We began researching various programs out on the internet and realized that with our large family size, we wouldn't have as much of a chance in most places. Which is understandable!!

One of my most favorite websites in the world is Precious in HIS Sight. I must go there twice a day.... Agencies can list children available here; many have special needs, minor to pretty major. Some children are non-special needs. But there are so many. I would urge anyone reading this to go to PiHS and check it out--who knows?? I'd often look at the children there and wonder if one of them would be ours one day?? Little did we know.... I would encourage anyone reading this to go to PiHS and at least take a peek!!

Anyway, to make a somewhat long story short, I eventually ended up contacting Children's Home Society of Minnesota to ask if there were any children in their special needs Korean program that might be a right fit for our family. We really weren't ready to begin anything 'til towards the end of 1998, so that's when we made our initial contacts. Peg Studaker, who is about one of the nicest folks you'd want to meet, asked if we'd consider a child currently on PiHS--I remembered him very much as he had had a "look" on his face that just sort of got to me... He did have some fairly serious medical needs that we needed to research out and moreover, we needed to pray and see what the Lord wanted. Initially, I'd sort of resisted things on this score, but my husband said "Wait, let's check it out and see.."

In November, we told CHSM we'd definitely wanted to add this wonderful little boy to our family. Somehow, we just knew he was the one...

One thing I really appreciate about the Korean process is the ease & simplicity of the process. There really is no paperwork other than what you submit to your placing agency, for what you need for the homestudy update and then the homestudy itself. We had had somewhat of a tussle with the INS over fingerprints--our first time in 4 adoptions. We had them done early October at one of those new INS approved fingerprint places only to find out in November that they hadn't bothered to submit them for nearly 2 months because they "forgot" they needed a signature!!! Mine cleared early December, and my husband's cleared early January.... Go figure.

We received our official referral in late March and the INS granted visa approval on 8 April--in just one day so I guess that made up for the fingerprints. Then we anxiously awaited the time when our son would be ready to come home. With our 1st Korean adoption 2 years previously, we only waited 3-1/2 weeks. This time, it was closer to 8 weeks--no particular reason. I had told other families on numerous times that the waiting time was really an anxiety-ridden time on occasion but once the child was home it was forgotten. Now it was time to take my own advice!!!!

Finally, at last, we received a call on 25 May that he would be ready to depart Korea on 3 June--that was the fastest we'd had to get ready. Thanks to the wonderful Mr. Jay Song of World Express Travel in Dallas, TX who worked to get my son, Justin, and I some tickets. Summer is a busy, busy time of air travel and we had already known that it was booked from the MSP-Tokyo and Tokyo-Seoul portion of the flight if we'd gone strictly on Northwest as we'd done before (the only airline we have up here)...

So, we kind of had to go a really round-about way--from Minot to MSP on Northwest, spend the night, MSP-Chicago and Chicago-Seattle on American and then Seattle-Seoul on Asiana. Justin and I departed Minot at about 3:50pm on Sunday, 31 May. We took the shuttle back to our hotel, the DoubleTree Inn Mall of America and were able to throw our suitcases in the room and grab the shuttle to the mall. Though we didn't have much shopping time, it was still lots of fun.

Our flight departed MSP at 6:50am so we had to get up early. Things were uneventful all the way to Chicago then to Seattle. I found it a bit strange the way the Seattle airport has you take subway to the various spots, but we managed. Our flight left mid-afternoon for Seoul. The only thing I did not like was that we were way at the back of the plane, in the middle 2 seats of the middle section, and we'd never had to do that before. It was more uncomfortable and what's more, having to crawl over people to get to the restrooms or to walk around, people who you didn't know who were sound asleep, was not fun. But we managed.

Our flight landed in Seoul around 4pm on 2 June. Once again we made our way through customs/immigration and on our way out to find our Eastern driver. As it was, I saw his face before I saw the card with our names on it--he was the same driver who picked us up two years ago.. He showed me a spot which would change my traveler's checks into won (the place inside would not) and I ran over there to change some money. When I came back, there was another family waiting.. She was a Korean adoptee who, with her husband and parents, was returning to adopt a little boy--both families were some of the nicest folks you'd ever want to meet and I am so glad of the opportunity we had to meet and get to know them.

