We're official!

Well, it's been a long time since we posted anything on our blog - to say the least. On Nov. 13th we finalized Andrew's adoption, so we're official now. Of course it doesn't feel any different after 6 months of living with the little fellow, but it is nice to have the official paperwork. Now we are just waiting to get his birth certificate so we can get his U.S. passport and SSN. Then, we should get to rest for a bit - in terms of paperwork anyway.

We are looking forward to our first holiday season with a little one in tow. It will be fun!

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to all of you!

The Ervins

Two months home

This is quite the milestone week. On Monday we celebrated two months home with Andrew. He is such a joy in our lives. And on Friday, Andrew will turn 1.

In the past month Andrew has been busy growing and discovering new things. Here are some of the things he enjoys doing:
- signing "light" and "fan" and pointing out every single light and fan he sees
- standing up and clapping
- reading books
- going to storytime each Tuesday
- feeding himself
- swimming and playing in the sprinkler or with his water table
- and, of course, sleeping all by himself in his crib (ha ha)

Tomorrow, when Andrew turns 1 we have many things to celebrate. Andrew is home, is part of his forever family, and is doing wonderfully in his new home. But, it also brings some somber thoughts. We know that his birthday may be a hard day for his birthmother and foster family who love our little boy so much, so we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers this week.

Happy First Birthday, Andrew!

One month home

Yesterday marked one month since Andrew came home. In some ways it has gone fast. In others it has dragged by. It is neat to look back at photos from soon after he came home and begin to see changes in him. We can see how he is growing and see his first tooth starting to poke through. And, each day he becomes more confident and comfortable with us.

To celebrate, we took Andrew, who we have started calling Sir Smiley, swimming. He loves swimming! He enjoys floating, being twirled around, dunked under water and gets a kick out of watching us swim. He had a great time and came home and took a great nap, something we all enjoy.

Besides sprouting teeth, Andrew is keeping us busy walking laps around our house as he practices walking with us or pushing anything that will move. He also enjoys chasing balls or trucks, throwing plastic links or loops off the couch, pulling on the cats' tails (cats are less than thrilled with this one), examining the underside of toys (we don't understand either), playing the piano, learning to get finger foods into his mouth at a rate greater than a batting average, and trying desperately to get to any gadget we own.

Andrew is also showering us with a multitude of smiles and hugs, which has gotten us through many long nights with a little guy who doesn't seem to see a need to sleep in long intervals. We're hoping he understands the joy of sleeping soon in his very own crib through the night. His mom and dad would be overjoyed!

10 Months Old Today ... and Home!

Today, Andrew turned 10 months old, at home. We brought him home on Wednesday, May 13, and have been working to get all three of us on MDT since then. Gradually, we are getting closer.

We are having a blast getting to know Andrew. Each day he opens up a bit more and shows us just a little bit more of who he is. And, who wouldn't love that smile? The little boy we brought home who wouldn't leave our sides is becoming much more confident and starting to explore the house at high speed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Happy 10 Month Birthday, Andrew! He looks forward to meeting all of you.

Growing up

Here are two newish photos we have of Andrew. Our agency sent them to us last month after they went to Seoul for the opening of a new unwed mother's home. He is nearly 9 months old in these photos. He will be 10 months old on May 17. We can't wait to meet this little guy. He is growing up so fast!

New generation of cloth

I have to giggle each time someone finds out we're doing cloth and their face squishes up, their eyes enlarge to dangerous dimensions or they say something like, "Oh. Gosh. Really?" I can tell images of the old rubber pants or being pricked by a pin are running rampant through their minds. Well, friends, those days are long gone. Welcome to the new generation of cloth. Here is a photo of some of the diapers we bought last week to use on Andrew (providing he comes home before he's potty trained. We haven't washed them yet just in case we need to take them back.)

