This was the very first time I met Kylan. He was not a happy boy and was scared of me. I only had 1 hour with him that first day and he cried for about 45 min of it.
This was pure bliss...holding my son for the VERY first time. I had been dreaming about this day for months and months. After so much paperwork, days of crying and praying for this child the day had finally arrived!
Yes, he finally calmed down enough so I could hold him!
This is the board with the babies names that are leaving Korea
Kylan's foster mom saying goodbye to him. It was really hard on her to let him go and she cried a lot. We are very thankful that she took such great care of him while he was waiting for us to finish up all of the red tape (Paperwork).
The moment he was placed in my arms before we were leaving Korea. This was his "Gotcha" moment for me. This is what I think of on his special day. Yes, I am crying...notice the time 12:35pm in Korea. We arrived home the same day but it was actually about 30 hrs later due to travel and time changes and crossing the International date line and everything
Now, I am not crying just happy that he's finally in my arms and we are leaving for the US pretty soon!
Kylan in his white hanbok that we bought for Connie and Brian's wedding
Kevin and Makenzie dropping me off at the airport for my journey to South Korea to pick up Kylan and work for 2 weeks on a MOMs mission trip with Dillon International 7 years ago today I woke up in Seoul, South Korea anticipating the moment when Kylan's foster mom would place my son in my arms and I would be able to get on an airplane and bring him home to meet his daddy and sister and the rest of our friends and family for the very first time. The moment he was placed in my arms was a feeling that I will NEVER forget, it was such a miracle adoption and when the moment that we had been dreaming of had finally arrived I was overcome with joy, and just started crying and thanking God for this little miracle boy.
This is such a happy day for us but I have noticed that the older my kids have gotten the more questions they seem to have on their gotcha day. I know it's a happy day for them as well but in some ways they seem a little sad too. I just pray that we can answer all of their questions to the best of our ability and that Kevin and I are sensitive to their inquisitiveness about their adoptions, foster families and especially about their birth family and the reasons that they were not able to stay in Korea. We do try to teach them as much about Korean culture as possible and they go to a Korean culture camp every summer (which they LOVE). They learn Korean songs, dances, Tae Kwon Do, Korean games, how to eat with chopsticks, Korean food and many other things plus they built friendships with other children that were adopted from S. Korea. Every time we pick them up at camp and I look out across a sea of black haired children I am thrilled that our adoption agency has this opportunity for our children. They come home talking about how all the kids at camp look similar to them and I can see that this excites them and makes them happy. OK is not a very multi-cultural state so when the kids see other Asians they always ask me if they are Korean too and I wonder if it bothers them that in most of our groups (except our adoption friends) they are the only ones that are not Caucasian.
If you have questions about International adoption please click here. To read what I wrote about Kylan's 6th gotcha day in 2008 and read about the other end of the trip which was the arrival in OK click here.
For more info on Korea go to Seoul.net
