married for a least three years. We started our process in September of 2007. At that time we completed an application that put us on the list before we were paper ready. To be honest, we won’t be paper ready at the May 14th date. But it will be close to that. However, in any case, we are at the top end of the list which means we hope to be referred a child by the end of June.

Why is this exciting? Well, first let me explain our second important date for May. May also marks the two year anniversary for the starting point of our adoption process for China. This process requires that you become paper ready before you are placed on the waiting. Our paper chase took a little longer then we would like to admit. We were added to the China waiting parent list in February 2007. The original time frame from being put on the list and being referred a child was around 16 months. This would have put us traveling to China to greet out little daughter in September 2008. However, the China time frame keeps on slipping. In attempting to calculating this slipping timeframe, I have come closer in solving the time paradox.

So the reason that we are excited is that after frustration of the China process, we are please to be so close to bring home a little boy from South Korea this September or October. In this excitement we have become more engaged in are parent education, creating the perfect nursery and planning the shower for family and friends.

We have asked a friend to accompany us to the store to create a shower registry. So what does one ask for in adopting a baby. Turns out a lot of the exact same things any child would need (including a full New York Yankees uniform). As you can see from an earlier post, we have already been buying presents for our little one. So this is why we are excited!

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged adoption, Shower, South Korea

29 Mar 2008

Parent Training

As part of the adoption process, Michelle and I are required to participate in 16+ hours of parent training. The other day, Michelle and I attended Lifelink’s “Parent’s Training” in Rockford, IL. This was worth eight hours of parent education. We had the opportunity to meet a family who recently returned from Korea with their son. It was fun to watch the little guy run around and hear their story. We heard from a women who was adopted from Korea 30 years ago. She spent an hour talking about her childhood, the feelings of abandonment, her desire to “fit in” and her embracement of Korea as an adult. A pediatrician spoke on how to prepare for our international trip, talking with a pediatrician and things to consider when returning to the States. A social worker also spoke about bonding and attachment issues. He talked about a child’s grieving, bonding and abandonment. We also had the opportunity to meet many families adopting from Ethiopia, Haiti, Korea, Vietnam and China. It was definitely worth the time
spent.

Some have said it is odd that we would be required to take parent training. However, I think it is a must. At least for myself. There are many points to raising a child that I wouldn’t have considered. i had it to those who just jumped into the parenting game. With international adoptions, there can be a few adjustments to make that may be different from being a biological parent. One of those adjustments is the concept of replacing the “Time-Out” with the “Time-In”. With children who have any feelings of abandonment may have difficulties with being sent away when being bad. Therefore, they suggest that we employ the “Time-In” technique. Instead of sending our child away until the child, or I, calm down, that we sit down together and regulate ourselves. Kind of different.

Our next educational opportunity is to attend the East Meets West Conference for our China adoption. There is a discussion that is specific to parenting for Dads. It will be interesting to see what they tell us.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged adoption, Education

26 Jan 2008

A Gift …

Part of Michelle’s business takes her to a number of trade shows each year. She often brings home very unique home furnishings, yard decorations and other gifts. This past week, at the latest show, she found a GIANT brown bear named Minky. Now this will be a great toy for our son and daughter. However, there may not be enough space in their bedroom since Minky stands a whopping seven feet six inches. I guess that means I have to return the card board cutout of Milwaukee Buck’s forward Yi Jianlian. They’ll have more fun climbing on the bear then being intimated by a cardboard picture.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged adoption, Gift, Minky

21 Jan 2008

Adopting Two Kids

Michelle and I talked about adopting a child on our first date. I guess that is what you call foreshadowing . Two and a half years after that date, a trip to China, a wedding and our first anniversary Michelle and I were sitting on the edge of our seats in a church basement listening to Finoa describe her and her husbands journey to adopting their two daughters. So for that moment on, Michelle and I were on the path to parenthood via China.

Our original plan was to adopt a little girl from China and try our luck with have a biological child to be her brother or sister. However, after a year of missing our target, we discovered that we were not meant to be pregnant. So since our hearts were already engaged to having two children, we starting looking for a second path.

The process to get onto the China waiting list is a journey onto itself. Our first five months were dedicated to finding and describing our lives with a social worker to get on the list. Out Log In Date (LID) of February 5, 2007 was established by the Chinese government and then it has been a practice of patience. Our adoption agency, Great Wall Adoption Agency, sends out a notice each month listing the number of children matched with waiting parents. Since the time of our LID, the length of time it takes to become matched has increased. Therefore when it came time to start thinking about second adoption, the China option seemed like an option that would take us well into our mid-40s.

Our second option for a concurrent option turned out to be Korea. We are already on the list for a little boy or girl from South Korea. The catch is that we have to wait until we have been married for three years before being matched.

This is the beginning of our journey. I plan to write more about the things we have done and are planning to do as we wait to be matching with our children from the other side of the world.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions and tagged adoption, china, korea