So here we are almost 2 months into the wait for our precious baby boy to come home and it is absolute torture. The holiday’s were great to keep our minds off of the waiting. Christmas was wonderful, it was just John and I in the morning, our last Christmas without our son, then our friend Jenny and her 2 children, Ryan and Ally came over later for dinner. It was a nice relaxing day. John then was very busy with the Nordstrom Half Yearly Sale and I cleaned house getting ready for his parents and our nephews. We had a great visit with them and got to enjoy some sight seeing with them. John has already mentioned this in a previous post.

We did get busy with starting a registry, something I have been dying to do for years now. It was so much fun putting the list of items together for our new little guy. From bedding to blankets, I think we got it covered. We ordered furniture and hope that it comes in before he arrives.;if not we have a pack and play he can sleep in until it does arrive. But he might end up sleeping with us for a little while. It will all really depend on his sleeping situation now. We have read many times that in the Korean culture the babies often sleep in bed with the parents. If this is the case it will be just fine, I wont want to let him far out of my sight anyway. We cleaned out one of the spare rooms the weekend before John’s surgery (more on that later) and the bedding swatches seem to match great so we don’t even have to paint if we don’t want to. Though we are thinking about painting one wall an accent color.

I have 2 showers planned by friends and family, one in CT and one here in VA. I’m very excited to get together with everyone to celebrate the newest addition to the Wild/Ross family.

We have finally decided on a name too, Carter Baine. Carter because we like it and Baine because it was my Papa’s name and my mother’s name is Bainie. It means a lot for us to be able to keep it going in the family.

So John had another surgery last week, they had to take the screws out and replace them with a different device. All went well and now he is home resting. We decided its best to have the surgery before Carter comes home as it would be too difficult to care for 2 guys at one time. Carter needs and will be the center of attention from the moment we get him.

We did find out this week that the Social Services in the State of VA finally has our paperwork. Since we are pre-approved already to have a child placed in our home hopefully all they will have to do is look at our application and put a stamp of approval on it and send it over to CIS. Once CIS has VA’s approval it can take as little as 5-6 business days for them to give us the approval as well. Once we receive the CIS approval they will wire the information to the National Visa center where our sons name will get logged in and back out of the system. When that happens the approval gets sent over to the Embassy in Seoul and our son will go have his Visa interview. I’m not quite sure what they are going to ask him, but hopefully he will babble that his is ready to come to his forever home with us. Once all is stamped approved and Carter is interviewed we will then get the travel call. From what I have read lately the travel call comes approximately 2 weeks after we receive the CIS approval. So please pray that the State of VA and CIS approve our paperwork quickly and it doesn’t sit on someone’s desk for too long collecting dust.

And so we continue to wait, but it will all be worth it in the end. I guess you could consider this my ‘labor’ and I hear once you have your baby in your arms you forget about how much pain you were in while waiting for them to arrive.

I can’t wait to hold him in my arms! - Paige

Lot's Going On

Hello Everyone. I have some free time for an entry since I am sitting in a hospital room in Baltimore waiting to be discharged. For those of you who have been following us you know my broken hip saga. The final outcome was that the screws began to "back-out" of the bone so the break separated; the specialist I was referred to in Baltimore removed those screws yesterday (all 3 of them, the picture to the left are the actual screws) and replaced them with something called a "Dynamic Hip Screw"(pictured above). So far the pain I was experiencing from the break appears to be gone and that the pain I am feeling is from the actual incision and the muscle the doctor manipulated.

We decided that we would get this done now since the months of February and March are going to be very busy for us; Valentine's Weekend will be Paige's Connecticut Shower hosted by both of our mother's, it is being held at the golf club in Bloomfield which is where we had our wedding pictures taken. Since we started a major chapter in our lives together here we feel it is very fitting to be having the shower there, opening the next chapter of our lives together. Next I have business trips to Scottsdale the week of the 16th and Seattle the week of the 22nd and then Paige's Virginia Shower is being held at River Creek Country Club in Leesburg on the 27th of February hosted by our friends Deb, Michelle, Steph, Jessica & Vickie.