This time we stayed at the Seokyo Hotel as the Eastern guesthouse was undergoing renovations. The Seokyo is sort of mid-way between Holt and Eastern and is a nice hotel. Our room was on the 12th floor, the last one, so we had a nice view of the area. Justin and I unpacked and then went downstairs to the Alexander coffee shop to have a meal.

The next day we got up, had breakfast downstairs at the Alexander and then go ready to go to Eastern to meet our children... I was full of anticipation, of course, wondering what it would be like since Nicholas was already his own little person and obviously very much aware of things.

The driver picked us up and soon we were on our way... Coming back to Eastern's offices was almost like coming home again.. Nothing had changed. There were many of the same people there..it was good to be back. We'd no sooner arrived then were take straight to a room upstairs to meet Nicholas. He was all dressed up and with his foster mom and none too pleased to see either of us, as we'd assumed. He knew who we were and I almost wonder if he thought we were taking him right then and there!!

Eventually he warmed up a bit to where he finally accepted the Beanie Baby "Attic Treasure" teddy bear we brought him and he actually gave me a kiss on the cheek and shook Justin's hand. We got lots of video and nearly a whole roll of film! Then, we went downstairs with Nicholas & his foster mom to meet the other 2-year-old boy we would be escorting home. They were both such adorable little boys and immediately got into a ruckus over ownership of wooden wagon that held blocks. I never thought I'd laughed so hard in my life....

We went out that afternoon, after returning to the Seokyo, to do some sightseeing. I'd be kind of anxious about using the subway, as 2 years ago Glynn was with and had navigated that. But we did fine. I can't remember how many times someone would approach us and say "Can I help you?" We must have really looked lost!! But we never GOT lost.... We visited Tamdaemun Market that afternoon and it was fun and interesting...

The next day we went back to Eastern where Duk Kyung, from our first Korean agency, Dillon, had arranged for us to meet our daughter Kerrie's foster mom. Aside from meeting our new son, this was the one thing I was looking forward to the most. It was so good to see her and she had brought a gift of a Teletubby for Kerrie (Teletubbies are BIG among the little ones in Seoul). We brought her some gifts and a pack of 24 photos of Kerrie. She was so grateful and so happy. It enforced even more our firm beliefs that we do all we can to maintain contact with our children's foster families (both of our Korean children as well as Jenna have all been in foster care and we were able to meet the families all 3 times). I think it's the least we can do for these families who have given all they could to the first few months of our children's lives. We promised Kerrie's foster mom we would continue sending letters and photos and, one day, Kerrie would come back to Korea to see her.

The next event of the afternoon was meeting Dr. Kim, Duk Whang, the founder of Eastern Child Welfare. I found him to be a gracious, kind, wonderful person... We were able to view a couple videos in his office and then joined he, Eastern staff, other older adoptees and their parents, for lunch. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

The next day we arranged to have a sightseeing tour in the afternoon. That morning, Justin and I had had to race over to Namdaemun Market on the subway to buy two more suitcases!! Both our son's foster mom and the foster mom of the little boy we were escorting home had sent over scads of stuff and we knew we'd need the space... We were able to get the man down several thousand won and probably could have done more, but we were both pretty tired and knew we'd have to drag those suitcases on the subway and just wanted to get back to our room!!

Late Friday afternoon, we spent on an afternoon tour of Seoul. We saw Insadong, which I could have literally spent all day in, one of the palaces and a Buddhist Temple. The evening before, Justin had suffered an attack of what we had thought was food poisoning and this time, on the way back from the tour on the bus (thank heavens for plastic camcorder totebags that can be emptied in a hurry), it was my turn. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening, our last night in Seoul, in bed hoping I'd feel better. The prayers of many helped and a friend, Sheri Chase, who was preparing to depart Seoul the following week when her husband's military tour was up, prayed with me over the phone.

Thankfully the next morning I did feel better and was able to eat breakfast. At 11am, we were back at Eastern to go to the foster family's apartment, where we met Nicholas foster brother and a baby girl his foster mom was taking care of. It was very emotional leaving, as Nicholas really didn't know what was up... His foster brother carried him out to the van on his back and I knew it was difficult for him and even more so for his mom. We met the other little boy and his foster mom and her neighbor at Eastern and went back to the hotel. Finally, the moms left. It was VERY emotional and both little boys were not too happy. But we managed to get checked out, downstairs and found the Eastern van which dropped us off at the airport.

