Gotcha Day!

As I am typing this Carter is sound to sleep on our bed and housekeeping just delivered the crib.

Today is what is termed "Gotcha Day" in the world of adoption. Our meeting time was set for 11:00 a.m. at SWS. Of course we were wide awake at 4:00 this morning in anticipation. We finally went down to breakfast at about 8:30, we were pretty quiet, I think we were both in shock over what was finally about to happen. After breakfast we finished getting ready, of course we snapped a few times at each other, what husband and wife don't when they are both stressed and anxious, it's human nature.

We timed the shuttle to the Metro pretty good, we only waited a few minutes. At the Metro station we realized that all the single fare cards we had purchased this week had a 500 Won deposit, luckily we still had them all and we netted back 3000 Won (approx. $3). We waited very little time for the train and we arrived at SWS exactly on time, 11:00. The couple we had met on Tuesday from Charlotte were in the room next to us, their "gotcha day" too. Their son Kyle is just about a year old, we may see them at the airport in the morning since their flight is shortly before ours.

Carter was already there with his foster-foster mother and her husband and his original foster father was there too. It was very nice to meet him and it was very clear how much Carter meant to him and his family. Carter needed to see the doctor for his final examination, on Tuesday we were shown a rash on his belly, as it turns out it is eczema. I have, my mom has it, my dad has it, he's a Ross already. We were given some hydrocortizone and an all clear to fly tomorrow.

His foster father gave a bunch of pictures they had take over the past 7 months, some clothes, bottles, formula, diapers and the list goes on. We not only walked out with a baby, we left with 4 large bags of equipment! We were also given Carter's Korean passport and exit permit (EP) and all his immigration paperwork in a sealed envelope with instructions not to open it. It is all in a certain order and they do not want anything out of place when we check in at the airport.

We requested a tour of the infant center, where the babies go after parental rights are surrendered. There 50 to 60 babies here at any given point and nurses and volunteers provide for these children. Part of the fee all families pay is used to help subsidise this program. It was nice to see where carter was cared for between being born and going to his foster family.

At the end all we had to do was sign our names on one single piece of paper, they never asked for ID once, we just signed. I guess they trusted us since we spent almost 2 years in the program. We had so much equipment to take back to the hotel there was no way we were taking the train so they called us a cab. Carter fussed a little bit on the way back since it was way past his nap time, we arrived back at the hotel at 12:30 and he has been napping ever since. A good start to the rest of our lives.

This is the last post from the land of our sons birth, we leave here in the morning, Friday March 26th at 10:25 and this is strange, we arrive back at Washington/Dulles on Friday morning, March 26th at 10:25. A crazy thing that international dateline. We'll post again from home and include more pictures from "gotcha day" and the trip. - John