There is no particular reason for this post, other than for me to type out some of my thoughts.
After getting our good news regarding Mia's visa approval on Monday, I hoped we would get one of the three important calls this week (EP or PP or both); but then I found out that the Intercountry Adoption lady was out of the office for the rest of the week therefore our agency would not be receiving any updates. Don't people know they can't take off work when there are anxious parents wanting to bring their sweet babies home? ;o) My prayer since then has been that everyone else has been working hard and on Monday when she returns to work, she will have LOTS of good news to pass on.
Thursday was a hard day...I'm not sure why but I cried a lot. Most days I try to keep myself busy so I don't obsess too much. But then again, it's not like it is possible to go a day without thinking about your daughter who is on the other side of the world waiting for her forever family. Who knew that your heart could ache so much for someone you've never met but have only seen a couple of pictures of, a short little video of and LOTS of paperwork on. It does make me feel better to know that she is being loved and well cared for by her wonderful foster mom.
Speaking of foster mom, I went shopping this week for some special gifts to take for Mia's foster mom, birth mom and birth grandmother. There is a local Christian jeweler that makes very beautiful, unique pieces which all come with a little story and scripture behind the piece. I haven't decided what to buy yet because I want the gifts to be perfect and hopefully convey a little bit of the eternal love, gratefulness, respect, etc. that I have for these special women. How do you ever really thank someone for the gift of a child?
Speaking of gifts :o)...I have twelve wonderful friends who are throwing a baby shower for Mia on Sunday at church. I am so excited and looking forward to getting some things for Mia and hopefully feeling like I really am a mommy to two miracles from God.
I guess I will close this post tonight by counting my blessings. God has blessed me with a wonderful hubby, my "miracle baby" Huston, my second little miracle Mia, awesome friends and a great family. I truly am richly blessed!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
I-600 Approval!!!!
A week ago today, I e-mailed our immigration office in El Paso to check the status of Mia's paperwork. I received a very nice e-mail from "JP" stating that her paperwork was on his desk but he was swamped and would get to it as soon as he could. I e-mailed back a nice little "thank you, I'll be praying you catch up" e-mail. Today I decided that since it had been a week since my last stalker e-mail that I would e-mail again to see if JP had worked his way through the pile on his desk. Late this afternoon I received an e-mail back from him stating that Mia's I-600 was approved today, which means she has Visa approval! They sent the approval to the U.S. Embassy, e-mailed Seoul to let them know of the approval, and sent the official approval notice to us in the mail today. Mia's US paperwork is complete, now we need Seoul to grant her emmigration permission, issue her passport, and call us to say "come get her". Our caseworker with our agency said she would call Seoul in a couple of days to see if they have anything ready for her. I'll be praying even harder the next couple of days that they will complete at least part (or all would be fine) of her Korean paperwork.
We are SO ready to bring our sweet girl home!
We are SO ready to bring our sweet girl home!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
NEW picture of Mia
We received a wonderful surprise in the mail on Wednesday...a new picture of Mia. It is her 4 month picture and WOW! has she grown. I cried and cried after I opened the picture...it was tears of both excitement and heartache because I was getting to see how much my little girl had grown and she had grown more than I had expected. I'm so glad she looks so healthy and of course, she's just gorgeous! This new picture just makes me want to get her home even faster!
On Thursday, we received yet another surprise. Eastern (in Korea) sent us her updated weight and height. She weighs a whopping 16 lbs. and is 25 inches long. We looked up Huston's weight and height and were amazed to see that Huston was also 16 lbs. but he was 25.5 inches long. I just love my butterball babies! :o)
The information from Eastern also said that the birth mother and grandmother would possibly like to meet us when we go to Korea to pick up Mia HaeEun. I'm a little nervous but excited. You wonder, "Will they like us?" "Will they think we are good enough to raise Hae Eun?" I will just be praying that if the meeting occurs, that it will be a blessing to everyone involved and it will give Hae Eun's birth family even more peace that they made the best decision for their sweet baby. Plus it would be wonderful to share the details of this meeting with Mia one day.
Mia HaeEun
Our 1st pic of Mia
Mia HaeEun
When Huston was getting close to turning two, we started talking about adoption. How many children did we want to have? We weren't sure, so to make sure we fulfilled our dream of adopting, we decided to adopt our second child. I began researching different agencies and the options of domestic and international adoption. Our first choice was Korean adoption, due to my Korean heritage, but we were not sure we could afford international adoption. Upon further investigation, we realized that the costs for domestic and Korean adoption were very close and decided to proceed with Korean adoption. We chose Dillon International as our agency because they are a Christian agency, they are a leader in the field, and they have a special program for families with Korean Heritage (faster processing time of applications, etc. and shorter overall waiting time for a child). That was the first blessing in this process...Dillon and its staff are excellent! We love our agency and its employees, God definately led us to them.
