New blog

Hello all! I have created a new blog that will be for our family. All future posts will be in the new blog in anticipation of our new family member. Please join us here.

We got the call....well email actually!!

After weeks and weeks of waiting we finally got the go ahead to travel. Yesterday morning at6:30am Pat, who is a very early riser, came running up the stairs into our bedroom. I awoke to the noise of his pounding feet and of course thought something was wrong. Through one half closed eye I saw that he was pushing his cell phone towards me. Finally I realized that he was telling me that our program director had emailed us to tell us that we could travel. I guess she also is an early riser and checked her email before going for a run. She knew it was too early to call us so she emailed.

So Pat leaves next Friday and will meet Gerad Yihyun on the Monday. He will return that Friday. I am hoping he will keep the blog updated! If not I will try to.

Let the next chapter of my life, and all of our lives, begin....

Still no news, but here are some pictures

The conductor:






AdoptWalk:













Tet Trung Thu lantern walk with friends:








A fall bike ride:

Small update, AdoptWalk and TetTrung Thu

Well it has been a trying couple of weeks. We're still obviously waiting for the travel call. It has been 18 weeks since referral. On Friday my cell rang and our program director was on the phone. Of course my heart started beating faster and I excitedly asked "Yes?!". Sadly it wasn't the travel call we'd been waiting for but it was an update. It seems that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) had messed up our file about a month ago (basically got it mixed up with someone else) and wouldn't issue Gerad's visa without figuring out the issue. They told our social worker in Korea that they would fix the problem then when she asked them last week they admitted they'd forgotten!!! Arggggg!!! Seriously?! Wow! So they've now stated that they are on it! And will fix the mistake ASAP. Trouble is that it is Chuseok in Korea right now (harvest festival holiday) and people won't be back at work until Thursday. Great. Oh well, at least we know what's going on and there is an end in sight.

Speaking of Chuseok, it is of course the Vietnamese equivalent today. Happy Tet Trung Thu! We had a very busy weekend with two Tet gatherings (one at Max and Vanh's and the other with the Vietnamese Community Association). We also did an AdoptWalk, with most of the money raised going to resources for public Canadian adoptions (I.e. Children's Aid Societies). It was the first in Ottawa and it was a small gathering but it was a gorgeous day so we all made he best of it! One of the sponsors was our current agency's foundation. The Children's Bridge Foundation does a lot of work both within Canada and around the world. Van's adoption agency also does incredible work in Vietnam. I am very happy that the Canadian government ensures that Canadian adoption agencies remain non-profit. This definitely seems to open the door for philanthropic work.

I was hoping to upload some photos of our weekend but didn't get around to it. Hopefully I'll get some uploaded tomorrow.

Still waiting.......

Starting to get a little panicky I have to admit. I know that technically we are still in the average time frame for waiting, however it is definitely frustrating that we are now at the long end or worse case scenario of the projected wait. Just when I was beginning to think that this process was smooth sailing, a time bump has emerged. What we have been told is that the SWS is working with the Canadian Embassy to issue his visa. That was the word last week (when I caved and contacted our agency to get an update). Well, it's inching towards another week gone by with no news. Boo :( I think it is a little more difficult this time around as our second little guy is older. The older he is the more difficulties he is going to have with the transition into another home. I know it's going to be horribly traumatic for him as it is but it will be even more traumatic due to his age. Van was 10.5 months old when he joined us and he had a very difficult transition. However I think his transition would have been much harder if he had have been a few months older. Poor Gerad Yihyun will be close to 17 months old when he joins us (if we get the call soon!). That is the age when separation anxiety really sets in. Poor little guy. Anyway, there is nothing we can do but be patient and wait...hurry up and wait....so challenging.

Any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated...if anybody is still reading that is lol.

Water park fun with Neila and Isle

.....still waiting...urg!!

Yes we are still waiting for "the call". We are now into week 14 of waiting. Gerad Yihyun will be 16 months old on September 7. Booooo :( We are definitely getting very restless at the Meg, Pat and Van household. Maybe we were being too hopeful but I think we definitely believed we would be home with him by now. As anybody who has adopted internationally knows, the wait to travel is the hardest part of the wait. You have your referral and know there is a little person in limbo. You are also in limbo as you can't tell your work exactly when you will be leaving and you can't really make any plans beyond a few days. As well you have to deal with the daily "Have you heard anything yet?" questions. I forgot how annoying that question can be. What you want to say is "You would know if we had heard anything", but you don't say that because you know that people are only being friendly and polite. They don't think "Oh, I shouldn't ask that as I am sure she has been asked 10 times today already". Why would they after all? During this wait everything is on hold although you try not to let it have that effect. Having another young child complicates matters because it is so hard to explain what is happning to a 3 year old. All he knows is that mommy and daddy have been telling him about this random little person called "little brother" who lives far away and daddy will be getting him on a plane. He probably thinks it's all a joke really lol. I am sure when we finally do get the call and tell him daddy will be leaving he'll think "yeah right, I've heard this story before and daddy never goes anywhere".

Up until a week ago I didn't really think about getting the call much. Now I am thinking about it constantly. I am checking my phone every 5 minutes in case I didn't hear it. I am also not sure what time of the day we will be getting the call. Korea is 13 hours ahead so it is currently 11:00pm there. Our agency would have the message by now I would think so my thought process is if we do not hear anything by 9am we won't be hearing anything that day. Having said that, we received our referral call at around 1pm.....this is the result of "the wait", analyzing everything!

I really hope we get "the call" this week. 2 more days....