Bennett's First Birthday!

Today is Bennett's first birthday! It's hard for our son to be reaching this milestone without us by his side, but we are blessed knowing that he has a wonderful foster family to love and celebrate this first birthday with him.

On a personal note, I am torn on how I feel today. I knew when we started this process that our son/daughter would have a birthday without us, but now that it's here, I'm an emotional wreck! That's the best way I could think to describe it. I'm not sad or upset; it's almost bittersweet. I'm overjoyed for his birthday and I know it will be special for him, but I wish I could be there to celebrate with him.

I feel like I've done really well with my "emotions" up until now. The thing that bothers me the most is that a birthday is a reminder that my child is growing up without me. And I don't know how old he will be when we finally bring him home. In the end, I know the wait will be worth it and that he will come home at the age God intended him to, but in the meantime days like today are harder than most. I want more than anything to hold him and hug him on his first birthday. However, I will have to settle for sending my love from afar.

I leave you with this, as I know his birth mother will also be thinking about him today and wondering who will love her son when she's not there. I am grateful for her sacrifice and the bond we will forever share.

The Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women who never knew each other,
One you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives, shaped to make Your one.
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first gave you life and the second taught you to live it.
The first gave you a need for love, and the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name.
One gave you a seed of talent, the other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried your tears.
One gave you up ... that's all she could do.
The other prayed for a child and God led her straight to you.
And now you ask me, through your fears,
the age old question unanswered throughout the years.
Heredity or environment .. Which are you the product of..
Neither, my darling .. neither..
just two different kinds of love.

~ Author Unknown ~

Highlights of 2012

I went to journal a little on New Year's day and reflected on some of the things that happened over this past year. I decided to share some of the highlights (good and bad) of 2012 with you all.

To begin with, I keep track of the many things I am thankful for throughout the year in my journal and I also keep a list of my prayers. It is amazing to look back and see how prayers have been answered and all of the many blessings I have in life (they can so easily be forgotten in the hustle and bustle of life).

Major highlights of the year:
1. Loss of Larry (David's dad) - we miss him so much and there is not a day that goes by that we don't think of him. Cherish every moment you have with those you love! Don't be afraid to talk about mental health issues. They are part of so many people's lives and the stigma surrounding them needs to be overcome.
2. Move from Indiana to Texas - so many mixed emotions with our move. It was exciting to start a new chapter in our lives, but bittersweet to leave those we love.
3. Starting new jobs at UTA (David) and TCU (Amanda). My new position (that I started in December) at TCU is going well.
4. Getting matched with a baby boy and continuing on our adoption journey to Bennett (still haven't chosen a middle name for him ;) Things have been moving slowly on the adoption front. Korea has passed a new law to allow for additional transparency in the adoption process; another checks and balances in the process to ensure children are being safely relinquished and placed. However, with implementation of any new law, things are moving slowly and have caused delays in all areas for the process. Our adoption agency, along with many others, should have had one more group travel to bring home their children in 2012. This did not happen due to the lack of implementation of the new law. With one group facing delayed travel, it pushes all of us back in the waiting to travel queue. We are still hopeful that we will get to travel by the end of 2013. We also got pictures of Bennett the day after Christmas and he was pictured with items from the package we sent him a few months ago. It was great to see he got his gifts.

We hope you all have had a wonderful Holiday and that your new year is full of many wonderful things!

Another step forward....

David and I had our fingerprinting completed with Immigration today. It's a small, but still a step closer in our adoption process.  Basically, the government wants to make sure we are who we say we are! It's crazy to me that they don't use the old fashioned ink and paper to take your fingerprints. It's all electronic!  Once the Adoption Unit at Immigration receives our fingerprints and reviews our home study, hopefully we'll officially be approved by the U.S. government to adopt.

On other good news, I got a new job! I'm so excited! I'll continue to work at Texas Christian University, but will move to the nursing department in a full-time position. My official title is the Coordinator, Nursing Academic Excellence Program. I will work with students who are struggling in their classes, helping them find tutoring and/or other resources they need to be successful.  I'll also be putting together some programming (mainly for study skills) for the department and will get to teach a class as well. Needless to say I'm pretty excited and I already love my new co-workers. I'll miss my other department, but luckily I'll still get to see them! 

This new job has also provided the financial peace we've been praying for! Thank you for those who have helped us fund raise and have donated to our adoption fund. We would not have made it to this point without you!

On another note, please pray for our friends Katrina and Jonny. They are expecting twins (due April 2013) and Katrina had to have emergency surgery yesterday as the babies are suffering from twin-to-twin transfusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-to-twin_transfusion_syndrome). She is at risk of going into early labor and there is always the possibility that she could lose one or both of the babies.  Please keep them in your prayers!

