Korea Details

We have been trying to decide between Holt, the agency Zach was adopted through, and Adoption Assistance Inc/AAIA.

We met with Julie at Adoption Assistance Inc., here in Louisville, yesterday. Her agency works closely with AAIA, an agency in Michigan, for Korean adoptions. They are a much smaller agency than Holt so the process would be faster if we go with them.  It would also be faster if we are willing to accept a child with mild special needs.  Sometime in the near future we will have to fill out a medical checklist saying what we would consider. So many medical conditions that they would consider serious in Korea are very minor to us.  Luckily Korea is a country where the moms generally choose to put their child up for adoption and give a full medical history, unlike China where many are abandoned. Korea also does foster care instead of orphanages, so there are a lot of positives in that as far as child development and health.

A home study can take 4-6 weeks and we don't have to wait for our anniversary to get started. So sometime in September, we can get started on the home study. Guess we can wait til then to clean ;)

Most likely we will get a boy, but we will not request a specific gender.  There are a lot of requests for girls, so it is a much longer wait for a girl. I'd love a girl someday but I know Zach wants a boy first.  :)

The days of having a 3 month old show up at the airport are definitely long gone.  Korean babies are not even eligible for international adoption until they are 5 months old, because they want to encourage domestic adoption within their own country. After that we may get a referral but it could take up to a year or so to be cleared for travel.  Overall, the process once we start our home study, could take about 12-18 months. We may come home with a 10-24 month old child!  We may even have to take 2 trips to Korea- one for a court date and the other to pick up our child.  Luckily they have discounted adoption travel!

One thing I was glad to hear is that you pay the fees before you go to Korea, so we won't have to strap large amounts of cash to our bodies. Believe it or not that was one of my big worries!

How are we gonna pay for this? Well... There will be some fundraising for sure. But we are so happy the adoption tax credit was made permanent this year, so we can get a large chunk back later. Zach also gets adoption assistance from his employer, so that's a huge blessing. Plus, I recently started a new job and the extra money should help significantly.  God has just lined things up for us.

So the name of the game is waiting...and we are waiting. Right now we are waiting for our doctors letters.  The next step will be picking an agency and completing an application. In the meantime, we'll enjoy our sleep (what little the puppy allows us), work on our house, save money, and pray for the mom who is making one of the hardest decisions any mom can make.

Please pray with us!