When Huston was getting close to turning two, we started talking about adoption. How many children did we want to have? We weren't sure, so to make sure we fulfilled our dream of adopting, we decided to adopt our second child. I began researching different agencies and the options of domestic and international adoption. Our first choice was Korean adoption, due to my Korean heritage, but we were not sure we could afford international adoption. Upon further investigation, we realized that the costs for domestic and Korean adoption were very close and decided to proceed with Korean adoption. We chose Dillon International as our agency because they are a Christian agency, they are a leader in the field, and they have a special program for families with Korean Heritage (faster processing time of applications, etc. and shorter overall waiting time for a child). That was the first blessing in this process...Dillon and its staff are excellent! We love our agency and its employees, God definately led us to them.
We officially started the process in March of 2006. It has been quite a ride! Mountains of paperwork, a roller coaster of emotions, classes to attend, interviews to complete, and the worst part of all...WAITING and even MORE WAITING. All of this leading up to the day that every potential adoptive parent waits for...the day you get THE CALL!
In the evening of February 1, 2007 our phone rang, I grabbed the phone and saw "Abilene Christian University" on caller ID. I could barely contain myself enough to answer the phone; our social worker is a professor at Abilene Christian University so my heart lept...could this be THE CALL? It was THE CALL! She said they had a baby girl for us to look at and gave me lots of information about her, the only thing that was wrong with her was a heart murmur. They forwarded her medical information to me and I immediately sent it to our pediatrician for him to look at. This sweet little girl, Hae Eun, was about to turn three months old and after getting opinions from different doctors we decided to wait and see what they found at her three month well check before making a decision. Most importantly, we decided to pray and leave this decision in God's hand. We needed "a sign" to know if this was the daughter God had picked out for us or not. Of course you want to say YES! but you want to make sure this is the best fit for everyone. We prayed that if Hae Eun was to be our daughter that her heart murmur would be the same or better at her checkup. If she was worse, then this was not our daughter and although it would be painful, we would have to turn down the referral. I began praying for God to just heal her and let her be our daughter. I loved her and all I knew about her was the blurb from our social worker and the information on her medical sheet; but I'm a mommy and that's just how we love. The moment I signed the first application, my heart was open to my future daughter and the love was ready to flow.
In the evening of February 1, 2007 our phone rang, I grabbed the phone and saw "Abilene Christian University" on caller ID. I could barely contain myself enough to answer the phone; our social worker is a professor at Abilene Christian University so my heart lept...could this be THE CALL? It was THE CALL! She said they had a baby girl for us to look at and gave me lots of information about her, the only thing that was wrong with her was a heart murmur. They forwarded her medical information to me and I immediately sent it to our pediatrician for him to look at. This sweet little girl, Hae Eun, was about to turn three months old and after getting opinions from different doctors we decided to wait and see what they found at her three month well check before making a decision. Most importantly, we decided to pray and leave this decision in God's hand. We needed "a sign" to know if this was the daughter God had picked out for us or not. Of course you want to say YES! but you want to make sure this is the best fit for everyone. We prayed that if Hae Eun was to be our daughter that her heart murmur would be the same or better at her checkup. If she was worse, then this was not our daughter and although it would be painful, we would have to turn down the referral. I began praying for God to just heal her and let her be our daughter. I loved her and all I knew about her was the blurb from our social worker and the information on her medical sheet; but I'm a mommy and that's just how we love. The moment I signed the first application, my heart was open to my future daughter and the love was ready to flow.
On February 12th, our agency called to let us know that Hae Eun's checkup was excellent and the heart murmur was completely gone! Praise God! I was in awe that God had once again heard our prayers and healed our second child! I immediately said YES and that was the day we became parents to two beautiful children.We had a list of girl names we had picked out while waiting to find out if Huston was a boy or girl. When we went over the list of names, none of them fit this beautiful Korean little girl. We had always liked the name Mia, but had never written it down on THE list or anything. I looked up the meaning of Mia in a baby names book we have and it said it was Italian in origin and meant "mine". That was PERFECT...we knew her name had to be Mia HaeEun. Mia's paperwork came the next day and it was being sent back out the day after that, I couldn't stand the thought of paperwork being in the way of us bringing our daughter home. That's a funny thought, though...once you finish your end of the paperwork, you sit and wait on everyone else to finish their paperwork. In the paperwork package, we also received a short video of Mia...what a wonderful blessing to see her moving, looking around and she even smiled!!! My heart melted. So now all we can do is pray, wait, watch the video, miss her even more and then pray and wait some more!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Huston William
Huston's Christmas Pic
A couple of days before our two year wedding anniversary (Aug '03), we found out we were pregnant with our first child. We were so excited! In November we found out that we would have a son and decided to name him Huston William. Then on March 19, 2004, Huston was born weighing in at 8 lbs. 10 1/2 oz and 19 inches long...and he was 3 1/2 weeks early!?!
