Multiple Moms?

Caution: This blog post could be a touchy subject
[Once again, not everyone may share my opinions.]

The boy with multiple moms. 

Our son will have multiple moms. Each mom will have a different role in his life. Each mom will be important to his life story in her own way...

 He will have me, his mom.  You may have noticed that I didn't put "adoptive mom". I did that on purpose.  I won't consider him my adoptive son, he'll be my plain ol', normal son.  I will be the mom that nurtures and cares for him after we take custody.  I'll be the momma that gets to kiss his boo boos, cheer for his first t-ball game, and tuck him in at night.  I will get to watch him grow each and everyday.

He will have his biological mother.  We have chosen to call her his Korean mom.  The word "birthmom" almost gives her the sense of just a vessel that carried him.  To us the word takes away from her importance.  [This is just our opinion for our family.  No judgement if you use the word.]  We want our son to know that she is important in his life story.  That she carried him in her body for 40 weeks.   She brought him into this world.  That's a pretty big deal.  We will never hide her from him or act like she didn't or doesn't exist.  We plan to always keep her in our prayers.

 He will also have his Foster mom.  We will call her Omma, which is the term for mom in Korean. This is the mom that raised him and loved him for over a year of his life.  His foster parents are the ones that are taking him to all of his first appointments.  Omma is the one that snuggles him to sleep each night.  She is the one that will most likely see his first steps.  I don't think words can express how appreciative we are of his foster family.  [This is the family that he is living with now.  They will care for him until we take custody.  God has a special place in Heaven for these ladies.  We plan to keep contact with this family for as long as we possibly can.  Some families send cards and pictures, others get lucky and their foster families have Facebook...one can only hope.]  This is one of the ways we hope to keep ties to his birth country.  


All three moms just as important as the other.  Each of us women will play a different part in his life.  We plan to respect and honor these women (and men) throughout his life.  Will there be times of pain and doubt in regard to all three of his moms, I'm sure.

#boymom

As many of you all know, our family just received a referral for the most precious little boy.  I can't wait to officially be the mom of THREE little boys. That's right, not one, not two, but THREE wiggly, daring, dirty, loving little boys.  All three with their own unique personalities. I think  #boymom would be appropriate.  You can ask anyone that knows me, I'm definitely a #boymom.  I love everything about it, don't get me wrong, motherhood isn't for the faint of heart, but I wouldn't trade it for the world...especially to these three boys.


 For anyone who is interested in how it all happened, here is the story.   Wednesday afternoon (6/22) we received a call from our home study agency, that is the local agency that took care of all of our home visits and what not.   Just seeing the name on my phone may have caused me to have heart palpitations...I'm only partly exaggerating.  She told us that AIAA (our child placement agency that is located in Michigan) had just sent them our referral.  That the referral was for the most precious little boy.  You can imagine that my heart was nearly out of my chest at this point.  The director told me that we needed to set up an appointment to meet and go over the paperwork.  My response, "ok, we'll be there in about an hour."  I'm sure she was thinking the next day.  Nope, this momma was ready to see her sweet soon-to-be son.  Off we went, both boys in tow, to see pictures of our newest addition.  The whole way up there my eyes were a seeping mess and my heart felt like it could explode.

When we arrived we were given a gigantic folder of paperwork.  For anyone who is in the process of adopting from Korea,  the folder of papers includes several things. There are several papers that you will need to make copies of from the home study process.  [ADVICE: Make copies of EVERYTHING when going through the home study process, then keep it all in a very organized binder!] We had to make several copies of the following documents: State and FBI background checks, birth certificates, marriage certificates, I-600A approval and your passports.  There were also multiple papers that we had to sign and get notarized.  Oh and you also have to get the child's information looked over by a pediatrician.   We are in the midst of this process right now.  We hope to have it all submitted by Wednesday(6/29)!  Once it is all submitted we will be considered ATK, also known as Accepted to Korea.  Fancy, right?

Here's the good part of the giant referral packet. We received tons of pictures of our sweet little guy. Seeing these pictures for the first time was one of the most surreal and emotional moments of my life.  I've described it to some people as a mixture between hearing E-Man and J-Man's heartbeat for the first time and the moment that they were placed into my arms for the first time.    It was like we were finding out we were pregnant but we had the perks of seeing his precious smile and reading about his handsome little personality.   Let's just talk about emotions, shew.  All the feels. My heart was proud to know he was going to be OUR son. My heart was in LOVE.  My heart had emotions for his Korean mom.  My heart was thankful for his foster mom (which is who he is living with now.) My heart was (and is) wanting to hold that sweet boy in my arms.

We also received a packet of papers that included everything about our sweet little guy.  Information about his Korean mom and dad.  The details are amazing.  It described everything from his Korean mom and dad's health records to how they met and even their face shape.   It included his Korean grandparents' personalities.   There were little details about how this little guy falls asleep each night, how he prefers his bottles, all of the milestones that he is meeting.   The amount of information we got was pretty amazing.  These things will all be very helpful for his future.

What's next?  Well, I wish we could say that we were catching a flight next week to get him.  Not so much.  We have just begun the waiting game, fortunately now things are moving forward.  Before this referral it was all sitting still.   If I had to guess, which is never a good idea in the adoption process, I could hope if all things went well we'd be able to make our first trip to Korea to meet him and attend court, sometime in December(ish).  If this were to be the case, usually custody takes place about 6-8 weeks later.    Why the wait?  In order for him to leave Korea and become a U.S. citizen, he must get an Exit Permit (EP).  So we must wait to be submitted and approved for this first.  Then we will wait for a court date.   Oh and if you are Korean adoption junky and I have any of this information incorrect, please let me know.  This is all from hear say and attempting to learn the system.  Also, for anyone that isn't in the adoption world, guessing about your timeline is kind of a joke.  It's not really possible.  We will probably get about a months notice (give or take) before we make our first trip to Korea.

For now I will continue the #boymom life of two.  I will continue to imagine how great and different things will be in the not-so-far future.  We will pray for our newest addition every night and I'm sure J-Man will continue to steal pictures of our little guy, and continue to rock the little picture while saying "so cute...baby brubber."