God is so faithful and we are so thrilled to announce that WE HAVE A SON!!!! He is 8 months old today and waiting for us in South Korea! We are so excited!! We hope to have him home by his first birthday at the end of June, but the timeline is completely out of our hands.
Since this is a way for us to write down our memories, here is the story of his referral. Get a cup of coffee, prop your feet up, and enjoy reading how God brought our sweet son into our family.
Friday, February 4th was a normal day at work. Raleigh and I knew that the Holt offices in Korea were closed, due to Lunar New Year, so we were not expecting any type of adoption news.
While my students (I teach kindergarten) were out of the classroom, I quickly checked my email and saw an email from Bethany (our agency). I quickly opened the email and saw that is was the pictures of 4 sweet little kiddos with "special needs." Raleigh and I were in the "standard/non-special needs" program, but sometimes our agency will send information about kiddos if they think they will be "hard to place" or if there is not a family open to their specific special needs.
I was very shocked since it was Lunar New Year, and we were not expecting any news.
I immediately called Raleigh and asked him if we should request their files to review. He agreed and I sent an email to our agency requesting the files of all four boys.
I must say that requesting the files is a very emotional process. We requested the file of a precious little girl last year and eventually felt God telling us that she was not ours so we did not move forward. However, after praying over the face of a child and reading details about the child's history, it is hard not to become "attached" even when you know the child is not your own. This sweet little girl is now home with her family! :)
So...back to the story.
A social worker from our agency sent the files back to me almost immediately. I decided to finish the day at school and wait until I was home to open the files.
Once home, I started reading each file and praying for God's wisdom. I immediately felt drawn to one sweet kiddo. Once Raleigh got home, we sat down together and read the files.
We both knew that night (a Friday) that we wanted to have a few medical professionals review one of the files, because he was just tugging on our hearts.
First, we emailed an international adoption pediatrician that I heard about on an adoption forum. She reviewed the file and called us for a phone consultation Saturday afternoon.
Also, my sweet friend Shea helped us get a recommendation for a pediatric nephrologist at Emory. We emailed him, introduced ourselves and asked if he would be willing to review the child's file. He also agreed (on a Sunday:) and we had the very detailed wriiten report by Monday morning.
We also had a pediatric nephrologist in Alabama review the file. Prior to joining the "corporate" world, Raleigh was a child life therapist at UAB hospital in Birmingham. He has quite a bit of experience working with children in hospital settings. He spent many summers organizing and volunteering at
Camp Bridges in Alabama. This is a camp that promotes quality of life for children who have had an organ transplant. So one of Raleigh's good friends from his days at UAB is a leading pediatric nephrologist.
Basically, all three doctors came to the same conclusion. Our son has a blockage in his left ureter, causing too much urine to stay in his left kidney before it drains down to his bladder. This has caused his left kidney to lose much of its function. From what they can tell, the right kidney is functioning at 100%. They all suggested surgery to remove the blockage in the ureter. Removing the blockage may help the left kidney to regain some of the function that it has lost.
After receiving these reports, we prayed and prayed!! Both sets of our parents also prayed for us that we would have peace about whether or not to move forward.
Raleigh and I felt complete peace about moving forward, so on Tuesday, February 8th we sent an email to our agency telling them that we would like to be considered as parents for this little boy.
Families had until Friday, February 11th to make a decision about moving forward on any of the four little boys. So...then we waited.
We knew that the "committee" was going to select a family for this little guy sometime the following week, but we did not know what day. I kept my phone with me at all times. Monday of the following week was Valentine's Day and I kept praying and hoping we would hear an answer about whether or not we were chosen, but we heard nothing.
Tuesday...nothing. Wednesday....nothing. Thursday...nothing.
Friday, February 18th I had the day off of school. Raleigh and I had planned a while back to visit my parents in Nashville that weekend. Raleigh went to work for a lunch meeting and was planning to be home by 2:00. I finished packing for our weekend trip and then decided to head to the mall. Since we had not heard anything all week, I knew there would be a decision and I just couldn't sit around the house and wait.
I went to the mall and was buying a pair of jeans for Raleigh. I had on one my shirts from
147 Million Orphans and one of their Uganda bead necklaces. The lady working at the store, was so intrigued by my shirt and wanted to know all about the organization. I shared my heart for adoption and gave her the website so that she could read more about it the purpose of 147 Million Orphans. Then she noticed my necklace and I told her the story about how
the necklaces are made by widows in Uganda and they sell the necklaces to support their families. She loved the necklace and I gave it to her. It was no big deal to me because I love the necklaces and buy multiples at a time. However, the lady seemed deeply touched and she said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.
Just about this time, I was about to pay for Raleigh's new jeans and my phone rang. My heart jumped (just as it had every.single.time my phone rang during the week). I looked to see the called ID and it said Bethany, our agency. I put Raleigh's jeans down on a table and walked out in the the mall. It was the director of our agency and several social workers. I started crying immediately before they ever told me whether or not we had been chosen.
Then, I head the awesome news....the "committee" had chosen us!! Oh my! God is so faithful!! What God has planned, He will see through to completion! God's heart is for the orphan and He will set the lonely in families.
I immediately called Raleigh and told him that we had a son! Then I called my parents. We called Raleigh's parents once Raleigh was home from work.
So it is with great thankfulness to God that I introduce our son....
(Hi Katie...I hope you don't mind I *borrowed* this picture from f*c*book)
For the foster mom, we found a Coach wristlet. It was on sale at Dillard's for less than $30.00, so we really did not spend too much on it.
It is still cold in Korea, so I thought they might appreciate some new chapstick. The foster parents also have 2 grown children (in their 30's) and I'm not sure if they live at home or not. If they do live at home, this gift could easily be for them instead of the foster parents.
I know it may seem strange, but apparently vitamins are really popular gifts for foster parents. The tag you see on the top of the bottle is how I labeled all of the gifts. Each item was labeled with our son's name and case number. I tried to make the labels as "cute" as possible. I cut circles out of brown/tan paper and wrote the information in black sharpie. Then I used a hole punch to make a hole and I attached the tags to the items with natural colored ribbon.
We got the foster dad socks. We were originally planning to buy him a nice tie. However, we found out that he is retired. Although it is typical for Koreans to often dress very nicely, we just were not sure if he would wear a tie a lot since he is retired. We found socks that we liked so we sent those instead. Raleigh loves argyle socks. I think fun socks are appropriate for any age bracket.
So... we sent vitamins, socks, chapstick, and a wristlet. We also wrote a letter to the foster family thanking them for taking care of our son. We had it translated into Korean. There is a sweet girl on one of the adoption forums that offers translation services. She translated our letter very quickly. I wrote the same note (in English of course) in a card and then folded the printed Korean version and placed it in the card.
Here is a final look at our care package. Raleigh is a master at packing!! He claims it is from all his "border trips" when he was a child. He grew up in Mexico City and each summer they would drive to the United States to spend summers with his grandparents. All of that packing as a child stuck with him! We fit everything except the vitamins into two gallon size baggies. 