Love, Amanda

A belated post on thankfulness

Well, I’m a little late with this post, but I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you all a few things I am thankful for. So, in no particular order, here they are.

1.       New photos of Bennett.  It’s pretty cold in Korea right now, mostly in the 30’s and 40’s and Bennett is all bundled up in this furry white coat. You can tell he’s really not happy about having his picture taken (or is it the white jacket?!).

2.       I am thankful for my new seasonal job at Kirkland’s. It’s a lot of fun, exhausting, but fun! It’s only 5 minutes from our house and the people I work with are great!  My job at TCU ends for a few months in December/January when the students are on winter break so I’m happy to have something to do during my time off.

3.       My husband, David – When you move to a completely new place and only have each other to lean on, you’re reminded of how much you rely each other.  It’s sometimes easy to take the relationships we have with others, especially those we see every day, for granted.  This move has been a reminder to me that I am thankful and blessed to have married by best friend and I’m excited to experience each new day with him.

4.       A visit with my mom. Even though my mom is scared of flying she made the flight from Evansville to Dallas.  She forgot her luggage (which we will never let her live down), but luckily there are plenty of places to go shopping (I guess she thought Dad had put it in the car and he thought she had packed the luggage and when they arrived at the airport….there was no luggage). We had a good visit, even though I had to work a lot. We went to the Chinese Lantern Festival at State Fair Park in Dallas (see pics on Facebook) and did bit of sightseeing.  It was great to see her and show her around our new home.

5.       Friends and family – when you move you make new friends, which I am thankful for, but you also find out who your real friends are.  It’s difficult to keep in touch with friends who aren’t willing to do the same. I am thankful for those who have kept in touch and hope that our friendships continue. I hope to see them soon!

6.       New job prospects – I have an interview for a full time job tomorrow at TCU.  I’m always thankful to get the opportunity to interview. The way I look at it is that it’s a win-win situation. If I get the job, great and if I don’t, I get to continue to work at TCU with some great people.

7.       Last, but not least, Frank and Beans. I’ve always loved my pets, but these two have been such a great comic relief in my life, especially when things get stressful. They remind me to slow down and take time to throw a tennis ball or go on an extra-long walk.  I love how excited they get when I come home and how much love they have to share with whomever they meet. 

Feeling homesick in Texas

Well, we have been in Texas for almost three months.  It’s been a good transition, but a slow one.  It’s starting to get to me; the loneliness and disconnectedness.  Now, more than ever, I feel alone and I’m missing my support network of friends and family.  Right now, David and I only have each other and with both of us feeling a little blue, it’s hard to lift each other up. 

Our jobs are okay, although I need another part-time job or a full-time job.  Money has probably been the most difficult in our transition. We did our best to budget and predict expenses when we moved, but a few things caught us off guard.  I think the biggest expense that we did not anticipate were our property taxes.  We pay for these on a monthly basis with our mortgage and homeowner’s insurance.  Our mortgage company holds these in escrow until a payment is due.  The cost of our taxes doubled our mortgage payment and needless to say we did not budget property taxes to be quite so high.  I know you live and you learn, but right now the lesson is hitting us hard.  With baby Bennett on the way, our finances are a wreck.  For those who know me, this is driving me crazy. I’m a planner and an organizer and I hate not having things, especially money, planned out.

I know everything happens for a reason and I’d been feeling comforted in my faith, knowing that this is all part of God’s plan for our lives.  However, I’m struggling with this right now.  We worked so hard to save for this adoption, only to have our entire adoption savings wiped out by this move.  Now, we are back at square one with a baby on the way.  I feel the pressure to save for our next $8,000 fee and the pressure to repay loans for the first international fee of $14,000.  I know I’m supposed to learn something from this experience, but I’m having a hard time accepting it right now. 

I participated in a webinar yesterday about how to have a debt free adoption.  There were a lot of things that were suggested and I really don’t know what to do.  We have applied for two grants. We were denied for one grant and we haven’t heard anything from the other.  Other things that were suggested were setting up an account with a non-profit; people can make donations to the non-profit in your family’s name and will receive a tax deduction for their donation.  The organization would then forward the money to our adoption agency.  The good and bad things are that you do get a tax write off, but it requires people to give, which I know is hard for everyone right now.  There are also grants that are matching, where friends and family donate up to $2,500 and the organization would then match the grant for that amount.  Again, this requires donations.  I’ve also thought about doing an auction online somehow as I have many friends who might donate things for this cause. I’m just not sure how to facilitate this.  I’m sharing all of these things with you in hopes that you will have some feedback or suggestions on what we might do. 

