Friday, October 31, 2008

Our little guy has a name!!!

My birthday wish today was to name our son! (Yes, I was born on Halloween). Drum role please...our little guy is now know as: IAN JEEHAN HENSON. Ian was the only name that showed up on both Sean and My's list. You'd think that would have made it an easy choice, but we felt we needed to study him and make sure it fit. It definitely seemed to!

So you all can keep your birthday presents until next year. It is going to be hard to top this one! It has been a very nice birthday. We started off the morning changing rooms here at Eastern. Then we navigated the subway again and headed over to Insadong (an art market) and did some shopping. There were a lot of nice restaurants to chose from and we had lunch, tea, and dinner there. We are finding that we might have to limit our Korean food to just one meal a day. We have much guilt admitting this, but our stomachs are having a hard time tolerating more than that. We even ordered Pizza Hut pizza last night....oh, the shame!!


Thank you to all of you who have done a do-it-yourself photoshoping of Ian's picture from yesterday. I can't wait to do it myself. :-)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

What a day....


I wish I had better pictures from today, but our camera didn't cooperate. What a day for our camera NOT to work!! We got up and got ready to meet our little guy and went down at 10am, but they asked us to come back at 11am. We're not sure why, but we were willing to do whatever they asked as long as they let us meet him!! We were wondering if it was because they wanted to videotape it. There was a man that videotaped the whole meeting.

Here is a picture of us with our little guy and his foster mom. (Sean wasn't sure he was in the picture, hence his posture). He is very attached to his foster Mom. He did come to Sean and me for a little while, but always had one eye on her. When they first handed him over to me, he laid his head down on my shoulder. He sure knew what to do to melt my heart. We did manage to get a few smiles from him and he showed us his two bottom teeth! He is very strong and fast! His foster Mom said he's started pulling himself up on things and is a very good baby. He was very tired when we met him and fell asleep the instant I gave him his bottle. As a gift his foster Mom gave us a beautiful Hanbok for him to wear on his first birthday. She also kindly got a gift even for Cydney! Our time with them went all too quickly. We were only there for a 1/2 hour. We did find out that we will get him on Tuesday at 4pm. We're already preparing ourselves for a very long night, but I think it'll be good to have him with us for at least that long before we jump on the plane.

We filled the rest of our day with a very spicy lunch and then a trip on the subway to a huge book store. We had heard that they sell children's books that are in Korean and English. We did find a few and bought a picture book of Korea.


It also turns out that we are going to be able to stay at the guest house during our entire stay. We do have to change rooms a couple of times, but that just means we won't get too spread out. :-) Here is a picture of Sean in our room.

Again I apologize for not having better pictures. But all too soon you'll be able to meet him yourself!! Take my word for it, he's a sweetie!!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

We Have Arrived!

We got here with relative easy. There are already so many stories to tell and we really haven't done much yet.

While in route we've both come down with a cold. Upon landing Sean read in our Korean etiquette book that a person doesn't blow their nose in public. Looking at our large bag of used Kleenex we realized that we've already managed to offend many good people!! While going through customs we had to walk through a Quarantine area and we tried to look our healthiest. Must have worked because they didn't stop us. The driver from the agency was there with a sign saying "Mr. & Mrs. Henson", I so wanted to take his picture (and give him a big hug!), but thought it would definitely make me look like a crazy tourist so I refrained. He then drove us in the "Love Mobile" to Eastern. He gave us a note saying that we could stay at the guest house for two nights and then they have made us reservations at a hotel down the street. I'm just glad we get to stay here at all. It is very nice.

Oh yeah, and the letter said to come "October 30th (FRIDAY)" to the agency and meet our son!!! Hummmm....conflicting date information.....I'm really hoping they mean tomorrow!! We'll call in the morning and check.

After we got settled in our room we went out for some dinner. We found a little restaurant not far from here. No one on the staff spoke English and we'd forgotten our Korean to English dictionary. Thank God for menu's with pictures! It was a terrific meal!! Everyone we've come in contact with has been so warm and friendly and willing to go out of their way to help us. I'm very excited to be connected to this culture for the rest of my life. I've been thinking a lot about our little guy's biological mother. In a city of 11 million people I doubt we'll run into her (or even know if we do), but I can't help looking at every woman we meet wondering. Being this close to her I want to send her a message that he's going to be OK. That we're going to honor her painful choice of letting our little guy go by giving him the best home and most love we can provide. And to just thank her.

Tomorrow is sure to be a crazy day. We'll post pictures as soon as we can!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Ready or not here we come......

Sing with me....Oh our bags are packed and we're ready to go....

So that's all of that song I know. Our bags are pretty much packed (side note: we received all the care packages and they fit just fine), and I know we're ready to go. We do have our first snag, though....So far we don't have a place to stay or anyone picking us up at the airport. THIS MAKES ME NERVOUS!! (my voice went up an octave there). Our social worker is hoping to hear from Eastern tomorrow morning if we can stay at the guest house or not. And whether their driver will pick us up or not. If we don't hear anything, then it will be a cab ride to the agency and praying their rooms aren't booked. I'm having a different emotion about every 5 minutes. Who needs pregnancy hormones to get emotional about adding a baby to a family??

Thank you for all the notes, prayers and well wishes! We feel so blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support during this very exciting adventure!! Next stop...SEOUL!!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Travel email!!!!