Our I-600 approval and the paper work with the state of Virgina will lead to our travel call which could feasibly come at any time during late February. With all of that as a possibility we feel we are seriously behind the 8-Ball in getting Carter's room ready. Oh ya; did I mention we landed on "Carter Baine"? Yeah!! He has a name!!

Here are some thing we have already done in preparation of our son's arrival to his "Forever Home":

• Three weeks ago we registered at "Babies R Us" Paige really enjoyed this and has really enjoyed monitoring the registry on-line to see what has been purchased. Can you image her as a kid at Christmas peeking under the tree or in the back of closets?


• We did order the furniture 2 weeks ago; delivery in 6-8 weeks, hopefully it arrives before he does!! (picture above, we picked a dark walnut finish not the light finish in the picture)


• This past weekend I did breakdown one of the guestrooms to turn into Carter's room.


• We sent off a package of gifts for Carter & his Foster Family. We wrote them a short note thanking them for taking our son into their loving home until we are able to be together, Dan who works with Paige at Panalpina is from Korea was gracious enough to translated the note for us. We also sent Yankee Candles & a couple Washington Redskin T-Shirts and a small photo album with pictures of us, our home and family members.


• Paige ordered swatches from the company that make the bedding we registered for; the good news is that the current color of the room (lt. blue) matches!! Limited painting!! We think we are going to change only one wall to an accent color.

So I guess we got a little more accomplished than I thought. It's just being up against a deadline that makes me think there is more to do than there really; throw a surgery and few trips/events in between and my pulse picks up a little bit more.

Counting down the days until Carter comes home........ John

Names

Paige purchased one of those 100,000 name books a few weeks ago; between the book and Internet searches we think we have narrowed the names down to 2. I keep going back to Carter and the other name is Tyler or Ty for short. Regardless of which name we choose his middle will be Baine which was Paige's grandfathers name and the name he used to name Paige's mother, Bainie.

One of the other names we seriously considered was Jack but if we decide to adopt again and receive a girl I really want to name her Jaclyn after my mom's sister who past away a few years ago at a young age and really meant the world to me. I just couldn't see having Jack & Jackie - to cutsie.

Let us know what you think of Carter Baine or Tyler Baine; we're having a hard time deciding.

John

The "Legals"

Happy New Year everyone! We had a nice quiet holiday here at home with a visit from my parents and our two nephews. Jimmy is now 13 and Kyle 10; I really can't believe how big they have gotten since we last saw them in April when my grandmother passed away. We took them to Arlington Nation Cemetery, The Natural History Museum and the National Tree on the Ellipse. Today was back to the real world; the holidays are over, back to a 5 day work week.

Two weeks ago we submitted our "acceptance" paperwork to our agency; it was a week before Christmas so we really didn't expect it to move very quickly. Once our agency in North Carolina proof read it they sent it onto Connecticut before it was sent onto Korea. On a side note; the agency in Connecticut is the key to the whole process being the "right one" for us since we are both from Connecticut. Our Case Worker up there lives in Farmington which is right between my hometown and Paige's; therefore, it is only perfect that she be the "in between" person in this process. Usually once the acceptance paperwork is sent off to Korea it usually take 2-3 weeks for the "legals" to arrive. Well; go figure, the legals arrived the same day!

Basically the legals say that SWS approves of the adoption of our son thru FCA pending approval of our I-600 which approves us, by our government to adopt foreign orphan as our child.

So; paperwork is in full swing and once again we wait..........

The Process Continues......

Friday we met,via phone with the Pediatrician. Dr Mason is a doctor who specializes in International Adoption in Fairfax, Virginia. He reviewed all the medical paperwork and pictures we sent him and can not find any medical reason why we should not accept this referral (like we would even consider not accepting it after seeing his pictures). Our little guy ranks in the 95th percentile for weight and height and the 75th percentile for head circumference.

We would really like to be able to post more information about him (sorry, we haven't landed on a name yet) and pictures; however we have been ask not post information on the blog or Facebook from our Agency. We hope that everyone understands this; one of our neighbors said it best; she and her husband have 3 beautiful children from Korea and have been "in our shoes". She told us "this is his story and someday when he is 8 or 9 or older, he will come to understand it is his information, and the only information he has on his birth family. Please consider who you share his information with, or whether to share it at all. Anyone you share it with will know your son's story before he knows his own, so keep it close."

