Another new Lunar Year

The 3rd of February will begin the Korean Lunar Year,
the Year of the Rabbit.
I've started this blog last year when the Tiger Year
has just begun and already 12 months are gone.
I hope this will be the right one for our baby to come.

New Korean friends

Still no news from Korea but we should be very near. Let's hope for a quick referral.

In the meantime, we discovered that a Korean baby from our Agency was adopted by a family living in our block. Last Sunday my husband was out of city for work so I met the baby and his family with my son. It was so sweet! Seeing my son with a Korean baby was like seeing our future!
The baby was very cute, with two puffy cheeks like an hamster... The parents were very
kind and patiently answered to all my questions.
One step more to our baby!

Our dossier is in Korea!

Today we had a great email from our Agency.
Our dossier has been given to Korean Authority.
Now let's wait for a quick referral! The timing should
be around few months, so... Korea! Choose us!
We're all waiting for a little one!

Gifts for the new baby

We have already bought some gifts for the Korean baby.

• a cute sweater blue with a embroidered bear (bought this summer in Malta)
• a bib with a duck (pink)
• a bath towel with bears (blue) - I'm open to both genders...
• a Snoopy table set
  
• last one: this cute teddy bear from Ikea:
• 

Let's start hoping...

The last news I got are that for other Italian couples
the time between documents sent to Korea and referral
are of few months, maximum six months.
So let's start hoping and dreaming for a spring referral!
In spring there will be my birthday and our wedding
anniversary: a referral would be a great gift!

Thinking to our future

I've read that the favourite character for Korean babies is Pororo, the
little penguin.
Well, now we can also see it in Italy!
Every evening, during our dinner, we watch a Pororo episode
with our little boy, thinking at the joyful moment when we'll watch
it also with our Korean baby.

Now let's sit and wait...

All the documents ar ready to fly to Korea!
We're now really waiting for a referral!
Let's hope it will be quick...

We have finished!!

After a tough month running around the city to
prepare all the documents,
tomorrow we'll got the last one!

It was difficult trying to discover where to make some
medical exams or asking to the offices to write a document
in the right requested way...
But we've been great and we have all we need.
Luckily the documents for South Korea were
simplyfied recently so we had less things to do.
We were one of the first couples of our agency to make
the new simply documents.

If tomorrow we'll have immediatly the last one we'll
go to our adoption agency in the afternoon and we'll
give them all the papers.
And then we'll start officially waiting...

It's coming real!!

Today our agency told us that we have to prepare
all the documents for Korea because they must be sent
there for the end of the month!!
I'm so happy... In November we'll be officially waiting for
a referral!!!

New Agency's update

The couples waiting in Korea with our Agency are now 12.
One month ago they were 14, so we are closer to our happy end!

About adoption

I've received a book from our Agency about their adoption's stories.
Written by the parents, it was touching and useful in the same time.

I've discovered that an old school mate is now in Vietnam
to take home her son. Good Luck and Congratulations!

Good news!

Today our agency put on its website the new waiting list
and I've discovered that we have 13 couples before us.
I thought they were 15 so I'm quite happy!

Coincidences

I opened this blog on 14th February, when the Lunar Year of the Tiger -
백 호 호랑이 - started in Korea.
This is more specifically the Year of the White Tiger, the first one in 60 years!


I was also born in a Year of the Tiger.

Let's hope these coincidences will bring us some luck in our journey!

Life is surprising

Yesterday I was talking with an old friend of mine.
She said that life is surprising because now she's speaking to everybody
about his husband that would be chosen in the next Regional elections.
She never imagined something like that for her life.

Well, that's right also for me. Sure I'd never thought when I was younger
of finding a child into another part of the world...

The second toy

Some time ago I decided to "create" something new for the Korean baby
with the help of my first son.

I've read about an Italian retailer of beds
that will give a toy called "Sleepy" to every child that will send a coloured version of it.

You just have to download and print it, than send it all decorated.
Well, I've done it and with the help of my son I coloured the drawing.

After some weeks I received a big packet with our new Sleepy!


My son obviously wanted to play with him sometimes and he
decided anyway that the name Sleepy didn't fit the toy and he called it "Napy".
It's a cute name because it looks like something for "nap time"...

The first toy

This Christmas my dear hubby bought a Panda toy from Ikea.

He did it to help Ikea's Christmas project for the children hospital.
We decided that it could be the first toy for our second baby and hubby
suggested to call it "Aglio" (= garlic) because we read that Korea is the garlic's country.

My son, that in the first moment didn't want to see it, when he understood
it could be for the other baby decided that Aglio would be his favourite toy.

Poor baby, maybe you're not yet born and you already have to share your toys
with your big brother!

How adoption works in Italy

• In December 2008 we followed a two days of training then we presented to the Court our request of adoption, both for domestic and international adoption.
• In January 2009 we started with a lot of medical exams, as x-rays at the chest, blood exams, sight and hearing tests...
• In March and April 2009 we had eight meetings with the social assistants and the psychologist, they also visited our home and met our son.
• In May 2009 we had a final meeting with the Court and then we started waiting for our dreamed piece of paper: it will say if you're able for international adoption. For the domestic one we have less chance because there are - luckily! - few children and they are usually given to childless couples.
• In September 2009 we got our precious piece of paper: now we must find an Agency that works with international adoptions. Our paper says "one child born not before the 1st January 2008". The date made our dream seeming real! This date was set because our first baby was still little. Waiting for the paper I've already asked at many agencies and most of them said that they couldn't take us because of our first child!
  
• In October and December 2009 we went to the meeting of an Agency that works only in few Regions of Italy, but I liked it at first sight (and the psychologist also spoke very well about it). We were taken!! The better countries available for us would be Burkina Faso in Africa and South Korea. We liked most Korea because we would like to bring our baby boy with us and a journey to Seoul would be safer for him.
• In February 2010 we signed all the papers with the Agency and we're officially starting our adoption to South Korea!

Now all is done? No, we have more waiting: the Agency works only with one Korean group and the waiting list is of 1,5 - 2 years before getting the referral! So now we have to wait the end of 2010 to start with all the papers to send in Korea...
Our love for our baby grows every day of our long waiting!

Our story

We are Italian, friend from 1990, together as couple from 1999, married from May 2004.

We had a baby boy, Francesco, at the end of 2006. In 2008 we decided to give him a brother/sister. Unluckily the doctors said that I couldn't afford another pregnancy
due to medical issues I've had with my first baby.

Without thinking a lot we decided to adopt a child. Before starting a family we were already sure that adoption would be the way if we couldn't have children.