Well Baby Check

We received Kaden's WBC report in the mail yesterday. He had his 2-month check-up on July 12. At that time, he was up to 12 lbs., 11 oz and 21 inches. His next check-up should be at 3 months, so sometime around August 10. We are hoping that he will beat the report home!

We have EP!!!

We received word today that Kaden has been issued an Emmigration Permit. This means that all the necessary steps for Kaden to travel from Korea have been done. Everything we are waiting on now is here in the U.S. We need to receive I-600 approval and have an interstate compact in place between the states of Oregon and Kansas.

We would appreciate your prayers that all these things would be completed in a timely manner so that Kaden can come home!

Kitchen Remodel Underway!

In an attempt to stay busy while we wait for Kaden to come home, we are starting a remodeling project! Mom & Dad are remodeling their kitchen, so we will be installing their old cabinets in our kitchen. They may be old, but at least they aren't "homemade" and they are level and actually close!

We plan to start by ripping out the drop ceiling and putting up sheet rock. Then we will need to level the floor since the current cabinets are built into the floor. Finally, we will install the cabinets and a new countertop.

You can see "before" pictures and our remodeling plans by clicking on our "Scrapbook Pages" link to the right and entering the password. We'll be sure to add "after" pictures as soon as they are available. Pray for us - remodeling can get very frustrating and it is vital that we finish before Kaden arrives!

I-600 is at USCIS

Our I-600 paperwork was delievered to the Kansas City USCIS office at 11:14 a.m. on Monday, July 24. Now, all we can do is wait! It has been taking Kansas City approximately 6 weeks to process I-600 applications. With prayer, though, all things are possible - so who knows?

In the meantime, we are anxiously awaiting Kaden's first WBC - Well Baby Check. It will be great to see how he is growing and developing. We'll be sure to post that information as soon as we receive it.

Sometimes life can surprise you

Living in a small college town, it is inevitable that friends will come and go. Ryan and I are currently facing a friendship "drought" as all of our very close friends have moved away. We have been praying that God will send new couples to Haviland and/or help us establish friendships with people here that we have not previously spent much time with.

It's neat how God sometimes answers prayers in unexpected ways. Through the Holt International Web Forum (link at right), I have made many, many new friends. It's so neat to have a group of women that I can turn to and ask questions, share my feelings, and know that they understand. Most of them have suffered infertility like I have. All of them have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Korea. Even though we've never met, we "click".

Through the Holt forum, I was able to make a really special connection with a fellow adoptive mom right here in Kansas. Unfortunately, she and her husband live 5 hours away, but we still hope to get together from time to time and hope that our boys will grow to be good friends. Then, just yesterday, I found another special connection.

Our log-in is "StarWarsFans." For those of you that know Ryan & I very well, the reasoning behind that is quite obvious! Yesterday, I received an e-mail from another lady on the web forum who is a Star Wars fan as well (and her hubbie). She told me that they had found a "Future Jedi Master" onesie for their new little boy. It was from a store that we don't have around here, so I asked her to pick one up for me and I would send a check to cover the cost. Here is the response I got, "Please don't send me a check - consider it a gift from one Star Wars fan to another for your impending little Jedi!" I've never met these people, and yet, God is so good! I am very blessed by this act of kindness. (See picture below.)

I just had to share that sometimes life can surprise you. The old saying fits, "When God closes a door, He opens a window." I just wanted to let you all know how grateful I am for your friendship. Even though you don't live just down the street; through the miracle of internet, we can can still be close.

Legals should arrive this week!

I just got an e-mail from our agency. Kaden's legals arrive in the U.S. today. So, they will put them in the mail to us tomorrow morning. YEAH! We are almost one step closer to getting our precious baby boy home where he belongs.

Have you checked my links lately?

I've added a few new scrapbook pages to Drop Shots. Thumbnail versions are below, but you can view them full size by going to Drop Shots. You will need the password to enter Drop Shots (contact me if you need it). Once you are in the site, you can click on the individual pictures again to make them even larger and read the journaling.

