Well, first things first, of course. Gideon’s Exit Permit was finally approved on January 5, and his case was submitted to Family Court on January 17! This means we are SO CLOSE to meeting our son for the first time! We should know our court date within the next few weeks, and we will hopefully be flying to South Korea in March. We were just a TEENY bit excited to hear the news. Also, PSA: It’s way too cold to take photos outside without a jacket.

Timelines, costs, and adoption processes vary widely among countries, agencies, programs, and even between families pursuing the same country through the same program! Some families find their future son or daughter on a waiting child photo listing and then begin the process for bringing that specific child home. Other families (particularly with Korea, as most agencies don’t have a public photo-listing of Korean waiting kiddos) start the process and are then presented with the option of pursuing an “assigned” or “unassigned” referral.

Eliminating the Adoption Tax Credit, therefore, means kiddos just like Gideon stand even less of a chance at a forever family. In Korea, children age out of foster care at three-years-old and are returned to an orphanage. Their file goes on a shelf, social workers quit advocating, and no one comes back.

No one comes back.

I felt like we were falling. I didn’t understand why God would bring us to this place just to leave us here. God had asked us to jump, and we had jumped, but I was losing hope that this time it would all be worth it.

But our God is a God of miracles.

Not an hour later, several families – the very families we were SO excited to travel to Korea with – received notification of their Exit Permit Submissions. We were so excited for them and that we’d also get our email, our Exit Permit, any moment! But instead we were told we had not been submitted. And typing out those words is one of the hardest truths I’ve ever had to come to terms with.

As he marched around the wall on the seventh day, I wonder if he ever thought about how ridiculous they looked, asked himself what in the world they were doing. I wonder if, on the sixth lap, when not even a single brick had fallen down, Joshua secretly hoped they weren’t merely about to give the people of Jericho an unsolicited trumpet concert. I wonder if Joshua ever wondered if God would show up.

“SWS [Korean agency] does express some concerns…”

“Your doctor will have a good feel on how well J is progressing…”

“…should be delivered by 8:00 pm tomorrow…”

I had drawn a big circle around Mother’s Day back when we first started the adoption process in early February. Growing up, my family really didn’t celebrate Hallmark holidays, so Mother’s Day had always been low on my list. But we had joked (and I had this strange gut feeling) that we would have a referral before May 14, and sure enough, though the odds and current timelines were stacked against us, we had just said yes to Gideon. We announced him to our families during a surprise celebration the weekend before, so we were going into “real” Mother’s Day full of relief and joy.

I felt my heart rate start to climb, so even though I was on the phone with a doctor’s office about typhoid vaccines, I walked out to the mailbox to check the mail. It had come earlier today than usual, and on top of a stack of junk mail I saw a letter from our good friends (who wish to stay anonymous). Still on the phone with the doctor, and still distracted by the $3,000 we would need today, I opened the letter. And as I unfolded that precious letter of encouragement in our precious friend’s handwriting, out fell a check.

For $3,000.

Rebecca said she had never had someone call her back so quickly. Stephanie had asked me to call Rebecca at my earliest convenience to discuss the “unassigned referral” process (whatever that meant), and apparently I had called her less than 2 minutes later! I just laughed and told her I hadn’t slept since seeing J’s photo yesterday, so we were more than a little anxious to find out what came next.

But then, against my “better” judgment, I opened a second photo. And then a third. And he was laughing. And it was the most perfect laugh, the kind of laugh where joy just seems to overflow into the entire photo, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling! My heart leapt inside of me. Something was drawing me quickly, irreversibly to this little boy, and I couldn’t stop it. But then came the fear. And then the joy again. And then the tears. And that’s when I jumped up and ran outside.

Tuesday, April 25. 6:44 p.m.

My heart was heavy, and I didn’t know why. I mean, we knew this adoption journey was going to be long, and hard, and trying in basically every way possible. And to be fair, we were pretty much sailing through the process. We were 79 days into the process, and everyone from our social worker to the adoptive mom at church who always graciously remembers to ask how we’re doing had commented how quickly we were moving through the paperwork and appointments and parenting curriculum.

I guess, if you had to put a timeline on it, you could say we always knew we wanted to adopt together. Mostly because I had given Brian an ultimatum before we started dating, telling him I’d continue to be his best friend either way, but if he couldn’t see international adoption in his future, I couldn’t see dating in ours. Fortunately, Brian had also long envisioned his family as looking a little different, so immediately following our wedding, we began attending adoption conferences, meeting with families who had adopted, and saving every last penny we could.

Wow. It’s so surreal — but also so exciting! — to realize this day is finally here. We dreamed of starting a “real blog” and of signing adoption paperwork for so long, and now we’ve just done both! Oh, happy day.

We’ll be adding more to our blog soon. The website creation process was a bit more involved than we were anticipating, so for now, we’re taking a step back and celebrating the end of our home study process for a few days. 🙂 That said, we just can’t wait to share Gideon’s story, and the rest of our own adoption journey with all of y’all!