Written Update on Aiden

Today I was surprised to see that we received a written update on Aiden. It is a little bittersweet for me when we receive updates. I always feel peace seeing that he is happy, healthy, and developing well. But I always feel a lot of sadness too because I am reminded how many of his milestones we are missing. I can't believe how perceptive Jordan can be. Yesterday when he woke up from his nap I told him that we received more pictures of Aiden. The first thing he said was, "Did you cry?" I try not to cry in front of Jordan and do believe that I do it quite rarely, but he has obviously picked up on the fact that this wait is getting pretty brutal for me.

Now on to the update.
Sleeping: He sleeps from 10/11 p.m. until 9 a.m. and wakes up at 6 a.m. for a feeding. He also takes 2 naps a day.
Feeding: He still is fed formula 3-4 times a day. I was surprised by this. He also eats coked rice, tofu, small pieces of meat and fish, fruits, yogurt, noodles, and bread

Development

• He walks wells and almost runs
• He walks up and down stairs with one hand held
• He can kick a ball forward
• He holds a crayon with thumb and fingers
• He imitates a vertical stroke
• He turns pages one at a time (Hopefully he loves books as much as Jordan does!)
• He imitates doing housework
• He attempts to comfort others in distress
• He defends his possessions (So does Jordan- that should make things interesting!)
• He can speak 7-8 words

I certainly hope not one more month passes without movement on our case. We need to get our son home now!

Update on Aiden

We received an update on Aiden today. Our updates are always brief- just a couple pictures and his current height and weight is about all we see. However, it is always great to see him happy and healthy! On Friday he will be 20 months old. He weighs 29 pounds and is 34 inches tall. That's about all there is to report. Hopefully we will hear news that our case is moving forward soon. I don't want Aiden to grow up anymore before we take him home!

No Movement Yet

There continues to be no movement in Korea. As of today, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Korea has not allowed any agencies to submit children for EP. EP stands for emmigration permission and it's what we have been waiting 14 months for. Once we find out that Aiden has been submitted for EP we know that we are at least approaching the end of our wait. We recently heard a rumor (not confirmed by our agency) that EP movement would begin in the middle of February which is quickly approaching.

I'm including a link to the blog that I read often because it so far has always had accurate information about things happening in Korea regarding international adoption. I stalk this blog and forums often in my desperate attempt to get some idea of when we can bring our baby home. Anyway, this particular blog entry contains a music video by Josh Kelly, husband of actress Katherine Heigl who adopted a daughter from South Korea.

http://mpakusa.blogspot.com/2012/02/naleigh-moon-by-josh-kelly.html

My Korean Boys

Luke and Jordan often make trips to the Korean grocery store to stock up on their favorite Korean goodies. Here they are enjoying some dried squid. I can hardly stand to be in the same room while they are eating this because of the extremely strong odor. Jordan will follow me around the house holding up a piece of squid and saying, "Just try one bite, Mommy. Just one little bite." He does this when he eats seaweed as well. I feel like the roles are reversed sometimes and he is trying to convince me to try new foods instead of the other way around. Good thing Jordan has his Daddy who shares his love for all Korean food.

Here's an adorable picture of Jordan driving his monster truck in the "grass."

Blog Address

I wanted to post a link to a blog that has been established to speak for the thousands of voiceless children in South Korea who are in need of homes. Visit this site if you are interested in learning more about the adoption situation in South Korea or if you want to read about a way that you may be able to help.

http://voiceoflove.org/?blog

Although we are now 3 weeks into the new year, there continues to be no movement in South Korea. I heard that it is likely that no families will be submitted for EP until February. Apparently the Korean government is busy working on ironing out the details of an adoption law that was passed last July and are trying to figure out how to implement the Korean heritage policy they passed last August. Because of this, they haven't allowed any of the agencies to submit children for EP. So we continue to wait and are hoping that things start moving soon.

Update

Thank you to all of you who were praying for us and encouraging us during this past week. Things became pretty tense and stressful there for a bit, but it looks like everything is going to turn out okay. I don't know if it was due to prayer or due to the fact that Luke has decided to get more involved (going to our agency, meeting with the people involved with our case, clearly expressing the necessity of getting this resolved quickly) but it looks like our bump in the road is going to be resolved rather quickly without impacting our wait for Aiden. We did have to quickly scramble to get our medical exams done again, our financial paperwork copied and organized, and our reference letters gathered, but we managed to get everything done and completed our home study visit yesterday afternoon. The home study supervisor ended up taking over our case and promises to have the home study update completed in two weeks. Thank goodness!
We received another waiting families letter yesterday which provided us with some updates about how things are progressing in Korea. We receive these letters every 2-3 months or so. Unfortunately, there wasn't much good news in the letter. Things continue to move at an agonizingly slow pace. There is truth to the rumor we heard last fall that Korean heritage families will receive priority e.p. processing. However, the logistics of this are still being worked through and nothing has been implemented at this point. Our case manager is warning us that we most likely will not be in the first batch of families submitted for e.p. which means that traveling in the late spring or even later is becoming a very real possiblity. We are digging deep and are trying to stay positive and to focus on the blessings in our life. The adoption journey is not an easy one, but the end result is more than worth the heartache along the way.

Prayers Needed

I have been counting down the days until 2012 because then I knew things would start moving again in Korea. But here we are only 5 days into the new year and we keep hearing discouraging things about our adoption. Yesterday we found out that a petition was never filed with the courts for us to receive some piece of paperwork needed to bring our baby home. We never heard anything about this until Tuesday. Now today I found out that this petition can't be filed until we have a home study update complete with new medical exams and references. I can't believe that we have had a year of dead time just sitting here waiting for our baby to come home and no one mentioned this to us until now! We could have had this petition filed long ago and wouldn't have needed to update our home study. Please pray for us to have patience during this painfully long wait and pray that the home study update is completed quickly. We are hoping that things move way more quickly than we expect!