Kaden's legals didn't arrive this week, so I've attempted to keep my mind off of it by working on his baby album. I'm still praying that they will come before we hit the 1 month waiting mark. My patience is wearing thin!

Ryan's Surgery

Ryan had surgery yesterday at 11:00 a.m. For some reason, they wanted him there at 6:00 a.m., so it was a long day as we left home at 5:30 a.m. and got home at 5:30 p.m.

Ryan is doing well and recovering on schedule. He agrees with me that receiving Kaden's legals would make it all better even faster, but nothing yet.

Got A Neat Gift Today

A friend of ours sent two gifts that she HANDMADE for Kaden. We think they are absolutely adorable! We have also received some cute outfits and other gifts for our baby boy. Thank you everyone ~ We can't wait to post pictures of Kaden with them!

Still no legal documents

I just checked the mail in the hopes that there would be a package from Holt International. I'm assuming it comes through the U.S. Postal service and not FedEx, maybe I should check on that! Anyway, nothing in today's mail from Holt.

Let's keep praying that Kaden's legals come soon. The quicker we can file our I-600, the quicker Kaden can come home. In the meantime, we have plenty of things going on around here.

Today was our town's big Meteorite Festival. Ryan & I made a bean bag toss game for the kids' activities. It turned out really well. They plan to use it again. Then I sang this afternoon as part of the Festival's live entertainment. I sang "Crazy" by Patsy Cline, "How Do I Live" by LeAnn Rimes, and "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" from Disney's Cinderella. I heard a rumor that a friend of Martina McBride's dad was in the auidience and that two of the other girls that sang have lined up auditions. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's not for me. I want nothing more than to be a wife and mother. That's my life-long dream!!!!

On Tuesday, Ryan and I will be on the road headed to the hospital at the awful hour of 5:30 a.m. He has to be there by 6:15 to do the necessary pre-operation routine. We aren't sure what time he'll actually "go under." This is an out-patient surgery, so we should be home in the afternoon if all goes well, which we're praying it does!

After a week of looking after Ryan, I will be busy helping out with "Walk To Emmaus." It is being held in Haviland and I volunteered to help run the behind-the-scenes operations. I didn't know until we held our first meeting just exactly what I had gotten myself into. Apparently we get up at 5:30 and don't go to bed until almost midnight each night. But, again, if I'm busy I'm happy. I'm ready for July to be over so we're closer to Kaden's homecoming!

Well, this is turning out to be a really long post. I will go ahead and call it good. Hopefully, when I post again, it will be on my OWN computer! We are planning to have internet installed this week.

Weekly Update

Happy 4th of July! We celebrated the Independence Day with our friends Mark & Nancy. It was great to catch up with them and enjoy the fireworks! (See thumbnails below or go to DropShots to see fullsize.)

We also received some exciting new today. We have some friends that are just a few months ahead of us in the adoption process. They received word today that their son is coming home this week! He will just be 3 1/2 months old when he comes home. That is really, really young in the adoption world. We are super excited for them and at the prospect of receiving Kaden's travel call much earlier than expected. At this rate, he could be home in August!

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It's Official!

The paperwork has been signed and sent FedEx to Holt International. Here is a picture the notary took of us once we had finished signing everything. You can also view pictures of Kaden's nursery at http://www.dropshots.com/starwarsfans. I sent an e-mail with the password to everyone on my list earlier, but if you don't know the password, send me an e-mail at rat898@juno.com.

The Story of Our Referral

ETA: Unfortunately, Blogger's audio posts did not last. So, we've lost the story of our referral on recording. But, basically I came home after a long, hot day at work, pulled my hair out of a soggy bun, and laid down on the couch. I heard a strange sound in the distance. I finally realized it was my cell phone. Since we bought it specifically so I could be contacted anywhere, anytime, I KNEW it was our referral call! Sure enough, it was!

