Not-Me-Monday is a blog carnival started by MckMama. Hop over to her blog to see what others have NOT done this week.

I did NOT travel to the other side of the globe to pick up our third child, take hundreds of pictures, and only get one of our whole family of 5.

It did NOT look like this…

So we’ve been back in States for one year today with Ty.  Adopting a toddler has been everything I thought it might be and lots of things I never dreamed of.  The last year has zoomed by and when I get discouraged at how much progress we’re not making it only takes a minute (ok, sometimes it takes hours) for me to remember how far we’ve come in just a short year.  To put it in perspective, Ty lived longer in Korea with Foster Family #2 than he’s lived here with us.

When asked what it’s like to bring a non-English speaking toddler into your home, I often reply it was much easier than birthing a newborn but sometimes I reply it was the hardest thing we’ve ever done.

Here are the +’s and -’s as I see them.

+’s

• Sleeping through the night after a couple weeks.
• Going to bed with the “normal” routine after a couple months.
• Potty-trained within a year.
• Young enough to transition to English easily even when faced with a major speech processing error.
• Came walking and communicating and much more independent than a newborn.

-’s

• Rules and relationship have to happen simultaneously.  Just like it takes hundreds of compliments to blot out a criticism, it takes hundreds of deposits into the relationship bank for each time a rule is reinforced.
• Too young to really understand what’s going on but old enough to know what’s going on (i.e., you’re taking me from the only family I’ve ever known and I liked being with them).
• Old enough so that we had expectations (like he’d be feeding himself) which, in turn, meant we could be easily frustrated when those expectations weren’t met.
• That awful feeling when we walked out of Holt on April 23, 2009 that we’d just kidnapped someone’s child.

Oh, and featured child did NOT have poop accidents while we were out (without at diaper bag) twice last week.  I did NOT take him out in public in just a shirt and underwear after one incident just like I did NOT wash his clothes out in cold water and make him put them back on the second time.

Then…

Now…

Click here to view this photo book.

Ty: Jesus,  dank you I had… What’s dat called ‘gain, Mom?

Me: What is what called again?

Ty: Pich

Me: Pitch?

Ty: No, piiiich (pinching fingers together)

Me:  Pinch?

Ty: No.  Missue.

Me:  Miss Sue?

Ty:  Yah.  Dank you ‘at Miss Sue today.

Me:  Ooooooh.  Speech.  Is that what you were saying?

Ty:  Yah.  Dank you I had pee-sch today.

Less than a year ago, we were fighting for him to repeat two simple words at prayer time…”Jesus, Amen.”

~ ”datch-a-giggles?” = Watch Wiggles?

~”gook!”= Look!

~”poop-ease”=”soup, please?”

~”I anna pay dat”= I wanna play that

~”Ghee-ga”=Grandma or Grandpa

~”Gakin, Pipee, peese”=Napkin or wipee, please

On the plus side, he’s finally saying “PJ” instead of “Eebee.”

~Aside:  The fact that Ty is adopted has made figuring him out a constant game of second guessing ourselves and over analyzing life.   Speech and hearing specialists claim his speech is fabulous for someone with “8-month-old English ears.”   Excuse me?  He may have only heard English for 8 months, but he’s 3-YEARS-old.  Does that count for something?  Do we take him to an occupational therapist about his eating and sensory integration issues only to have them say, it could be part of his adjustment?  Well, yes, it could.  But when do we stop blaming every concern on his adoption and adjustment?  Probably never.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  While I don’t want to minimize his trauma or dismiss his feelings, I feel like adoption (especially international) gets a bad wrap for being the root cause of so many issues–especially speech and identity related.  Did anyone ever consider that thousands of other non-adoptees suffer from the same issues?  What do we blame then?  Actually I’m not so sure blame is my “beef”.  Fine, blame the issues on adoption, but treat them just like any other person…heck, just treat them at all.  Don’t shrug it off with a “wait and see.”  Is that really too much to ask?

After a short but very sweet (like Ty-got-to-adopt-a-teddy-bear-from-the-judge’s-collection kind of sweet) hearing adoption ceremony,

Ty is officially no longer an orphan.
Ty is officially a tax deduction.
Ty is officially an American.
Ty is officially a Corkum.

We are officially a family of FIVE!

That means that we had to do even more paperwork when we returned, have x-number of post-placement visits by our social worker, and wait 6 months until Ty could be an official Corkum.  I won’t even go into the confusion that is having a son with a Korean name that sounds kinda like his new name who is legally his Korean name but referred to by his “American” name.  Are you still with me?

There are a lot of financial reasons (think tax credit) why we were really hoping to finalize before December 31st.  Having a homecoming in late April makes this not a guarantee but we were motivated to do our best.

Long story short, we had resigned ourselves to a January finalization since we hadn’t heard much good news since filing, in person, in early Novemer, and the adoption judge only works on Wednesdays.  But, lo and behold, we had  letter from our local courthouse in our mailbox today which announced a court date of Wednesday, December 16 @9:30AM!  Ty will be officially and irrevocably ours the day after he turns 3.

Merry Christmas…a little early.

“So what?”

While Ty’s speech has come very far in the last 6 months, he struggles with poor enunciation.  Being smart and strong-willed, he has figured out when we are trying to work on enunciation with him (even when it’s games) and usually puts a pretty fast stop to it.  So when we can get him to track with us long enough to correct a word, it’s a BIG deal.

