And we're off... again...

So here we are...

Theresa and I are once again starting the process of adopting a child from South Korea after taking a couple years away when we discovered that we were pregnant with our little miracle boy, Jackson. This is a journey that we have both wanted to take since before we were married and we are excited to start the process again. At this time, we are anticipating a wait of approximately 18 months for a referral of a Korean girl and will likely travel 4-6 months following the referral. Because we already have a son, our agency allows us to specify that we would prefer to adopt a girl. This selection has become exceedingly rare and we are lucky that our agency still gives us that option. However, specifying a girl will greatly increase our wait time for a referral. That's fine by us, though, because Theresa won't be done with her school until August 2010.

We originally started the process in January 2007 but had to put the adoption on hold in April of that year because we found out that Theresa was pregnant after nearly 4 years of trying. We were obviously very excited but given that we had had several miscarriages before that time, we waited until we were "certain" that the pregnancy was viable and finally put our adoption on hold when we reached about the 10-week mark of the pregnancy.

Before putting the adoption on hold, we had already gone through several milestones during the preliminary stages of the process. Most importantly, and by FAR the most time-consuming, was the actually adoption application that we completed. Filling out the 4 pages of lines and boxes that our agency supplied us was the easy part. The much more difficult portion of the application was the self-study essay that we were required to complete (I assume all agencies make adoptive parents do this sort of thing). Basically, the agency asked us to describe our lives from birth to the present day. They were interested in knowing about childhood, our families while growing up, the house we grew up in, what interests we had growing up, how we did in school, how are parents raised us, etc, etc, etc. Basically, they wanted us to tell them everything we could about our lives to that point. Then they wanted to know our philosophies on things like parenting and education. How did religion factor into our lives? How did our extended family feel about our decision to adopt - specifically how did they feel about an international adoption. Was there any significant medical history in our families - both physical and mental health issues? Then, once we were done spilling our guts about ourselves individually, we had a whole other section to write about us as a couple. How did we meet? How do we interact with each other? How did we come to adopt? How will we handle discipline? How do we resolve conflict between us? What do we enjoy doing in our "spare" time (seems odd that we actually used to have spare time). So on and so forth. Obviously, it was a LOT of writing and involved a lot of soul searching. In reality, though, the essay is as detailed as you wish to make it. In the end, we probably each ended up writing WAY too much but I actually found it interesting to go back through my memories and dig up some of those past experiences that I had buried away so many years ago. I think when all was said and done, our total essay about 25 pages. Each of our individual sections was about 10 pages and the joint section was about 5 pages. Our social worker made it clear from the beginning that this was not an official document that would be shipped to Korea and was not going to be part of any permanent record. This is simply a document for the SW to read as a way to become more familiar with you before getting into the formal home study process.

Besides the formal application, which took a couple weeks to complete, we also applied for (and received) our US Passports, submitted finger prints to the FBI for a background records check, and completed formal paperwork for the State of Illinois DCFS to become Foster Home licensed. (The foster home license is a requirement of the State of Illinois and is just a formality more than anything else. Because a Korean adoption in not finalized in Korea, the child is technically a foster child between the time you bring them home and the time the adoption is finalized six months later. The State knows that we are "adoption only" foster applicants and are not going to send us foster children at any given time for temporary care.)

One of the last things we did before suspending our adoption was to attend a day-long training session for adoptive parents. Such training is required by agencies at all levels of government, including the State of Illinois, the USCIS, and the South Korean government. It was a long day but I found it to be quite interesting. Many issues were raised that I had not previously thought of, and it was a good opportunity for us to meet with other people who had been through the adoption process.

So that's a kind-of quick synopsis of where we have been. We have just recently asked that our file be reopened and I believe that as of this morning we are back on the waiting list. We antipicate that it will likely be 18 months before a referral and another 4-6 after that before we travel to South Korea to pick up our new child.

We look forward to the journey and keeping everyone posted!