Still so excited!

I am still just so excited of this news. I know we are still waiting, but since I think I can say that referral will most likely be in the next 6 months it feels SO real. FINALLY! And for it to all come full circle back to Korea is just amazing.

A little history for those of you who don't know or remember...

When I was in high school my mom started volunteering with some friends for an agency that dealt with the Korean adoptions. On certain occasions I went with her to help. Korea is the one country that will escort the babies here. You don't have to go there if you don't want. Most people choose to have them brought to the states. Back in the 80's airports were much more relaxed of who they let "behind the scenes". Anyways what the drill was that when notice of babies were coming in a group of us would go to the airport to take care of them. When the plane landed the escorts got to go thru customs on their own and we would go on the planes and take the babies off. We each would have a baby. We would then get them trough customs. They were usually a bit soiled and smelly from the long flight so we would clean them up and change them. Many of the babies had to go on to other cities that didn't have international airports so sometimes we were making a mad dash thru the airport to get them on that flight with the escort. But there were also times when local people would come pick up their child. Oh to witness such a thing. The joy on these peoples faces. It was so overwhelming even to me at 15 yrs old. A couple of times we even had to have a baby overnight because their flight didn't go out until the morning.

We would take pictures of them as their first on US soil. We would then get the parents information and made sure we sent them the info. They were always so grateful! My mom kept in contact with quite a few of the families over the years via letters and Christmas cards.

Before I was born my mom knew someone who had adopted from Korea and was seriously thinking of doing the same. She never did and whoops...I came along. When we started our 2nd adoption journey it was only fitting that we went with Korea. We started the process and really wanted a girl. Things were changing a lot with the program and 6 months had gone by without one girl referral. My SW wasn't sure what the outcome of the program was at the time. She notified us of the fairly short wait with China. It took some time for us to come around to the idea of having to go to China for a baby. That is a big journey. But, since Jack is part Chinese it only made sense. The paperwork was completely different so it took a bit of time to complete it. Obviously during this time something was going on in China that was changing the wait times. It had gone from 12 months to 14 months...as each month went on it just seemed to grow longer and longer. Last fall when we reached the almost 2 yr mark I just couldn't take it anymore. I talked to my SW again and she then said that their Korean wait times weren't too bad and their lists weren't too long. Due to the fact that we were with Korea before and then switched she would see if she could squeeze us in the middle somewhere. Not in the top 10, but somewhere after that. Well I never called her back on it. We thought it could still take 18 months to 2 yrs and I just wanted a baby ASAP. We did sign up with our attorney for a domestic adoption. We have only been waiting a couple months for that. Since we went girl specific I figured it would take longer.

Well you know the rest from the last post. It was just the best surprise and news. Now I just image us standing outside of customs for someone to bring out our baby girl. Hurry up princess. Mommy is waiting for you.