First Mother's Day

Yes you are at the right blog. I've decided to do a blog makeover now that Bennett is home.

It's hard to believe that we celebrated our first Mother's Day as a family. It's also hard to believe that we've been together for almost 8 weeks. Time has gone by quickly, yet it feels like he's been home much longer.

Bennett finally got to meet family as my parents came down for a visit. He had a great time with them especially when he got to visit the aquarium and eat some yummy Korean food. We found a Korean grocery store in Dallas and bought some of Bennett's favorite Korean foods. It is great to be able to give him a taste of his birth culture right here in Texas. We also had excellent mandu and bipmibap as there is a Korean food court in the grocery store. We found out B LOVES pickled radishes and cabbage so we made sure to buy some before we left. It was great to see many Korean delicacies and to buy pastries from a Korean pastry shop. It reminded us of being back in Korea. However, the pastries were not as good as Paris Baguette (Pastry shop in Korea where there is one on every corner. We miss that place so much!)

As far as the transition goes, we could not have asked for a smoother adjustment period. We keep waiting for the grieving to hit, but it hasn't. He has had a very seamless transition to our home and family. We can only account this to his great foster family. Speaking of our foster family, a few weeks after we left Korea they received another foster child; a chubby 8 month old boy.  Please keep him in your prayers as he waits for his forever family. 

Although we have not had any transitional/adjustment issues we have had plenty of toddler issues. Bath time continues to get better, but tooth brushing has not been pleasant. He is a stubborn kiddo, but that's what we get. Lord knows we were both stubborn kids too. 

On another note, everyone tells you parenting is hard. This I know, but all the books and advice in the world don't prepare you for the emotional roller coaster that parenting can be. I had an idea of it, but it's different from reading a book to experiencing it first hand. I have never felt so much guilt and failure. It's hard not to blame yourself for every tantrum and parenting fail. There are days it's so exhausting and then I feel guilty for letting it all get to me. It's crazy that a two-year old can bring me to the brink of tears one minute and then to anger the next.  Alas, it's part of the parenting adventure, but one I wished people would chat about a little more. Before we brought Bennett home someone told me that it's okay to cry and to have regrets. There may be days that I regret becoming a parent and that it's normal to feel this way. These words have been of great comfort to me these past few months. No parent is perfect even though we all strive to be. Mistakes will be made and I need to learn to be okay with that.

In closing, this is the last week to shop our Thirty-One fundraiser. We are hosting this last fundraiser to make up for the funds we never received from our coffee fundraiser. Shop online: www.mythirtyone.com/duvall

We finally have FINAL APPROVAL!!!

Guess who's coming home??!!

After several years of waiting, our adoption process is almost complete. We received final approval from the today, which means we can travel!  In less than a week......we will be parents! It's hard to believe that this long awaited moment is almost here. God is so good!

Our visa interview has been scheduled and our trip will be less than a week. We will be coming home with this little one soon!

An added bonus, we get to travel with some of the great families we met during our first trip to Korea. Please keep us all in your prayers. Please pray that our children have smooth transitions to their new families and that we are able to comfort them as they grieve the loss of their foster families. It's such a scary thing to start anew, especially when you are so young and don't understand. 

We will be sure to post photos and updates while we travel. Thank you all for your support throughout this process. We could not ask for a better support network!

Our Last 2 Days in Korea

Our second visit with Bennett was wonderful. He is such a happy healthy little boy. Our social worker and foster mother were thrilled at how easily Bennett got along with us. The SW said he usually cries when he visits the agency so they were both so happy that he has been all smiles during our visits. This would explain why he is crying in at least one picture we received every month for the past six months :)

He is very independent and is used to playing alone. However, he allowed us to be part of his world during each visit; very easy going. His laugh just made my day and he giggled every time he went down the slide. He even let David wrestle with him a little bit. It was cute to see the two having fun. The foster mother brought us several gifts during this second visit. We had been sending disposable cameras throughout this process and she developed all the photos and made an album for us. It was really sweet.

We didn't get a lot of our questions answered about Bennett's daily routine, but we did find out he doesn't like to have his hair messed with. He doesn't like to have it washed and cries when they try to cut it. Tears or no tears, we will be cutting his hair! The barrette is a little too much. Maybe we'll be able to pull it all up in a ponytail when we head back to SK ;) He doesn't watch a lot of TV or cartoons. He prefers commercials. Also, when asked what he likes to do (if not watching TV;) he likes to make a mess!! I'm not sure those translations were correct so our agency is going to email a list of questions for us in Korean,which I am very thankful for.

To be honest, Bennett really just fit with our family.  I know that sounds cliche, but I'm not quite sure how else to explain it. He is our son for sure and his personality just falls right in line with ours. It is such a great feeling to know that you were always meant to be. I can't believe that this journey has almost come to fruition. It's been a long time in the making (for those keeping track we submitted our application in September 2011).