Huston is now three years old and we can't believe how time has flown by! We have learned SO much in our role as Huston's parents and have been even more blessed. Huston is our first miracle baby. When Huston was a few days old, they found a heart murmur -- while this is common in newborns, Huston's murmur was not innocent. He was diagnosed with Pulmonary Stenosis, this just means that the valve leaflets in his pulmonary valve do not function properly (they are too thick), and to complicate matters there is a narrowing of his pulmonary artery right above the valve which further disables his valve from working properly. Then at five weeks old when Rusty was changing Huston's diaper, he saw what appeared to be an inguinal hernia...so we were off to the doctor and then to a pediatric surgeon. The next week Huston had double hernia surgery in Lubbock. Huston had a wonderful surgeon and everything went great. Those of you who have children know that being first time parents is hard enough in itself...so we were a little overwhelmed, but we didn't know any different either. We started seeing a pediatric cardiologist from Cook Children's for Huston's heart defect and at eight months old, they decided to attempt a balloon valvoplasty to "fix" Huston's valve. We went to Cook's in Ft. Worth and were very excited to think Huston would be free from the defect and would only have a faint murmur as a reminder that he ever had a problem. One of the nurses even told us during his surgery that the success rate is really high and that the "only reason it wouldn't work is if his valve was really gnarled or something". Well, you can imagine the shock when the surgeon gave us the post-op news that the procedure was unsuccessful and we would have to try again when Huston was older. Huston's more complex heart defect was pretty rare and combined with the other problems we had already encountered, the doctors decided it was time for genetic testing to see if there was a common link to his problems. While we were waiting for the results, we went in for Huston's ten month check up. They noticed a big jump in his head size and immediately sent us for a CT scan in Odessa. It was upon receiving the results of the scan that Huston was diagnosed with schizencephaly, a VERY rare brain defect/disease (it is recognized by a fluid-filled cleft running through the brain). The doctor in Odessa diagnosed, our pediatrician confirmed and so did a pediatric neurologist and pediatric radiologist from Cook Children's Hospital. We were told he would start having seizures (medication would help but not cure) and that there was no cure and nothing else they could do for him. Schizencephaly is a terminal disease, which slowly takes away vision, hearing, physical capabilities, etc. We would have a more in depth MRI performed to let us know the exact type and the advancement of the defect/disease. What could we do now? PRAY!!!! and ask everyone we knew and people we didn't know to pray for our son. We came to the realization that if God chose to heal Huston, that would be wonderful and we would give God all of the glory; but we also knew that if God chose to say no to our prayers and not heal him that we would all be okay and would strive to still give God all of the glory by the way we handled Huston and everything that would come with schizencephaly...including a premature death. A VERY long two and a half weeks later, we went to Cook Childrens for the MRI with contrast and then awaited the phone call from our pediatrician to let us know the results. We were in our hotel room one morning when the phone rang and our pediatrician told me that Huston's MRI was perfect, clear, there was nothing there except a little noted "sinusitus". GOD HAD HEALED OUR SON!!!! What an amazing blessing and so humbling to think that God chose to heal Huston. Praise God! By the way, his genetic testing results came back fine, too.
I have learned so many lessons from the different experiences with Huston. One is that our children truly are not ours, they belong to God and He is just letting us take care of them for a little while until He calls them home. I also learned what it is like to rely 100% on your faith in God and His ultimate power and control. There was NOTHING anyone could do for Huston...there was no magic medication to cure him, no super doctor with a special treatment, nothing...all we could do was plead with Him to heal our son and commit to praise God no matter what the outcome.