Kimpo Airport has more checkpoints than any other international airport I'd been in, but SOMEHOW, with our carry-on bags, our Eastern flightbags and two little 2-year-old boys who were not happy, Justin and I managed to make it!! We decided not to wait in the Asiana waiting area as both boys were crying off and on. So we parked ourselves outside a soda machine and must have had at least 4 people stop and buy the boys sodas. Some girls from the duty free shop stopped and kept them entertained and a cleaning lady did too! Also, a Korean airlines pilot stopped with a bag of goodies for the boys... And another Korean lady, who had at one time lived in Seoul but was a US citizen and living in Seattle, went and got us on the plane first so we were able to get settled. This time, even though we were in the middle section, Justin and I were able to have the aisle seats and this made a big difference!!

The Seoul-Seattle flight was not pleasant, but I hadn't anticipated that it would be. Both boys cried and cried, though I'll have to say my son cried the most!!! Thank heavens for the lady from Seattle and for a man who had been adopted from Korea himself who were more than happy to help out with the boys. The man spent at least 7 hours with us and it made things MUCH easier.... I'll forever think of these two dear people and their willingness to reach out to us when we needed them.

We had a 3-1/2 hour layover in Seattle and the boys did quite well, actually. They played some with toys I had brought and which the other boys' family had sent. And they SLEPT all the way to Chicago!!!! In fact, we had to wake both of them up when we landed.

Justin was SO proud to be able to walk down the airplane ramp and present this little boy to his new family who had waited a longer-than-usual time for him to come home. He had a brother and sisters adopted from Korea and another family I had known from the Adopt_Korea email list, with their Korean children, was there too. It's really neat to finally put a face with a name!!!

We had to race to make our next flight to MSP but we did make it and Nicholas slept all the way. At the hotel that night, he was NOT happy and cried a lot. But we managed as we expected this..

The next morning, we got up at 7:30 to make our 9:05am flight to Minot. We felt much more rested and are glad we made the decision to spend the night rather than fly straight on through. Nicholas slept some on the flight and once again, we had the joy of walking down the airplane ramp to waiting family and friends. Some friends from church, one of which is waiting for a referral of a child from China, as well as a family who had adopted from India, were there and we were so grateful for their coming out straight from church.

Nicholas did well meeting his new brothers and sisters and didn't seem too phased... It was SO good to be home again, this time with 7 children!!!!

Nicholas has been home two weeks now and each day, it seems, gets better. Thankfully we prepared as best we could for a toddler adoption first by reading--two books I recommend to families considering the adopting of a child over 1 year of age are are: With Eyes Wide Open, published by Childrens Home Society of Minnesota and avilable through CHSM OR AFA and Toddler Adoption:The Weavers Craft by Mary Hopkins-Best. Toddler Adoption is available through any one of a # of adoption-related book venues.

We also prepared by talking to as many folks as we could who had adopted children Nicholas' age and by being realistic in our expectations. Too many people adopt toddlers and think it's "at least not changing diapers". But after having adopted 3 infants, and now a toddler, we can honestly say it IS different. It's challenging to say the least,though we are enjoying it. We knew and expected there to be issues, and there are, but we're getting through them, working with him and enjoying having a little boy in the house again!!! I told someone I'd almost forgotten how much fun little boys were. Nicholas is a very bright little boy and while he does have some serious medical challenges facing him, at least now he has a family to see him through whatever comes. He is truly a joy and a dream come true.

Humanly speaking, we must thank two people who were our advocates in this process: Nancy Kleingartner, our wonderful social worker from New Horizons Adoptions who has been with us since we first began our initial adoption in October 1994 and Peg Studaker of Children's Home Society of Minnesota's special needs Korean program. Also, thanks to Eastern Child Welfare and the country of Korea for the privilege of bringing Nicholas into our family.

Lastly, thanks to the Lord Jesus, the one Who made this all possible with His provision financially and His guidance throughout. Without Him, our family, would not be possible.