This weekend, we were supposed to have a little vacation. David has a conference in Vegas and I was going to go with him. However, it’s really expensive to board the dogs (we miss our dog sitter in Indiana) and we just don’t see how we can budget it in. I had purchased a ticket several months ago, but luckily the airline is giving us a credit towards a future flight purchase.  I’m sad I don’t get to go!

On another note, I am so thankful for Thirty-One.  I don’t know what I would have done without Thirty-One during my move.  Surprisingly, Texas doesn’t have a lot of consultants and many people here have never heard of the company. I’ve decided to try to take advantage of this and grow my business. I’ve had some great encouragement from my local Thirty-One network and was blessed to meet our founder and CEO, Cindy Monroe last week (I’ve included my picture with her from the Texas State Fair, which doesn’t have anything on Evansville’s Fall Fest). Cindy and her husband Scott spoke with a group of consultants and talked about how God plays a role in their marriage and in their business.  David went with me to this leadership event and we both left feeling encouraged and blessed to have people be so upfront about how important faith is in every aspect of your life. 

The Thirty-One consultants I’ve met in this area have been nothing but helpful and supportive of me during this transition.  Many people may think that they would be standoffish since I’m their competition, but that is not what our company is about. We are all about encouraging women in their business and I’ve truly seen that here in Texas.  I never done a lot with Thirty-One, other than make my minimum sales each month, but for the first time, I see Thirty-One not as an income, but a chance to encourage other women, just as they have done for me.

Thanks for listening/reading.

Amanda

New pictures of baby Bennett

We got a few new pictures of Bennett this morning!!! They couldn’t have come at a better time. I had started to blog about how I was a little blue that we hadn’t received any updates and all of the sudden there they were in my inbox.  He is doing really well and has some crazy hair.  He also must be a drooler, which is why he has a bandana looking towel tied around his neck.  As one of my co-workers pointed out this bandana will help him fit right in in Texas!!!   I’ve shared one photo on our blog and ask that you do not repost this photo as it is personal to our family. Please feel free to share our blog, but ask that you do not recopy the photo.

We participated in a Webinar this week that was presented by our adoption agency. It was very informative about Korean culture and what to expect when we travel and return home.  It was interesting to learn about the Korean Social Welfare Society, which is the agency that oversees all the children who are currently being placed for adoption.  Each caseworker has a pretty large caseload of 60-80 children.  They also don’t have the same means of communication that many businesses have in the US. They do not have direct phone lines or work email addresses; everything goes through a supervisor before it is corresponded to US agencies.  As you can imagine, communication is very slow and difficult.

We learned a lot about the foster mothers who care for our children while we wait to bring them home. Many are older, who have grown children. Some may have school aged children in the home. I know our foster mother has two children and I believe they are still in school.  The children don’t really have a routine or discipline with their foster mothers as their needs are almost always met immediately and foster mothers try very hard to anticipate the needs of their children.  They don’t like to want the children cry so they try very hard to give them what they want.  They also typically co-sleep with the children or have them sleep on their back in a sling during the day/early evening hours.  These things have us somewhat concerned as we transition, especially the transition period of our pick-up trip, as we will have to slowly work on adding small bits of routine and structure into his life.

We also discussed other issues that previous adoptive parents have encountered from sleep to food, but the one that has me most concerned is the attachment/bonding piece.  Obviously this is so important as our child will essentially be losing one family and grieving this loss, while in turn learning to adapt to a new family.  I want to make this transition as smooth as possible, but it’s hard to predict how he will handle everything.  He may be resilient and do fine, but I want to be prepared for the rockier roads as they seem more realistic. 

During the Webinar they discussed not having family come visit within the first few months of returning home as this confuses the child.  So, as much as some of you may want to help and visit, we won’t be having visitors during the first few months that Bennett’s home.  We want to make sure he knows who his parents are and that we are the ones who will meet his needs.  Visitors will be very confusing to him with so many people entering and leaving his life just as his foster family did.  We hope everyone understands this and respects our wishes.  We also won’t be having people hold him when they visit as again, we are reinforcing attachment and bonding, which is so important during the first year of his life.  We’re also worried about him rejecting one of us. This often happens as the child grieves and transitions.  Neither one of us wants to be this parent, but it helps to know that it might happen.  It still will hurt, but we know he’ll come around.  

