Adoption Journal

How Did We Decide to Adopt?
First we wanted a larger family & Second we had multiple problems with expanding our family after the birth of our third child in 2000. After a couple of miscarriages and difficulty with conceiving, we decided we weren't gettting any younger and had to make a choice to give up our dream of having 4 or 5 children or do something about it. We wanted our kids closer in age than our first two children, so we revisited an idea we researched between the two of them. This idea was adoption. The reason we abandond the idea 8 years ago was cost. Adoption is very expensive and we were not as commited then as we are know.

Why International Adoption?
Many people will argue this point, but we felt an international adoption was safer as far as the birth parents persuing the return of the baby. This would be devistating for us, but unimaginable to explain to our three biological kids, why their brother or sister had to leave. So we like the idea of an ocean between us and the birth parents. With that being said, on the other hand I support our childs desire to find his birth parents if this is the case.

Why Korea?
Korea has a 50 year history with international adoption and has one of the most stable adoption programs in the world. We desire a healthy infant and Korea usually refers their children at 4-6 weeks of age and the child is ready to travel 3-6 months after referral. Usually the children are 4-8 months of age when they arrive in the U.S.


September 9, 2004
We finished our 4th and final interview for our homestudy. Which means the social worker assigned to our case will right up a completed homestudy for our adoption agency ASIA. After ASIA receives a completed homestudy they will put us on their referral list.

A referral usually takes 4 months and then it is an additional 4 months before the child is ready to travel with proper visa and approved U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, I-600 which is the form for the immigration of an orphan.

Infants are usually 4-6 weeks at time of referral and 4-8 months when they are ready to travel.

October 7, 2004
Catholic Charities called today to advise us we had a completed and approved home study. Our agency will place us on a referral list after recieving a copy of the approved homestudy. Now we owe the final payment to Catholic Charities and the second payment to ASIA.

December 4, 2004
Today we met with the staff at ASIA to get to know Megan our new social worker & Mr. Ted Kim. We are moving up the list for a referral and Mr. Kim said we would probably hear something in January 2005. Mr. Kim will be retiring at the end of this month. We were assured all will goes as planned and the personnel changes will not affect our adoptions.

December 22, 2004
Today at 2pm ASIA called to offer us a baby boy born on October 27, 2004. He is beautiful and healthy! We accepted immediately and will work on the formal papers the day after Christmas.

December 26, 2004
We sent our accepted papers to ASIA and are hoping have them logged-in in Korea before they take thier winter holiday.

January 11, 2005
Eastern Social Welfare Society, ESWS logged in our acceptance papers today, so hopefully we will travel in May to get our little boy.

February 09, 2005
Since my last entry we discovered that our wait will probably be a month longer. This increase is due to the restriction on passports and travel visas issued by the Korean government. Each of the 4 orphanges that handle international adoptions is limited to 50 visas per month. We pray that somehow we will get a call early and we will be on the next plane to Korea.

March 13, 2005
We received a picture of our new son a few days ago and the agency is still telling us it will be June before we travel. I hope they are wrong and we go sooner. The reason is not that the government has limited the number of visas per month, but there is a new gentleman in Korea that is tasked with reveiwing all papers and applications for passports. He has only been in the position for 9-10 weeks so he is slowing the process and is still learning his job.



Back to Our Korean Adoption Story