Drumroll please...

We have decided on a name for our son! After a lot of careful consideration, we have chosen to name him:

Nicholas Joon

Here are our reasons, for those who are interested:
1) Nicholas was on our list of favorites before we got the referral, and we thought this was the name that fit him the best.
2) His Korean name, Joon, means "hero" and Nicholas means "victory of the people." We liked that their meanings were in the same genre.
3) We found out about him around St. Nicholas Day and during the Christmas season so we thought a "Christmasy" name would be appropriate.
4) St. Nicholas is the patron saint of gift-giving among other things. From our point of view, Nicholas has given us a precious and priceless gift: the privilege of being his parents and helping us create the family we have been longing for.
5) And lastly, but definitely least important, I have always wanted to give our children a name that appears in a song so that I could sing the song to my son or daughter. I already have started creating my own verses to "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" that will apply to our son. And while he appears very happy in his pictures, neither "jolly" nor "old" made it into the new verses so far! I only plan on using this song as a lullaby... Sorry, there will be no public performances. :)

We're on our way!

Getting our Acceptance Papers notarized by our good friend, Jean.

Friday, December 11th, we received our packet of acceptance papers to sign, notarize, and return. We also had to take pictures of the house and ourselves, copy last year's tax return, get letters of employment, and have a quick doctor's checkup to update our medical forms. After a couple of hectic days, we returned all the documents to CHSFS via FedEx on Tuesday, December 15. Whew! Our part was done.

CHSFS received the documents on Thursday the 17th, reviewed them, and sent them on their way to Korea that very afternoon. It feels like such a relief to know that the next step is initiated. We are that much closer to getting our son home. Now we just wait and hope for effiicent processing of passports and visas!

An update from CHSFS told us that Korea only processes a certain number of passports a month. We know they are backlogged right now because they also only process a certain number of passports a year. They reached that quota back in October so there are families already waiting a few months ahead of us. We aren't sure how many families are ahead of us or how quickly things will start moving after the first of the year, but we were told it could be up to 6 months before we get to bring our son home. So we are adjusting our expectations with the hope that we will be pleasantly surprised in April or May instead of having to wait until June.

We don't know how many updates we will get from here on out regarding where our papers are in the process, but we will be sure to keep you posted as we hear things!

The Next Step

We just realized that we left a whole paragraph out of yesterday's blog! We were having great difficulty copying the text from Word and formatting the photos, so we negelcted to realize that we left out all the details about what happens next. (Thanks to Kevin's dad for pointing that out to us!)

The next step is to complete an acceptance packet (South Korea's form of a dossier), file an I-600 with USCIS requesting a visa for Joon, and wait for South Korea to issue a passport and a permission to emigrate form. Our agency estimates that this could take anywhere from 3-5 months.

We just received the acceptance packet via FedEx yesterday, so we are ready to sign all the forms and get our end of the paperwork completed (no reason for us to hold up the process any!). Some of the forms have to be notarized, but we just found out that a good friend from church is a Notary Public so we are excited to have her help us with this next step of our journey.

Once our paperwork is turned in, then our agency (CHSFS) and the agency in South Korea take care of sending the documents to the correct government offices in each country. When all the travel documents are issued, we will receive a phone call from CHSFS and then we get to pick up our son. They ask that we travel within 2 weeks from the phone call, so the last few weeks are just as unpredictable as a pregnancy! We are hopeful we could travel as early as March or as late as May, but we have learned early on in this journey that estimates are indeed just estimates!

Right now, Joon is living with his foster family in Seoul and the agency is also in Seoul so the visiting and official ceremonies will all happen there. We technically only have to be in the country for 3 business days, so with travel the trip could take as little as a week. However, we would like to do some sightseeing, including traveling to Busan where Joon was born, so we anticipate extending our trip a bit longer. We would like to take some pictures and get some momentos for Joon so we can tell him about where he spent the first few months of his life. The hard part is that we don't actually get to take Joon with us until the day we leave the country so any sightseeing is just prolonging our opportunity to get to know our son. We will try to find a good balance between learning about his birth country so we can teach him about his heritage as he grows and fulfilling our desire to hold him in our arms and start bonding with him.

Lucky Friday

Last Friday, December 4, 2009, exactly one year after we participated in our CHSFS orientation webinar, we received a referral! It was a great way to start the weekend, but we didn't decide for sure until after we had the referral reviewed by the University of Minnesota's International Adoption Clinic. They comb through all the medical information to help us be aware of any potential medical concerns or developmental issues. These last few days have seemed like an eternity as we waited to hear from the IAC. It was very hard to avoid all of the questions our friends and family asked, so we had to strategically dodge them and quickly change the subject!

Wednesday, during one of the biggest winter storms Iowa has seen since the early 90s, we officially decided, called our agency in Minnesota (which wasn't having such a blizzardy day), and formally accepted our referral. And now we get to share the news with everyone:

WE HAVE A SON!!!

Joon, which is Korean for "hero," was born two months premature on June 27, 2009, and is a gorgeous little boy who entered our hearts the moment we first saw his pictures. We knew this was our son and now we can't wait to get him home! We most likely will use Joon, the name his birth mother gave him, as his middle name, but haven't decided on a first name yet.

Here are some of his adorable photos, not that we are biased or anything!

We are very anxious to meet him and wish he was already home, but we are confident that he is in good hands with his foster family. It is apparent that his foster mother cares for him deeply and that he has bonded with her. While this gives us peace while we wait, we know it will make the transition and saying goodbye in Korea that much harder. However, we are eternally thankful for the care and love they will give him until we get to bring him home.

Thanks to everyone for all of your support during the wait for a referral. We hear the second wait is even harder because we know our child is out there growing and learning new things without us. Our goal is to stay busy getting the nursery ready and finishing those projects we have been meaning to do...

We'll keep you posted as the various pieces of paper make their way through the system. And we'll let you know if there are any other developments!