On other news, we appreciate everyone who has been ordering things for our Thirty-One fundraiser. Finances have been a wreck for us since we moved. We had the majority of our adoption fees saved prior to the move, but having to pay closing costs on our Indiana home and then having to put money down on the Texas house, plus the move itself has really wiped out our savings.  I am looking for a second job as Thirty-One has not been as profitable since we moved.  I’m always happy to ship things to my friends out of state and I am working on trying to add consultants to my team, but in the mean time I have to find something else to help get our finances on track. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue in our adoption journey.

Amanda (and David too)

Feeling Good In Texas

I can't believe we have been living in Texas for almost two months now. My how the time flies! Having a job helps and I am so thankful for work.  Of course the money is nice, but I am so blessed to have wonderful co-workers. So far, work is the main thing I've immersed myself in and my co-workers are my first "friends" in Texas. They have been so kind and genuine. I feel truly welcome and "at home."  It's just an all around good feeling! TCU is a beautiful campus and it's great to see students have pride for their school.  I never thought I'd work for a top ranked school, but I love it!  I can't wait to go to my first TCU football game in October. David's pretty excited too! He's happy that one of us finally works for a school that has football!. Go Frogs! (Yes, TCU's mascot is a horned from!).

Work is going well and my Thirty-One business is still hanging in there. I'm thankful for all my customers from Indiana who have stuck with me. I love you all! Thanks for keeping my business alive. I've gotten the chance to also meet a few women through Thirty-One. I've attended one Thirty-One meeting here in Mansfield and enjoyed meeting new people. One woman I met, Kim, invited me to work at a vendor event this weekend. It was outside (ugghh!), but it was great to talk to people and sell a few items. Hopefully, I'll make some contacts and build my business in Texas!

I got a great care package from my MIL this week too. Books for my baby boy and a locket from Origami Owl. I love it! It really made my day. One of the books I got was written by the Pioneer Woman (as seen on the Food Network). It's about a basset-hound name Charlie! I can't wait to read it to Bennett, or at least that what his name is....for now. It's the name we agree upon until something better comes along. I have his first care package ready to go, complete with an outfit with a puppy dog on it and a blanket buddy, also a dog. See the recurring theme here? I also got a photo album filled with photos of David and I (Frank and Annie too). I just need to write a letter to his foster mother (the agency will translate this for us) and put it in the mail to our agency. The agency will then send the package with a traveling family.  I hope to send him another package in January for his first birthday. We are limited to the number of packages we get to send him. Considering there are a lot of families in the process and only a handful of families traveling each month, we only get to send 2-3 throughout our entire process. I wish I could send him something every month, but I understand the package policy.

Speaking of agency policies and news, families who were matched in August 2011 traveled in August 2012. I am slightly...REALLY hopeful that we will get to travel next summer/fall too! I know that the agency is "predicting" 15-18 months, but I hope/wish it will be sooner. The wait seemed long for us to get matched, but looking back on things, we were quoted a wait time of 2-4 four months. It was about 4.5 months wait time for us to get matched.  To put some perspective on how quickly things can change. As of September, the wait time to be matched for boys has gone up to 10 months (The wait time for a girl is 22 months and I've never understood why the wait for girls is always longer either). I can't imagine waiting that long to be matched (4.5 months felt long enough) and then waiting another year and a half to travel! It's another thing that has me feeling good! I'm thankful that we were matched quickly and that the wait did not go up once our paperwork had been submitted. It's just a reminder of how quickly things can change in the adoption world!

We had our home study update meeting this week. It was a piece of cake compared to our original home study. It should be done by the end of October, which means we'll need more money (about $900) to file an application to adopt with Immigration! I'm taking Thirty-One orders now to submit the first week of October. I've added an adoption fundraiser link to my website www.mythirtyone.com/duvall. I'll post the October special there as well. Start shopping for Christmas now! After all, it's only 3 months away! As always, we appreciate your support.

Hugs and love,
Amanda (and crew)

I got a job!

Well, I am happy to say that I am no longer unemployed.  Although the few weeks off were nice, I was ready to find something to do.  I am now working as an Academic Coach at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth. They offered me the position last Wednesday and I started the next day.  I work Mondays and Wednesdays and rotate Fridays with another Coach.  It really is the perfect schedule for me and it's ideal for when our little one comes home. I've already been meeting with students and have a calendar full of meetings this week.  I work with students who may be struggling to meet a GPA requirement, have disabilities, need help getting organized, are new students, etc. We work on study skills, organization, etc. I really enjoy the job so far and have been able to use a lot of my previous experiences from USI and Ivy Tech.  The people I work with are great too, which is always a bonus. 

