Guess What ?!? Still Waiting!!!

The last month has been filled with waiting, waiting, and more waiting.

But we were lucky to get quite a few updates.

One of the hardest things about being a mama to a little boy half way around the world is that when he is so so sick all you can do is pray for his quick recovery and find peace in knowing that his foster Omma is taking good care of him.

These pictures found there way to my inbox a week and a half ago. Oh, how bitter sweet they were. I was so happy to see new photos of James....but seeing him so miserable made this long wait so much harder.

My little boy was taken to Holt to see the doctor.

He has a  mild VERY HIGH FEVER.

Some things get lost in the translation.

But the look on my poor boys face...

....it says it all.

James definitely is not feeling well.

Many people have asked how he was doing and if he was feeling better but unfortunately we do not get those updates. It is assumed that since we haven't heard anything further that he is feeling better.

Omma is definitely taking good care of him.

And his 17 month check up came shortly after.

James is 31 inches tall.

He weighs 24 lbs (no weight gain this month)

He is still cute and fine.

He has 8 teeth on the top and 8 teeth on the bottom.

He walks backwards, runs, and kicks a ball.

He scribbles, plays pat -a-cake, plays ball, and imitates others.

He needs to come home.

like yesterday.

Thank you to all who continue to pray that James and the other children

make it to their forever families quickly.

(Adoptive Mom Kala praying the waiting children home - James' name is on a white heart♥)

It is nice knowing that so many people are praying our children home.

The waiting has been hard..... very hard.

Today I cleaned out James' closet again and pulled out more of his clothes

that will never fit him on this side of the world. Some were doubles of items that I sent to Korea

so that I could see him here in America in the same items he wore in Korea.

How did that much time pass already? 

Has it really been 10 months (next week) since we saw his sweet face for the very first time?

Have we really missed 17 months of his life and still have no idea when he will be home?

Many people have asked why James isn't home yet and the simple answer is there is no reason.

We have been waiting and ready for 10 long months.

Every single thing we needed to do is done.

Most things we have had to do twice because of the long wait.

He has been approved by the USCIS to join us in America.

But the reality is that certain steps need to be taken by the ministry in Korea and we have no

control over the way they do what they think needs to be done. If they decide to wait eight weeks or more to begin to process EP's then all we can do is wait... and pray for them to have a change of heart and see the need to let the children come home as soon as possible.

So tonight, as every night, I will pray that one day soon I can hold James in my arms.

I will pray the same for every single family waiting.

I will pray for movement - for everyone involved.

Time moves Slowly

The ministry is expected to start processing EP permits again this coming week. I am cautiously optimistic because movement was expected several times already and the process remained still. We also learned last week that James is definitely not going to be in the first few batches. The agency in Korea is expediting some of the children with special needs or whose adoptive parents need special waivers that will be eliminated when all the new laws go into place in August of this year. While I understand why the decision was made to do this, it does not make it easier.

So what does this mean for our family?

It means that if the ministry moves quickly, if they allow for large batches of children to be submitted for EP, if they allow for multiple submissions and approve them quickly then maybe, just maybe, James will come to his forever home in late spring..... and if the process doesn't move quickly, and things continue to hit standstill after standstill then we really don't know when our sweet boy will join us. 

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. We never imagined the process would change so much. What was supposed to be a 4-6 month wait after referral  is quickly approaching the one year mark.

I remember the day that Zoey was born like yesterday. I remember the room being filled with doctors and specialists and all of a sudden Zoey entered the world and the room was silent. She didn't cry right away and that brief moment in time felt like an eternity. Then as we heard the faintest cry ,they held my little premature baby up for me to see, and before I could even memorize her sweet face they whisked her away to the NICU. The medical staff finally finished and left the room and without a second thought I had to get to my baby. My cousin helped me to the bathroom because the epidural still had not worn off and I had very little feeling in my legs. Her and my husband helped me change and get cleaned up and within fifteen minutes after becoming a mother I was ready to go and see my daughter. Then the nurse came in, shocked to see me out of bed, and told me that is was hospital policy that we would have to wait another hour before I would be able to go see her.

I can still remember the humming of the clock as the second hand moved so slowly minute after minute. She wasn't even an hour old and I loved her so much already. The hour seemed like forever....probably at that point the longest hour of my life.

When we first started this adoption journey I knew that I would love my adoptive child just as much as Zoey.

What I didn't know is that from the moment I first saw his sweet face I would love him that much.

Some days, especially when we get news that the wait is getting longer, I feel like I am back in that hospital room listening to the hum of the clock and time is not moving. Lately, every day feels like that.... time is moving so slow and we are waiting hour by hour to know that something in Korea has changed and we will get to hold our boy in our arms soon.

And while we wait, we are watching him grow, and he has grown so much in the last 10 months. Receiving new pictures has become bittersweet because we want to see how he has changed but at the same time we are reminded of just how much time has passed and how we will never get those moments back. Yes, we will have new moments, and we will see other milestones, but we will never get the moments we missed back.

Sometimes when I think about just how the wait has changed I am sad, and mad, and angry all at once. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to hold our sweet boy months ago. He was supposed to be home already. Instead, we get to run this marathon, and every time we are about to get close to the finish line they move it another hundred miles. Well, this journey has me tired and weak, and I am losing my strength day by day. It is so hard to make sense of  it  because it seems so simple... James has a family so let him come home to it.

We are thankful for all the prayers, thoughts, and wishes. They mean so very much.

And hopefully soon we will have some good news to share.

"Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, You didn't grow under my heart - but in it"