Korea takes us to court, again.

It's much harder to blog the second time around. Maybe it's because life is a little overwhelming at the moment. It seems to ring true that house, cars, appliances, and life in general tend to fall apart when a family is adopting. Last time it was our house. This time, it is job related. Changes are coming for both Zach and me, so stress has been at a high level the last few months. 

Thanks to God, we know it will work out. I keep hearing songs that remind me of how God has got this, how he works all things together for the good of those who love him, and how things are not falling apart but falling into place. For me, this is a leap of faith to move in the direction we know we have been lead, but walking through a fog of uncertainty along the way. 

To update: 

-our paperwork for the EP (emigration permission), for Zoey to leave Korea, was finally submitted on January 27. 

-on March 11, we found out our EP was approved and our paperwork was submitted to court. 

-I estimated about 5 weeks to get our court date, but hoped for sooner. It was a perfect estimate because we got the news on April 15, for a May 13 court date. Best birthday present ever! I had the plane tickets and hotel booked by the end of the day, because that's what you have to do when you only have 3 weeks til you travel! 

Now we are in prep mode. Zach will probably have his suitcase packed by tomorrow but I tend to be up late the night before any trip despite my best intentions to pack early. 

Jonah is going with us, so it should be interesting. He's not the worlds best traveler, but we have broken our screen time rule and got him a kids kindle fire, for our own sanity. We have contacted his foster family and hope to be able to see them when we are there. We've been on trip advisor getting lots of ideas of stuff to do with our little dude. I kinda want to go here, just because of the phase of life we're in with Jonah: poopoo land, a theme park about poop! Check it out at playpoop.com 

We're really looking forward to heading back to Seoul. Though this country girl still gets a little freaked out by such a big city, it is a wonderful place. The people are mostly nice and wonderful. The food is amazing. So much cool stuff to see. AND 3 of my favorite people are from there ;) 

We get to Korea the day before Mother's Day, what a gift! We get to meet Zoey on May 10! We see the judge on May 13. We come home the next day. 

We don't know when we will get the call to go back and get her. It's hard to predict because we have a new judge that has only done adoption cases since February. There are only so many families in our In process group on Facebook so we don't know of that many families that saw this judge. We will just have to wait and see. Hoping and praying like crazy that it will be early June! 

That's all for now. Jonah is ready to share most of his stuff. We're ready to meet our girl! God writes the best stories, so we are looking forward to how it unfolds. 

Well here we go again...on the crazy

Well this time around I swore I wouldn't freak out during the waiting process. Of course I said that when it seemed like things would go quickly. Now it seems that we are stuck...again... with nothing happening. 

I haven't updated lately, but in a short nutshell:

-We waited FOREVER to get our home study approved because someone thought we should wait in line behind families without referrals, since we already have a kiddo. GREAT logic. Our amazing case worker went nuts on the director of our agency and got that cleared up. HELLO, it's not about US--IT'S ABOUT THE BABY IN KOREA GROWING UP WITHOUT A FAMILY. I managed to stay calmish for most of that. 
-Our home study was approved on 9/21/15. 
-We got our acceptance paperwork and overnighted it to our agency in Michigan the next day. It was in Korea by 10/1/15. More paperwork on 10/22/15. 
-December 31, Zoey turned ONE without us. We look forward to seeing pictures and videos soon. Koreans know how to do first birthdays!
-Jan 4, they requested MORE paperwork and let us know we would likely be submitted to the ministry at the end of the month. 

Jan 22, after 3 days of snow and potty training, I've officially lost my patience. I've stalked everyone on the facebook IN PROCESS group. There's not a lot of SWS (our agency) families in the same phase as us, so it's hard to guess. I'm making those darn timelines again even though I know they just make me more neurotic. It's just so hard to do nothing (nothing on the adoption front. I'm a mom! I NEVER do nothing!)

Waiting ever so impatiently, for our sweet girl.