David is still working hard at UTA. Now that orientations are over with he's focusing on other aspects of his job such as working with commuter students and more "in office" things. Yesterday was Six Flags day for UTA, which was fun. However, I am officially giving up roller coaster rides! I used to be able to ride them without a problem.  Now, that is not the case. I'm blaming age! The older I get the more nauseated I feel. I learned my lesson the hard way yesterday. I should have taken the puke on the Batman ride as a sign not to go on the ride. Someone had vomited all over our seats right before we got on the ride. The ride had to be shut down temporarily before we could get on it. 

We finally got all of the boxes unpacked and our spare bedrooms now look decent (at least you can walk in them).  I'll try to post pictures of our pink/purple/flower room as I know several of you have been anxious to see what it looks like.

Until then,
Amanda

It's a Boy!

We finally got matched with a beautiful baby boy!  After a whirlwind of paperwork, we are excited to let everyone know that we officially accepted the referral of a sweet baby boy named ShiHyeon.  We got a mountain of acceptance paperwork to complete and I'm happy to say I got all of it turned around and overnighted back to our agency in 24 hours!!!  The first thing everyone wants to know is, "When does he get to come home?" Our hope is that he is home by the end of 2013 and before his second birthday.  The second is, "What is his name going to be?" No, we don't plan on keeping his birth name and really don't have a clue as to what his new name will be. We've been tossing around a few names here and there, but after seeing pictures of him, all of those names went out the window. They just didn't fit. So, we are open to any suggestions! I've gotten a few lists of names, which have been great and entertaining at times too!

I must share with you about the moment when I got "the call." I was a bit in shock.  I was already so overwhelmed with moving, being surrounded by mountains of boxes, that I almost panicked when our agency called; my brain can only handle one life changing event at a  time!! :)  Despite the shock, reality quickly set in that I am now a mama!  Even though I took the call, David and I opened the e-mail with photos and other information together, over the phone.  It's a crazy feeling to immediately fall in love with a photo, but I did and knew at that moment, he was my baby!  I didn't care what his paperwork said.  I knew it was meant to be and this little guy was destined to be part of our family.

Thankfully, he is a very healthy 6 month old!  His birth mother provided a lot of information about herself and the birth father, which we are thankful to have.  He was full-term and born without any complications.  He has grown steadily over the past few months and according to the doctor is happy and healthy.  He does go to the doctor each month for a check-up, but we don't always receive updates every month.  We get to request two updates throughout our process and should automatically receive an update on his first birthday.  Sometimes, updates may come at random (which I'm hoping there will be a a lot of), but I've prepared myself to not receive as many updates as I'd like to.

He has been with the same foster family ever since he was 2 days old.  We did receive a photo of his foster mother (who is married and has two children of her own).  It's nice to know a little about his "family" and that he has one-on-one care and attention.

Obviously, we are over joyed and in a bit of shock still!  You wait so long to get matched that when it happens, it almost doesn't seem real. I wish we hadn't moved quite yet and were still in Indiana to celebrate with everyone, but we are happy to celebrate with everyone over Facebook and email.  We appreciate everyone's prayers and support and ask that you continue to keep us in your prayers throughout the duration of this process.  We will be sure to share any updates we receive and of course photos!

Hugs and love,
Amanda (and David)

PS: We will be hosting a Thirty One fundraiser in September! Stay tuned for more details.

We have arrived!

We made it safely to Mansfield, Texas after a long, long trip. We had some issues with our U-Haul. The breaks started smoking, which set a sensor off. We waited 2 hours for roadside assistance to come check everything out. Once they gave us the go ahead, we finally made it to our hotel outside Little Rock at 2am. Thankfully, the second half of our trip was uneventful and David did really well driving our 26 foot U-Haul in the Dallas traffic.

The dogs did pretty well too. Frank did get stung by something and had a swollen ear for a few days, but otherwise they did really well. They have been catching up on sleep and enjoying their new backyard.

When we arrived at our new house we were very thankful to have 10 students waiting for us. The drive itself was so exhausting so we were both very thankful to have help unloading the truck. Luckily, everything made it in one piece too. We are so, so thankful to everyone who helped us pack up in Indiana and those who helped us unload in Texas. We don't know what we would have done without you.

David's been working hard at UTA, which leaves the unpacking to me. I've got the kitchen set up and how to start working on our bedroom today. I made my first venture out to do some shopping today. Arlington is so overwhelming compared to Evansville. I hate not knowing where anything is, but I suppose I'll learn overtime. In the mean time, I'm very thankful for my Homer Simpson GPS!

I miss everyone. It's been pretty lonely these past few days. At least I have Frank and Annie :)

Amanda