And yes, I actually sat on the floor in his room and played with those mega legos. Michael even identified my masterpiece correctly...a dinosaur. This is probably the neatest his room will ever be!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Nesting...
So what is the world do you do after all of the paperwork is done and everything else is outside of your control, when just waiting for 4-6 months to pass by quickly? Well, this is what we are doing...I say we...Michael and I worked together to sand and paint some shelves a hand-me-down toddler bed, but I was definitely the one organizing all of his toys with the greatest of precision ;) Sometimes Michael goes looking for me and just shakes his head when he finds me in Taylor's room playing/organizing his toys and clothes (almost all donated by wonderful family members). "I'm nesting" is always my response when I feel caught hanging out in his room again. So here is a glimpse into our lives of nesting and waiting for Taylor to come home.
And yes, I actually sat on the floor in his room and played with those mega legos. Michael even identified my masterpiece correctly...a dinosaur. This is probably the neatest his room will ever be!
And, as always, we appreciate your prayers for us as we wait longer than expected to travel to bring home our walking, talking, running, silly toddler! All in God's sovereignty and timing...
And yes, I actually sat on the floor in his room and played with those mega legos. Michael even identified my masterpiece correctly...a dinosaur. This is probably the neatest his room will ever be!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
My Seoul at 20 Months
Waiting and Preparing the Adoption Lifebook
So I thought I was a fairly patient person...I am learning otherwise. The good news is that we have completed absolutely every piece of paperwork, participated in every homestudy meeting, even paid most expenses (minus travel expenses, and boy are they a wammy). The bad news....what on earth do we do now? Well, through reading others blogs and our adoption agency's Korea forum I have discovered the absolutely incredible adoption resource, the adoption lifebook.
It is basically (in the words of Beth O'Malley, creator of the lifebook), "a record of a foster/adoptee’s life that uses words, photos, graphics, the child’s artwork, and memorabilia. An Adoption Life Book includes information about the child’s birth parents and reason placing them for adoption...An Adoption Life Book is more than a life story. It is a unique opportunity for parents to honor every minute of their children’s lives."
It is an invaluable book that explains their lives before adoption. I have bought the book Beth O'Malley's book "Lifebook: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child" that gives wonderful tips for creating the lifebook, as well as great ideas for gathering useful information and items while traveling in S Korea that will Taylor can treasure for the rest of his life! The idea is that we will talk with Taylor about his life prior to Gotcha Day (adoption lingo for the day he will join our family) in age-appropriate ways so that he will never not know that he was adopted but that this lifebook can allow us an avenue for giving Taylor a complete personal history and is also a way to maintain completely open lines of communication so he always feels comfortable asking questions as he gets older. It is also a private book that only Taylor gets to decide who he wants to share it with outside Michael and me. Some of the cool ideas in the resources book are to gather special items from S Korea when we are there, including local newspaper on Gotcha Day, some Korean soil in a little ziplock, an outfit worn while with his foster family placed in an airtight bag to retain the smell, and, of course, tons of pictures, videos and documentation of his early life by his foster mom. I know some of these things may sound silly, but it will provide him with tangible items to represent life before adoption. I am so grateful that someone thought of this! So that is what I am looking to start now. I say 'looking to start' as in, I haven't yet. I have already bought the stuff I need to get started but will have to carve time out from work to make sure I get this book going so it does not get lost in the shuffle. Rumor has once we are parents we will now have time for anything else but being parents!
So that is what we are doing now. Not very interesting for the everyday reader but, well, that is what I am up to. Hope this post is helpful to any 'in process' adoptive families for ways to prepare for traveling and capturing memories that can be treasured forever by your family and, most importantly, your child. This is a picture of our lifebook materials...
And, of course we are getting ready to capture each step from travel and throughout Taylor's first year home. Below are the fun scrapbooking things to make sure we don't forget to take tons of pictures while we are in Korea and after getting home. Jungle animals is the theme!
