News!!!

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!

Blessed!!!

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!