Ok so it wasn't a call it was an email! But we'll take it in any form they want to send it to us!! Things are soooo crazy right now...I'll tell you what I know.... We're leaving Tuesday and returning Wednesday (Nov. 5th). We have to be there for 4 full business days. For those of you who will be doing this soon, my advice is to use a travel agent. That occupation is a beautiful thing!!! So very helpful and one less major thing for us to worry about. :-)
We are very excited, we just don't know where to begin!!! I'm worried most about leaving Cydney for so long. I'm sure she'll be fine, it'll be me that is the sad one! :-)
We plan to blog while we're there so check back and I'll try to keep you updated on our going's on.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Final step complete!!

I just talked with the state department this morning (yes, I call them daily...but no more!) and our little guy's visa has been issued!!! This is the final step and the one that has been worrying me the most during this last set of steps!!! So, I let out a big Phew!! and now we wait for the call that says we can come and get him!! The soonest will be tomorrow, but I'm guessing it will be next week sometime.

For those of you who will be going through this soon, let me give you a run down of what my brain has been doing. First of all, I can't focus on anything to save my soul. And last night I had my first nightmare. This happened to me before our wedding too...in it, our plane is leaving in 20 minutes and we're still at home and I for some reason can not get packed. I put things in the suitcase, but they keep falling out. :-) Hummmm....what does that say??

I'll post more when I know it!! Thank you for all your well wishes, support and prayers. We feel very blessed!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Visa Interview!!!

I just talked to the State Department and our little guy is going for his visa interview tomorrow!!! Wooohoo!!!! For those of you not familiar with the adoption timeline, this means that his visa will be issued within the next week and we'll probably be getting THE CALL to come and get him sometime next week!!!

I usually don't share such personal information on the blog, but I'm in awe of this full circleness, that I'm going to make an exception. A year ago today, Sean and I went in for an ultrasound for what we thought was a good and strong pregnancy. We were dealt the devastating news that it didn't look good. The week that followed was a dark one for us, knowing that this was our last chance at infertility treatments. We'd always had adoption in the back of our minds and we both agreed that we still had a lot of love to give and wanted Cydney to have a sibling. So to be able to replace this coming week with such wonderful hope and excitement is beyond words and such a gift. So today especially I thank God for second chances and for bringing us full circle.

Friday, October 17, 2008

"WON" more thing off the checklist....

 
Thank you for any sympathy laughs on my little joke there. The currency used in South Korea is called WON. I ordered some through our bank to have in case of emergency when we step off the plane. It is also customary to give a donation to the adoption agency over there, so I thought I could go ahead and put our donation in a card (one less thing to take care of while we're there). I really find the money to be so pretty. I especially like the 5000 bill. It obviously isn't dollar for dollar. If it was #1) I wouldn't have this much #2) it wouldn't be on my kitchen counter & #3) seriously, what kind of emergencies would I be expecting?? What you're looking at here is about $24.

Sean's work had a surprise baby shower for him a few days ago. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of all the wonderful gifts we received. It was a book themed shower, which we absolutely loved! We'll be reading new books before bed for a long time to come! They were very generous and thoughtful!

Still no news. According to information from another fellow blogger's blog (), the South Korean government only issues emigration permissions in batches once every 4-6 weeks. Apparently the last time they issued them was September 23rd. So that would put us at receiving our EP this next week at the earliest. Of course, she said this is all conjecture, but you know what? That's all we've got right now. So I say, conjecture away!!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Whoever said....

"No news is good news," apparently was not involved in the adoption world. As of this morning our P3 packet hasn't been returned to the Embassy. Our agency needs our little guy's emigration permission before they can turn the packet back in, so I'm wondering if that possibly could be the wait. Of course, I'm wondering a lot of things lately.

This blog entry wasn't to complain about not hearing anything (although, since I was here...). It was to show you the thoughtful gifts we received last night at our baby shower. My office threw my coworker (who is due in November) and I a shower last night. I got to wear my "Pregnant on Paper" shirt. I felt a little guilty that I was making it all about me, so I made buttons for Cydney and Sean to wear as well.
Mandy and I felt a little sheepish getting a baby shower since this is both of our second children, but they insisted. And as you can see they were all very generous. We had a very nice time.

We're keeping ourselves busy. This happens to be a very busy week and so hopefully it will fly by and we'll know some more information by the end of it. He NEEDS to come home soon. Just look....we've added him to our van window family. Now he HAS to come to stop our false advertising!! :-)

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Still moving forward....

Although at a slightly slower pace now. It took the full two weeks for our visa paperwork to be received at the US Embassy in Korea. I checked last week to see if it had been received a couple of times. At one point a visa specialist at the State Department said, "Why don't you try back in a couple of weeks?" I politely thanked her for her time, but was thinking "Whatever, lady, I'm calling back tomorrow!". Luckily I've gotten someone different every time I call (all of whom are very friendly), but they've probably marked our file as "a little crazy."

A P3 packet has been sent to Eastern (our agency over there) and when it is returned back to the embassy, a visa interview will be set up at that point. I guess I missed this step in my reading through the timeline information. Once he has had his interview it will be about a week or so before we get the travel call.

We're still plugging away on our list. We've managed to cross off a few things. We've been organizing things with our human resource departments. I was sad to learn last week that I will not be getting a normal "maternity" leave (shaking my fist at the state). The person I'd spoken to before in HR was mistaken. But Sean and I have a lot of sick time and vacation accrued, so between the two of us we should hopefully be able to keep our little guy at home until January at which point I'll go to working nights part time and be at home during the day with our kiddos (I like saying that). Another preparatory task that we'll be doing is going to vote next Saturday! Since we just can't be sure we'll be in the country come election day we wanted to make sure we got to have our say. :-)

So.....stay tuned for some more info in the coming weeks. It'll probably be a week before we know anything more. Unless I can't help myself and start calling again and actually get some information before then. Let's hope!!