It is basically (in the words of Beth O'Malley, creator of the lifebook), "a record of a foster/adoptee’s life that uses words, photos, graphics, the child’s artwork, and memorabilia. An Adoption Life Book includes information about the child’s birth parents and reason placing them for adoption...An Adoption Life Book is more than a life story. It is a unique opportunity for parents to honor every minute of their children’s lives."
It is an invaluable book that explains their lives before adoption. I have bought the book Beth O'Malley's book "Lifebook: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child" that gives wonderful tips for creating the lifebook, as well as great ideas for gathering useful information and items while traveling in S Korea that will Taylor can treasure for the rest of his life! The idea is that we will talk with Taylor about his life prior to Gotcha Day (adoption lingo for the day he will join our family) in age-appropriate ways so that he will never not know that he was adopted but that this lifebook can allow us an avenue for giving Taylor a complete personal history and is also a way to maintain completely open lines of communication so he always feels comfortable asking questions as he gets older. It is also a private book that only Taylor gets to decide who he wants to share it with outside Michael and me. Some of the cool ideas in the resources book are to gather special items from S Korea when we are there, including local newspaper on Gotcha Day, some Korean soil in a little ziplock, an outfit worn while with his foster family placed in an airtight bag to retain the smell, and, of course, tons of pictures, videos and documentation of his early life by his foster mom. I know some of these things may sound silly, but it will provide him with tangible items to represent life before adoption. I am so grateful that someone thought of this! So that is what I am looking to start now. I say 'looking to start' as in, I haven't yet. I have already bought the stuff I need to get started but will have to carve time out from work to make sure I get this book going so it does not get lost in the shuffle. Rumor has once we are parents we will now have time for anything else but being parents!
So that is what we are doing now. Not very interesting for the everyday reader but, well, that is what I am up to. Hope this post is helpful to any 'in process' adoptive families for ways to prepare for traveling and capturing memories that can be treasured forever by your family and, most importantly, your child. This is a picture of our lifebook materials...
 |
| Lifebook - Taylor's Story |
And, of course we are getting ready to capture each step from travel and throughout Taylor's first year home. Below are the fun scrapbooking things to make sure we don't forget to take tons of pictures while we are in Korea and after getting home. Jungle animals is the theme!
 |
| Scrapbooking Taylor's 1st Year Home |
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Putting Love in a Box
There is something heart-warming and heart-aching about the thought that a box I am holding one day in Birmingham, AL, will be 12,450 miles, literally the other side of the world, in less than one week and given to our sweet little boy and his foster mom. It's not the quick transport of the U.S. Postal Service (in fact, I crossing my fingers and praying they successfully bring the box from point A to point B) but the idea that a boy in a picture who has captured our hearts will be holding a soft monkey blanket, a small fire truck, a snuggly stuffed monkey, a teddybear comfort blanket from his Nana and Poppy, and a photo album introducing his mom and dad (gasp! that's us) for the first time. I have to admit I had a moment in line at the post office. I just kept praying, "God, may our love for our sweet boy on the other side of the world be communicated in a small box of cuddly things and toddler toys. God, may his foster mom be blessed by the clothes and other items sent. May she feel an inner peace knowing this little guy she has been loving and caring for is and will be loved deeply by the couple she sees in the cheesy photographs." It seems so easy to send a cardboard box halfway around the world (well relatively easy...that darn form was way too long and required a list of every little thing in the box, it's weight, and approximate value...hmmm, playdoh? $0.25...but I digress), but why can't I just go with the box, bring it to him, and take him back home with me?
Please join us in prayer for our precious little boy as he grows and develops his own unique little personality in a healthy foster home environment.
Please join us in prayer for our precious little boy as he grows and develops his own unique little personality in a healthy foster home environment.
As a side note, we also sent Taylor a couple of pictures of our dogs (two labs named Marley and Jake) to show him our pets. I almost sent a picture of us with the dogs but then just stuck one in there of the two of them sitting together. What I did not realize until listening to Rick & Bubba the next morning was that people in Korea do not typically view dogs as pets but as something entirely different! Not sure about the validity of this but will definitely be researching it in the future.
Amanda
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Amazima Ministries: Katie is coming to the US!
