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.