Hearing this from someone who has been thru this process not once, but three times really drove the point home; we now have to consider the feelings of someone other than ourselves, I suppose this is something that comes with parenthood. Thank you for the words of advice; you really helped us to understand the possible long term effects to a short term objective.

We are so gratefully for everyones well wishes and your excitement for us in our new adventure; we will certainly post whatever info we feel is appropriate as we continue our journey.

A Big Step Closer - Referral is in!

So I just so happened to be home early this afternoon because I had a doctors appointment and at 4:53 the phone rang and the caller ID flashed a number that was simply listed as North Carolina. My heart skipped a beat, I took a deep breathe and answered the phone. From the other end I heard "John? Do you have a minute?" I heard our social worker say "we have a referral for you". As she went over the particulars she pretty much sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher to me. I did manage to remember the important things like, it's a boy, he's 5 months old and his birthday is 5 days before mine in July. As it turns out our Social Worker had tried to call Paige at work but she was not at her desk and she missed the call. When she saw the missed call on her phone she didn't know what to do. Within minutes I was on the phone to her; she said "Did they call you? What did they want" Oh not much really.... just wanted to chat..... WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!

We were immediately sent an "E-Packet" with some family history, medical history of our little guy and of course PICTURES. He is adorable, a chubby little guy, just so cute!! We are very early in the referral process; until things are more definite they really don't want us to post too many details or to share too many personal details of the child and his birth family. All of this is so new it just doesn't feel real yet. As the reality of us actually being parents sinks in we will of course share more info as we learn more. We want thank everyone for all of their well wishes over the past 8 months and 27 days that was our referral wait!

8 Months Next Week

Hi Everyone,

Well; since my last post not much has changed. Paige and I got a long weekend away to New York City a few weekends ago. The weather was so-so, on-and-off rain but we had a great time. We had dinner with a friend of mine from childhood whom I had not seen in over 20 years. She has lived in NYC for sometime and we picked up right where we left off and she and Paige got along famously! We also had dinner with some friends of mine from the vendor community that Saturday night; another fun night. We spent Sunday with Paige's best friend from childhood Michelle and her husband Toph. Brunch at 2:00 p.m. and them we spent the rest of the day going bar-to-bar in their neighborhood watching football.

Paige left for home on Monday and I stayed behind for a week of buy meetings. I figured this would be what it would take to provoke the gods to send us our referral since I was out of town. I wasn't completely off base; we were contacted by the agency about some medical paper work; basically a list of medical conditions we would accept. At the beginning of the process we filled out this same list and we were told that the conditions we initially choose are not conditions any children are currently becoming available with and that we would need to re-do our paperwork. We choose conditions like low birth weight, family history of drug or alcohol issues, diabetes and a few others. Well the following week Paige read on one of the adoption boards that another couple in the program who had to re-do the same paperwork at the same time had received their referral!! Hopefully this means ours is coming really soon!!

On another subject; my healing process is moving along. The doctor seems happy with the progress I've made over the past month. I will have another CT Scan the beginning of December to get a 3-D image of the break to see just how well I am doing. Hopefully it will be the last time; next Tuesday (November 1oth) will be 6 months since I broke my hip and it is also Paige's birthday; number 29 again?........

I feel fine and walk with only a slight limp at this point. I'm still using a cane at the Doctor's request to help the joint heal without full pressure on the joint. All is good though.

The past week has also been a little nerve racking. We were told at work that our division would be restructuring. Our jobs will be the same for up to a year, after that my job will move to Seattle. The fact that I have 4 counterparts around the country doing the same job and there will only be one position is a little scary to me. We're told everyone will still have a job, just a different job and it will be in Seattle. There is no structure as of yet, time will tell and Paige and I will have some serious thinking to do about my career path. I'm reserving judgment/decision making until all the pieces fall into place. Things like this always happen for a reason.

Hopefully our referral is on it's way; wouldn't it be a great Thanksgiving present and a terrific way to start off the holiday season!!

Until next time - John