Amazima Ministries: Katie is coming to the US!: Katie is coming to the United States!! Her book, Kisses from Katie , releases on October 4, and she'll be visiting several cities and churc...
Coming to our church (Church at Brookhills) October 16th!!!! How awesome! She will be at each of our services that Sunday. So exciting...an opportunity to meet an amazing girl who has shown us all what living radically for Christ looks like! Check out her blog (http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/) and come listen to her incredible story of how God has used her to touch the lives of so many impoverished Ugandans for His glory.
Coming to our church (Church at Brookhills) October 16th!!!! How awesome! She will be at each of our services that Sunday. So exciting...an opportunity to meet an amazing girl who has shown us all what living radically for Christ looks like! Check out her blog (http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/) and come listen to her incredible story of how God has used her to touch the lives of so many impoverished Ugandans for His glory.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Adoption Process Update
Now for the less interesting stuff...the process. Since my last blog, we have completed the homestudy (process where a local social worker evaluates the parents and home environment to be sure we are capable for being adoptive parents). The homestudy was notorized and sent to S Korea in June 2011, along with our acceptance paperwork that makes our match with Taylor official! This leads to another round of paperwork including submission of two documents known as the I-600 and I-600A. These were sent to the USCIS: Dept of Homeland Security so that Taylor can be issued an Emmigration Permit (EP...basically what we would consider a passport) when the time comes. These documents change Taylor's status from being classified as an 'orphan' to being an "immediate relative of the Murry family." Wow. What a picture of the gospel. I am so humbled to know that when I was an orphan, not seeking God, he pursued me, not only for justification to be made right before God, but for adoption into his household!
"12 Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ....19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household," (Ephesians 2:12-13, 19).
"How great is this love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God!" 1 John 3:1
As amazing as this concept is that Taylor's status will change from 'orphan' to 'son' and become part of our sinful, imperfect family, how we pray even more that he will be brought in as a member of His household by the blood of Christ.
All of that to say, homestudy complete, I-600 and I-600A submitted, waiting for second fingerprinting appt (not sure why the state and national government cannot share?). According to the typical timeline given by the Holt adoption program, which is made based on what has happened in the recent past, we should be looking for a travel call approximately 4-6 months from the time our acceptance paperwork is sent to Korea, June 18th in our case. This would place Taylor in our arms before Christmas. That was the timeframe we were looking at until we received an email from Holt on June 21 explaining basically the following (written concisely by Liz Barnett, who recently brought home her little girl from S Korea this past March http://lizbarnette.blogspot.com/; thanks Liz for the beautiful explanation; hope you don't mind me using it):
"the adoption situation in S Korea has slowed to almost no approvals of children's visas in the last 3 months. So these are babies who have been matched with families but not approved to travel. The Ministry only allows so many visas per year which only increases the wait times for families and babies to be united. Thus creating a backlog each year that is growing larger and larger. It used to be a 4-6 month wait to travel. We waited 8 months and families are now waiting even longer. So instead of babies coming home these kids are now toddlers and the foster families are raising the children for much longer, which makes the separation even harder on the foster parents and the children. Plus if children used to stay in a foster family for 9 months and are now staying until 16-18 months it is preventing another baby from being in a foster home and therefore being placed in a group home setting."
Sooo, we are now adjusting and looking to travel some time early next year when the visa amount resets. We are devoting our time to saving money for the trip, soaking up the time with just the two of us, preparing his room, learning some words in Korean (slow with this one), reading about attachment and raising a 2 yr old adoptee, and spending time in the Word and prayer as only God is able to bring about His purposes. I was reading in Psalm last night and came across the following scripture that really hit home for me and where we are now. In verse 2, when "toiling" is mentioned, it refers to lengthening the day with anxious worry and stress when God provides "sleep" (literally and rest/peace of mind) to those he loves. In addition, it is the LORD's involvement that makes the effort worthwhile and successful. Please join us in prayer that we trust full on God's timing and sovereignty over even the Korea government. Thanks for reading!
"12 Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ....19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household," (Ephesians 2:12-13, 19).