Our court hearing came and went quickly. It was a short 5 minutes with a very easy going judge.  We had heard that some of the judges weren't very friendly.  Our judge is a new judge for adoptions and seemed to really enjoy working with the adoptive families. He said this was a happy part of his job (compared to other cases he hears). We were nervous walking into the courtroom, but it was all over very quickly. We primarily answered "yes" or "no" to questions based on information from our home study. We answered "yes" or "no" in Korean (because that's about as far as much as I have learned ;). The one question that really caught me off guard was about infertility; are we planning to have children of our own considering we do not suffer from infertility issues? The short answer is "yes" we would love to have bio children, but seeing that it was being asked in context to our adoption, I almost felt like it was a trick question. It is often assumed that we have infertility issues, but this adoption has always been plan A for us! We didn't know how to answer this question and also knowing the the translations were limited so we answered along the lines of "we'll see." Let's get this kiddo home before we start making other plans.

To celebrate our completed court hearings, our new group of friends went to a new pizza place in Insadong called Brew 3.14. The food was great and a perfect way to spend our final night in Seoul. This trip would have not been the same without our new friends. We are so thankful for them and hope to keep in touch! It's so great to go through this experience with others. We ended the night with an "underground" food tour part two with our tour guide Daniel (from the food tour in Day 2). He owns the pizza place and took us around to get some of our favorite foods from the tour to end our celebration. It was a great night!

We our home now and still recovering from jet lag. I got really sick on the flight back. I blame Korean TSA (just kidding). They would not let me take any extra water on the flight. I was so dehydrated. You go through the typical security check, but right before you board you go through a second security check where they throw away all liquids. Wish I had known this before I spent money only to have it thrown away!

We have yet to receive our court approval as we are now waiting the 14 day final relinquishment period. The birth mother has this final waiting time to relinquish her guardianship or take it back. We'll keep everyone updated. When we left our agency our social worker said she'll see us in month. Here's to traveling in March

Amanda

Here are some photos from our trip. I'll post photos of Bennett once we have our court approval!
This is Seoul Tower (a long steep walk up a really big hill). The view was amazing!

These photos are from one of the palaces. I loved the detail in the designs.

We are ready for Trip #1

Needless to say, 2013 has been a good year. It's been a roller coaster of emotions, but we are definitely ending things on a marvelous note. God is good!!  There is a light at the end of our adoption tunnel as we have a court date scheduled for the end of January.  We are lucky in that we have over a month to make travel plans; so often, things happen so quickly that there is not time to adequately plan. Our flights have been scheduled.  We are thankful that there is a direct flight to Seoul from DFW. The main concern with the flight is the fact that its 16 hours! 16 HOURS! We've never been on a flight that long. We're not by any outlets either :( We're planning on buying those recharging devices because we know our iPads will not last that long. Does anyone have a brand or model suggestion for one of these devices?

We researched hotels and decided to stay at the Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS), which is the organization that handles affairs surrounding adoption, children and families in need, etc. ESWS has a guest house that is available for families. Space is limited so we were fortunate to reserve one of their three rooms. It has alleviated a lot of travel stress for us because the guest house is actually in the same building where we will first meet Bennett, our foster mother, Mrs. Lee, along with our social worker and other ESWS staff. It will be nice to simply take the elevator down a few floors for major meetings instead of having to navigate Seoul. We also have "met" (via a group on Facebook) two families who will be in Korea the same time that we will be. We all have court on the same day and are likely with the same judge as we're scheduled in back-to-back 10 minute increments. One of the families is staying at the ESWS guest home as well so we are looking forward to "knowing" someone.

We are researching all the touristy things we can do during our trip. I would like to visit the hospital where I was born and see what else I can find about my beginnings. We meet Bennett the first business day in Korea and then court is not for another 4 days. We wish we could see him more than once, but it looks like only one visit. We are also trying to figure out what to get for everyone in Korea. We are supposed to give gifts to our foster mother (and her family), social worker, and the ESWS staff. It's hard to give gifts to people you've never met. We would like our gifts to be somewhat meaningful, but we are struggling. For Mrs. Lee I am making her a scrapbook of all the photos we've received throughout our process. We've also had an ornament made with one of our favorite Bennett photos to give her. It's hard to give gifts that truly express your gratitude for the care and love they've given your child for the past two years. As for the social worker and the staff, we're at a loss. Any suggestions?

On another note, to those that ordered in our coffee fundraiser, thank you! We don't receive a list of those who order through our site. I requested one, but they don't save personal information from orders to pass along. We are going to continue to take orders into 2014! Shop online at Ground to Cup Coffee.

I'm sure I'll have many more questions for everyone and be needing advice as we countdown to our first trip. Stay tuned for more posts.
Amanda (and David)

PS: For the most part, Bennett's room is complete. I've posted before and after pictures below. The blue/green table is a train table and we'll eventually move that out into our living room to make a play area. I will be putting a reading corner together where the table currently is located. I've ordered these plastic shelves that you mount on the walls and hope to add a nice rocker.