The new generation of cloth diapering includes diapers like these in fun colors and prints. Some are all one piece, just like disposables, but without the harmful dioxins. Others require waterproof covers that fasten with velcro or snaps, similar to how disposables go on. Just rinse and wash. The little bit of extra water it will take to wash Andrew's diapers (and clothes) is very slight compared to what it takes to water our bluegrass lawn. This will keep thousands of diapers out of a landfill, and save us more than $1,000 per kid. I could go on and on. We can't wait for a chance to get these on our little man!

We are very lucky to live only 10 minutes or less from a woman who both sells and faithfully uses cloth diapers (http://www.modernmommygear.com/). Last weekend we went to a cloth diapering class at her house where she went over the five kinds of cloth diapers, the pros and cons of each, and how to properly use and wash cloth diapers. We were excited when we got home and discovered we had been using one of the few detergents without brighteners or fabric softeners added that is safe for cloth diapering. Arm and Hammer, way to go!

One month down, one or two to go

Today marks one full month since our P3 was sent to the Korea adoption agency, Eastern. Our agency is projecting that the wait is 2-3 months from the P3. So, that means we should be getting our travel call on or before Memorial Day.

I sure hope it's before. I have organized the heck out of everything in our house. You'd think we were moving from how clean our house is right now. And anyone who knows either or both of us that well knows that we are not typically tidy. Entropy may be more like it. I'm sure many people who have known us over the years could tell myriad stories about our systems of cleaning - putting spoons full of peanut butter in drawers or under the bed to hide them, or spreading everything out all over the floor then standing on the bed to find something.

If we don't get to travel soon I'm going to have to start breaking into my friends' and neighbors' homes to clean and organize simply as a way of keeping myself occupied. Do you think they'd mind?

On Tuesday another family from our agency heard that their child's visa interview had been scheduled. Their P3 was sent two weeks before ours. We have no idea if that means anything about our process, but at least we know Korea is still processing visas from our agency. It had been well over a month since the last visa for a family from our agency. That's enough to start all sorts of crazy thoughts.

Hope

Gosh, this rollercoaster is exhausting! One minute we are hitting bumps at the bottom of a hill and the next we are being pulled up to the top, cresting another hill waiting for that feeling of our stomachs flying up into our diaphragms. Whee!

Once a reporter, always a reporter. Being the closet investigator I have been following several blogs of other adoptive families across the nation, whose timelines closely mirror ours. Being with different agencies in Korea there are, of course, variations. Today I logged on to check to see if any of these families had heard anything, anything at all. And, there they were - several headlines screaming excitement about visas being issued. Hooray! I am so excited for these families. This wait can be excruciating at times.

Being just a tad behind many of these families I am full of hope today that we might be in one of the next few batches being processed - Korea files the paperwork required for the passports twice a month. Even seeing that others are seeing movement has me ecstatic. There is movement! We might actually still see our son in the next few months. Huzzah!

8 Months Old Today

Andrew turns 8 months old today. We had really hoped to wish him a happy day in person, but we are still waiting for the Packet 3 to come back from Eastern, so instead we send him our thoughts and our prayers hoping he's having a good day with his foster family.

Each day we wait gets harder and harder. Being parents to a little boy so far away is definitely not easy. On days like today it is heartbreaking to be so far from our little boy, to have his cries soothed by someone else no matter how great his foster parents are. We are his mommy and daddy and should be with our son. We should have been traveling this week, if everything had gone according to plan, but heard last week that we may still have as much as 2-3 more months to wait due to a backlog in Korea processing passports - the prerequisite to a visa and us being able to travel.

So, rather than packing or trying to buy plane tickets we are adjusting to the idea of being here quite a bit longer and bringing home a little boy rather than a baby. Today, Shawna is going to register for a fencing and a hip hop dance class, and maybe a tennis ladder, to help her bide the time over the next few months. Eric is working with a group he will be teaching classes for, and preparing for the test drive of the class next week.

In the meantime, Dixie and Ian have been practicing to be a good big brother and sister by sleeping in the crib and on the changing pad. They are wishing he was here so they could share some of their friendly, cat snuggles as only a cat can do.