"How great is this love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God!" 1 John 3:1
As amazing as this concept is that Taylor's status will change from 'orphan' to 'son' and become part of our sinful, imperfect family, how we pray even more that he will be brought in as a member of His household by the blood of Christ.
All of that to say, homestudy complete, I-600 and I-600A submitted, waiting for second fingerprinting appt (not sure why the state and national government cannot share?). According to the typical timeline given by the Holt adoption program, which is made based on what has happened in the recent past, we should be looking for a travel call approximately 4-6 months from the time our acceptance paperwork is sent to Korea, June 18th in our case. This would place Taylor in our arms before Christmas. That was the timeframe we were looking at until we received an email from Holt on June 21 explaining basically the following (written concisely by Liz Barnett, who recently brought home her little girl from S Korea this past March http://lizbarnette.blogspot.com/; thanks Liz for the beautiful explanation; hope you don't mind me using it):
"the adoption situation in S Korea has slowed to almost no approvals of children's visas in the last 3 months. So these are babies who have been matched with families but not approved to travel. The Ministry only allows so many visas per year which only increases the wait times for families and babies to be united. Thus creating a backlog each year that is growing larger and larger. It used to be a 4-6 month wait to travel. We waited 8 months and families are now waiting even longer. So instead of babies coming home these kids are now toddlers and the foster families are raising the children for much longer, which makes the separation even harder on the foster parents and the children. Plus if children used to stay in a foster family for 9 months and are now staying until 16-18 months it is preventing another baby from being in a foster home and therefore being placed in a group home setting."
Sooo, we are now adjusting and looking to travel some time early next year when the visa amount resets. We are devoting our time to saving money for the trip, soaking up the time with just the two of us, preparing his room, learning some words in Korean (slow with this one), reading about attachment and raising a 2 yr old adoptee, and spending time in the Word and prayer as only God is able to bring about His purposes. I was reading in Psalm last night and came across the following scripture that really hit home for me and where we are now. In verse 2, when "toiling" is mentioned, it refers to lengthening the day with anxious worry and stress when God provides "sleep" (literally and rest/peace of mind) to those he loves. In addition, it is the LORD's involvement that makes the effort worthwhile and successful. Please join us in prayer that we trust full on God's timing and sovereignty over even the Korea government. Thanks for reading!
1Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. 2It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. 3Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children[a] of one’s youth.
5Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Psalm 127
Taylor Update
So I have not updated this thing in a while. I refuse to be a blogster dropout, and a lot has happened since my last blog. First things first...Taylor. We are updated each month via what is called a Wellbaby Checkup (WBC in adoption lingo) where we learn how he is doing medically and developmentally. He is 18 months old now and has been walking since at least 12 months. We received some video from his 1st year birthday ceremony at the Holt clinic in Korea where he was tottering around, albeit in a somewhat uncoordinated manner). We can tell he is a happy baby with such a sweet personality and seems to have good attachment with his foster mother. Some pictures for your viewing pleasure...
At his 17 month checkup, we know he is now 'running' around, healthy, saying some words, and getting into everything...right on track for an 18 month old. Receiving pictures of him at 17 months was bittersweet. Always sweet because we get to have small glimpses of him throughout the process, not just as the baby he was at referral but how he is now as we wait. No longer a baby, this set of pictures really showed what a little boy he is growing into. While exciting and heart-warming, it elicits a small ache in my heart as I realize all of those 1st moments we are missing out on, but it is so comforting to know he is in a stable home environment where he is able to experience all of these 'firsts' in a relatively normal, healthy environment. In the last video at 12 months, his foster mom was having him say "omma, appa" (mom and dad in Korean). My heart melts. Praying for a smooth transition for this sweet little boy as he leaves the family he knows to join his forever family. Here is Taylor at 17 months...
Taylor in is hanbok to celebrate his 1st birthday
(Korea tradition; more info here if interested)
He doesn't know he is supposed to be sitting like a
gentleman in his Korean ensemble ;)
Cute little fella
Michael is soo glad he likes noisy toys ;)
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