Next Step

Laura emailed us on Monday to say that the state had processed our paperwork and she was sending it on to CIS. Which stands for Citizenship & Immigration Services, not CSI (Crime Scene Investigation...I got that wrong before). So in 4-6 weeks we should be done with this step.

Sean went to Moline last Saturday for his make-up parenting class. We were scheduled to go to our agency's class in March, but he had the flu. I had originally thought about drugging him and propping him up in a chair since it was mandatory that we take the class and we didn't want his absence to delay our paperwork, but they found this make up class for him to take instead. Which was a more humane way to go. He enjoyed the class and got to meet some other couples that are adopting in the Peoria, Monmouth, and Iowa areas. It was fun comparing notes between the two classes. We both got to hear from adoptees who are now adults. They talked about their experiences growing up and their feelings about their families. I think we agreed we enjoyed that part the most.

A couple of questions we recently got were if we specifically requested a boy and if we knew who he was? The answers are yes and no. We specifically requested a boy. It was part of the reason we decided on South Korea as our country. 80% of the children adopted from Korea are boys. That was surprising to us when we were researching because we'd always thought of Asian countries as having girls that were available. But that is particularly China. There have been a couple of reasons given to us as to why there are so many boys up for adoption in South Korea. One is that because the children are up for adoption domestically the girls are usually adopted first. Partly because it is thought girls are easier to raise and because blood lines are important in Korea, by adopting a girl she doesn't affect the blood line as a boy would. As far as knowing who our little guy will be, we have absolutely no idea. When we turned in our initial application to Lifelink we were placed at the bottom of their list for Korean adoptions. Once we are "paper ready", when the agency is made aware of babies ready for adoption they go to their list and the first couple that is requesting that particular sex will get the referral for that child. We are hoping that since we are requesting a boy that our wait will be a little shorter than others on the list. Americans tend to adopt girls. That's why there is an almost four year wait for adopting through China. So it is God/fate/chance, any way you want to look at it, that will bring us together with our little guy.

So I hope this answers your questions, if you have anymore please let us know.