One more day!!

We had a meeting with the elder Dr. Kim and lunch with his daughter, Dr. Kim. It was nice after a few days of just site seeing to finally be doing something adoption related. Here is a picture of Sean and I with the elder Dr. Kim. He's technically retired, but still likes to meet with each family that is adopting. He was a sweet man that has done so much for orphans and unwed mothers here. I had no idea the size of the organization that he's manage to build in 25 years. The lunch with the younger Dr. Kim was delicious!! We got to meet many other families here that are adopting. They sat us next to Dr. Kim and I was very nervous about my dinner etiquette. At least we've had some time to practice it the last few days. We spent the rest of the day just milling around the area near here. There is a cinema that was showing English movies with Korean subtitles, so we broke down and saw one. We finished the night with a nice meal at restaurant overlooking the street. It is the latest we've been out since we've been here (8:30pm)! We should be going to bed early tonight because tomorrow we get Ian....FOREVER!!! Or at least until he's eighteen and goes to college, but I can't think about that now. :-)

I'm very excited and scared about tomorrow. The talk at lunch today turned towards the grieving that these little guys go through being taken from everything they know into a world where nothing is familiar. This isn't new news to us, we've been warned about it and read books about it and gone to classes about it. My heart breaks for him. It is so much grief for such a little one to have to bare. I can't blame him. We look funny and smell funny to him. Most of the stares we get in public are from children. I saw a baby on an elevator today and I was trying to get her to smile at me, but she was so scared and she was in her mother's arms! Don't get me wrong, I have been ready for tomorrow for a very long time and I will hold Ian until the pain goes away and I'm a familiar face. I'm just afraid my heart might shatter in the process.

When we've taken these classes that discuss his grief and attachment to us, it has been suggested that we keep visitors to a minimum when we get home. We will probably be hermits for the first few weeks so he can work on becoming attached to us. Depending on how that goes, we are then going to ask that visitors be no more than a few people at a time and for a short period of time. This is so hard for us to do!! Believe me, I can't wait to introduce him to all of you back home that have been praying for him and loving him since before we knew him. We hope you can understand. He might surprise us all and have very little trouble transitioning. I hope so.

I'm not sure I'll have a chance to blog tomorrow or not. The ceremony is set for 4 p.m. Dr. Kim will say a prayer for Ian before he's entrusted to us. If you don't mind saying a little prayer for Ian and us tomorrow too I would very much appreciate it.

Since we didn't take very many pictures today, I'll leave you with this one. A view from our final room here at Eastern. We love it and I hope it will bring some peace to Ian tomorrow night. So our next post may be state-side. Thank you to all of you who have shared in this journey with us. It has been wonderful having all of your support over here with us!