A couple of days before our two year wedding anniversary (Aug '03), we found out we were pregnant with our first child. We were so excited! In November we found out that we would have a son and decided to name him Huston William. Then on March 19, 2004, Huston was born weighing in at 8 lbs. 10 1/2 oz and 19 inches long...and he was 3 1/2 weeks early!?!Huston is now three years old and we can't believe how time has flown by! We have learned SO much in our role as Huston's parents and have been even more blessed. Huston is our first miracle baby. When Huston was a few days old, they found a heart murmur -- while this is common in newborns, Huston's murmur was not innocent. He was diagnosed with Pulmonary Stenosis, this just means that the valve leaflets in his pulmonary valve do not function properly (they are too thick), and to complicate matters there is a narrowing of his pulmonary artery right above the valve which further disables his valve from working properly. Then at five weeks old when Rusty was changing Huston's diaper, he saw what appeared to be an inguinal hernia...so we were off to the doctor and then to a pediatric surgeon. The next week Huston had double hernia surgery in Lubbock. Huston had a wonderful surgeon and everything went great. Those of you who have children know that being first time parents is hard enough in itself...so we were a little overwhelmed, but we didn't know any different either. We started seeing a pediatric cardiologist from Cook Children's for Huston's heart defect and at eight months old, they decided to attempt a balloon valvoplasty to "fix" Huston's valve. We went to Cook's in Ft. Worth and were very excited to think Huston would be free from the defect and would only have a faint murmur as a reminder that he ever had a problem. One of the nurses even told us during his surgery that the success rate is really high and that the "only reason it wouldn't work is if his valve was really gnarled or something". Well, you can imagine the shock when the surgeon gave us the post-op news that the procedure was unsuccessful and we would have to try again when Huston was older. Huston's more complex heart defect was pretty rare and combined with the other problems we had already encountered, the doctors decided it was time for genetic testing to see if there was a common link to his problems. While we were waiting for the results, we went in for Huston's ten month check up. They noticed a big jump in his head size and immediately sent us for a CT scan in Odessa. It was upon receiving the results of the scan that Huston was diagnosed with schizencephaly, a VERY rare brain defect/disease (it is recognized by a fluid-filled cleft running through the brain). The doctor in Odessa diagnosed, our pediatrician confirmed and so did a pediatric neurologist and pediatric radiologist from Cook Children's Hospital. We were told he would start having seizures (medication would help but not cure) and that there was no cure and nothing else they could do for him. Schizencephaly is a terminal disease, which slowly takes away vision, hearing, physical capabilities, etc. We would have a more in depth MRI performed to let us know the exact type and the advancement of the defect/disease. What could we do now? PRAY!!!! and ask everyone we knew and people we didn't know to pray for our son. We came to the realization that if God chose to heal Huston, that would be wonderful and we would give God all of the glory; but we also knew that if God chose to say no to our prayers and not heal him that we would all be okay and would strive to still give God all of the glory by the way we handled Huston and everything that would come with schizencephaly...including a premature death. A VERY long two and a half weeks later, we went to Cook Childrens for the MRI with contrast and then awaited the phone call from our pediatrician to let us know the results. We were in our hotel room one morning when the phone rang and our pediatrician told me that Huston's MRI was perfect, clear, there was nothing there except a little noted "sinusitus". GOD HAD HEALED OUR SON!!!! What an amazing blessing and so humbling to think that God chose to heal Huston. Praise God! By the way, his genetic testing results came back fine, too.
I have learned so many lessons from the different experiences with Huston. One is that our children truly are not ours, they belong to God and He is just letting us take care of them for a little while until He calls them home. I also learned what it is like to rely 100% on your faith in God and His ultimate power and control. There was NOTHING anyone could do for Huston...there was no magic medication to cure him, no super doctor with a special treatment, nothing...all we could do was plead with Him to heal our son and commit to praise God no matter what the outcome.
Monday, March 19, 2007
We have a blog!
This is the pic we took to send
in with our adoption application
Our Blog
I never thought we would have a blog, but here we are. It was suggested by some of our adoption forum members to create a blog to keep everyone posted back home when you finally travel to bring home your baby. So...in the anticipation of the most important trip we'll ever make I am creating a blog to document our journey to Mia.
Our Journey to Adoption
Here's a little bit about our journey so far...Rusty and I have always known that we wanted to adopt, even before we knew whether or not we would be able to have biological children. I believe adoption is something that God puts on your heart and that it truly may not be for everyone; but adoption is for us and we believe it is part of God's plan for our family. As most of you know, I am adopted; so this is the blessing of my adoption coming full circle...we're being blessed by adopting a child and hopefully blessing her life by making her a part of our family.
in with our adoption application
Our Blog I never thought we would have a blog, but here we are. It was suggested by some of our adoption forum members to create a blog to keep everyone posted back home when you finally travel to bring home your baby. So...in the anticipation of the most important trip we'll ever make I am creating a blog to document our journey to Mia.
Our Journey to Adoption
Here's a little bit about our journey so far...Rusty and I have always known that we wanted to adopt, even before we knew whether or not we would be able to have biological children. I believe adoption is something that God puts on your heart and that it truly may not be for everyone; but adoption is for us and we believe it is part of God's plan for our family. As most of you know, I am adopted; so this is the blessing of my adoption coming full circle...we're being blessed by adopting a child and hopefully blessing her life by making her a part of our family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)