I couldn't hear Judy very well, so I just kept repeating, "Call our home number." A few minutes later, she called back. She said she was looking at a picture on her computer at that moment. There was no other information. We didn't know whether the baby was a boy or girl (though figured boy because of the long wait for a girl), birthdate, or any other information. All she had was an e-mail with a picture attached that said, "Referral for the Oren family."

I immediately called Ryan and told him to get out of the tractor and to Mom & Dad's house ASAP. I was itching to go to there house (no internet at ours) and see the photos, but knew I should wait for him. When we got there, Tim was on the computer. I screamed at him to get off and then thrust the camera in his hands so he could video our reaction seeing our baby for the first time. Unfortunately, he videotaped the computer screen instead of us, but you could hear the excitement in our voices.

We opened the e-mail and saw the cutest baby on the planet. We were over the moon. Then we waited another full hour before getting the information we'd been waiting for. It was a boy! and he was born May 10, 2006.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

It is with the greatest pleasure that I announce to you the referral of Kaden Glenn. He was born on May 10, 2006 and was 8 lbs, 6 oz. & 20 inches.

Thank you everyone for your prayers - they have definitely been felt. It's amazing how the years of hoping and dreaming of parenthood just vanished the second I laid eyes on this beautiful face!

It's been a rough week!

Well, we've reached the end of the week and still no referral. I was really hoping we'd get it before Father's Day. What's even more frustrating is that another couple with our same agency got their referral this week and their homestudy didn't go to Korea until mid-December. Ours went November 4! Our social worker didn't really give much of an explaination for this.

On top of all that, I had a run-in with a snake last night. Those of you who know me really well, know that I am TERRIFIED of snakes! I met up with it as I was walking down to Mom & Dad's house at dusk. I thought it was a large stick, went to kick it, and it wriggled across my foot. I then screamed and ran as fast as I could all the way to Mom & Dad's. I think I was in shock for awhile or had a panic attack, because it took them awhile to calm me down and get me to stop shaking.

Finally, this has been a rough week because I haven't felt well. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and discovered I had two infections. I then spent a lot of money on prescriptions, only to have 1 of them cause an allergic reaction. My hand has been numb and tingling for over 12 hours now.

So, in short, I'm ill and frustrated. I would really appreciate your prayers over the next few days. I know I need to trust that God is in control and has a perfect plan, but I'm having hard time doing that right now.

I appreciate all of you and your support.

Love,
Me

Positive Adoption Language

Well, another week of June has come and gone with no referral. I am still hoping that we will get our call before Father's Day!

In the meantime, I thought I would add this link for all of you to read. It gives a list of positive ways to refer to adoption. Since most of you will be related in some way, I thought it would be good for you review this list of adoption affirming phrases and terms.

http://www.holtintl.org/adoption/language.shtml

Mandy is a married woman!

For those of you on the Kearns side of the family, here is a video I made from a few clips of Zeke & Mandy's wedding. You can view more video clips and pictures from the wedding by going to DropShots. You can also view the professional photographer's pictures at http://www.aPhotoOp.com.


Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing

Check out my scrapbook pages....

I have started a hobby of digital scrapbooking. You can check out my creations so far by clicking on the link to the right. In the future, I plan to have a site of family photos and another of home videos to share with everyone. I have also added a link to the Holt Adoption Web Forum. This forum has been invaluable to me. It is a great resource for learning more about international adoption.

It could be any day now!

I have created this blog to keep all our friends and family up-to-date on our road to parenthood! Every time the phone rings, we jump, hoping it will be the phone call that is going to change our lives forever.

We are the #1 waiters in our branch of the Holt agency and I believe we are #6 in the overall list of people waiting with Holt. So, any day now we should be getting a phone call letting us know that a FedEx package is in the mail. That long sought package will contain the picture and details about our precious baby. We've waited so long, but the wait is almost over!

I'll try to post at least once a week to keep you up-to-date. After the baby is here, I will be sure to frequently post and add pictures so you can all watch him/her grow and be a part of his/her life. Have a great day!