Still waiting

Nothing new here. Still waiting on that Packet 3 to come back from the Korean agency. Should everything have gone well it should have come back a week or more ago and we should have heard last week or be hearing this week that Andrew's visa was issued and it is OK to bring him home.

But, alas, we are at the mercy of the Korean government, which seems to be moving at the speed of molasses right now. So, we wait and wait and wait. Last week we heard that we may have another 2-3 months to wait, which was distressing. Andrew is quickly leaving his babyhood and soon we will be packing up all of the baby things in favor of toddler things.

Packet 3

What a week! I called the U.S. Embassy today to ask if our Packet 3 (all of the paperwork from immigration and the U.S. visa center) had been sent to the agency in Korea yet. Yup. It was sent out yesterday, on February 26. I'm impressed.

So, now the agency will receive this packet and match it to Andrew's paperwork at the agency, then send the even bigger packet back to the U.S. Embassy. After the U.S. Embassy has the stack of papers they can schedule the visa interview and issue the visa. Once Andrew has his visa we will be outta here!

One more step complete

We can check off one more step now. Yesterday I called the National Visa Center to see if our immigration (I-600) approval had been sent on to Korea. Good news! It was sent off to Korea on Thursday, Feb. 19.

I asked a woman at our agency if that meant we might get to travel before the sacred 4-5 month wait, but she swore up and down it didn't mean a thing and to still plan on traveling sometime over the summer. But, being the optimist I am going to hold out hope and believe it does mean something, even that we are one tiny, little step closer to meeting our son.

Andrew's living arrangements

Here is a view of Andrew's room. The little chair is Shawna's - her maternal grandfather gave it to her when she was a little girl. Eric's mom made the curtains. The dresser was left in the house (formerly Eric's maternal grandparent's) by the original owners.

What you can't see here are the child-sized rocking chair made by Shawna's maternal grandfather and the chiffarobe made by Shawna's paternal great-grandfather for her father when he was a baby.

What you also won't see here (yet) are the dirty diapers, paints or crayon marks on the walls, and toys or books strewn about. We are waiting for Andrew to help out with those tasks.

Preparations

Knowing that we may have less than a month before we go pick up our little guy, we have been busy preparing for Andrew's arrival. Over the past few weeks we have put safety thingies on every cabinet and outlet in our house and are now crawling around on all fours trying to see what is at eye level for an 8-month-old that might look tasty or extra fun, but probably shouldn't be, and moving things accordingly.

This past weekend we helped one of Eric's friends unload some of his son's clothes. Colby and Sharon's 3-year-old son, Colin, generously let us take many of his baby clothes to use with Andrew. Above is a photo of Shawna sorting through the many clothes. We have also been lucky enough to receive toys from our neighbors and Shawna's skating coach. We are sure thankful for friends with surplus toys and clothes!

Speedy Delivery

Well, gee. It's only been five weeks since we signed the papers accepting our referral and we have motored through step after step. Our legals took only a few days, the state approval came whipping back, then we received the letter to have our immigration fingerprints done only a few days later and went right away the next day.

We received the I-600 approval today! If everything goes smoothly in Korea we should be meeting our son for the first time about 4-6 weeks from now.

We are so excited to meet Andrew! Stay tuned here for updates as we get closer to our travel date and when we return. We will be posting updates and photos here.

Back to blogging

It's been a long time since we updated our blog. But, now we have something to write about.

On January 7, 2009, we accepted a referral for a cute, baby boy in Korea. He is now 6 months old. Andrew Nathaniel Ervin was born July 17th, 2008. He had a rough start with a brief hospital stay after contracting a virus, but is healthy and growing well.

Now we are slowly inching our way toward being able to go get him and meet his foster family. His legal papers (birth certificate and custody) arrived about a week after we signed our papers, which is incredibly fast. The typical timeline is 2-6 weeks.

Immigration signed off on our paperwork on Jan. 27 and we got our invitation to be fingerprinted today. We will go first thing in the morning. Then, it's about six weeks for immigration approval and six weeks until we travel, give or take a few weeks on either end. We're getting closer!