Since then, we have added “PJ” and “Mia” to his repertoire (they will replace “EB” and “Nia).  I say “will” becuase he still addresses them incorrectly but can say their names correctly.  We’ve found that putting hand signs to the different syllables gives him something tangible to associate with the correct enuncation. 

Speaking of hand signs (no pun intended), Ty continues to pick up new ASL signs, too, which has really helped his frustration level.

The other milestone worth mentioning is he has entered the “why?” stage.  Ugggghhhh.  Try answering that question a hundred times a day to a kid that doesn’t understand the explanation most of the time anyway.

We are so thrilled that he can talk back and demand “Ty do” in any give situation.  Not that we don’t want to foster independence.  It’s just that it’s not always possible or convenient.

We are thrilled that he can announce (in the quietest places) that cows, horses, and pigs can POOPY but can’t seem to connect his poopy to the potty.

And we are just beyond thrilled that he can tattle on his older siblings.

I received a packet in the mail last week that caused me to pause long enough to look at Ty’s adoption story in hindsight.  And in 20/20 vision, I saw God’s handwriting all over it.  Remember how I already mentioned other ways that he’s a miracle baby here?  Well add this story to the list.

We had very little warning that by the end of April 17, 2008, we would be starting a year long (to the day) adoption journey to bring home a little boy. Unlike other adoption stories, our referral didn’t come after a long, excruciating wait.  It kind of fell God placed it into our laps.

Patrick had wanted to adopt since high school.  He figured why bring more and more children into the world when there were so many already here that needed families.  When we met and he mentioned adoption, it felt a little lot hypocritical to be against it since I consider myself a successful adoption story. 

Starting as far back as the spring of 2007, we started researching our options.  We considered foster care and international adoptions.  We came to the conclusion that fostering wasn’t for us, yet, AND international adoption was too expensive AND maybe God was calling us to start an adoption ministry and fee free agency instead.  (Sorry for that run-on and the ones that follow).  We figured after we had helped improve the system to be less expensive, we would then see what God had.

On the afternoon of April 16, I was looking a Brittany’s Hope’s website as part of our research on what we wanted our new ministry to look like.  They had a waiting children’s page.  Obviously, I went straight for S. Korea’s page.  I was suprised to see a couple children (2 boys, specifically) that seemed to have special needs we could handle AND were already matched with grants to ease the financial burden.  On a whim At God’s prodding, I emailed the link to Patrick.  He came home and said, “There were these 2 boys.”  We narrowed it down to a cute little boy who had been born 15 weeks early and had some developmental delays but otherwise seemed healthy.

On April 17, I set out (with Patrick’s blessing) to “find a little more information.”  I was only cautiously optimistic because I know that these listing are often outdated and I was pretty sure an almost-healthy child with grant money, such as this one, would surely be matched by now.  I was connected to E (who very well may have been an angel of the Touched By An Angel type).  She informed me that one can’t just get a “little more information” but the little boy’s file was not claimed AND we could have it and 2 weeks to decided whether we wanted him as only one family can review the file at a time. <insert similey face with eyes bugging out of head here>.  In 20 minutes, I had a very large email that contained pictures, background info, and full medical reports.  The little boy’s name was Tae Yang.  We affectionately dubbed him TY for short.

Over the next 2 weeks, we prayed a lot and had the file reviewed by a doctor who specializes in such thing.  I’m not sure what she could have told us that would have made us say “NO.”  We were pretty much sold–hook, line, and sinker (as only a fishing family could be).  Having a medical review just seemed like a wise thing to do at the time…probably still is.  Oh, and E informed me she was just an intern, would be moving on at the end of the week, and left us in the care of another staff worker. 

I’m not kidding about this angel thing.

Once we accepted the referral, we found out we had to transfer it to our state from the PA agency where it resided.  Because the referral was with Holt (a specific agency in Korea), we had to work with a Holt licensed agency in our state.  Ironically, this turned out to be the same agency (and many of the some social workers) from which my siblings and I were adopted.  It was like coming home (or at least full circle). 

About half way into our process, we found out were were actually not eligible for the grant that first wooed us to the waiting child referral because our agency was not an “affiliate.”  Only, in God’s infinite wisdom, right?  While we were fighting for our grant money, I found out that we never should have received Ty’s referral in the first place.  Apparently, Brittany’s Hope grant recipient children are not supposed to be transferred out of state.  This is when I started thinking E was a stragtegically placed angel who let Ty’s file “slip” into our hands.

Fast forward a year and 4 months after a lot of paperwork, waiting, more waiting, more paperwork, traveling, and adjusting.

I decided that I should have saved the blurb that appeared in Ty’s waiting child listing.  Of course, now it’s no where to be found so I try emailing the original agency in PA to see if they have it.

Jackpot, they had it and some MRI files that we should have had anyway.  Divine intervention is great, isn’t it?  Wait, I’m just getting to the REALLY cool part.  So the package comes in the mail and I pull out his waiting child flyer and read:

“‘Tyler’ is a handsome little guy from Korea.”

It takes a minute to sink in that someone (maybe E) nick-named Ty, Tyler, months before we ever laid eyes on him. 

I don’t know about you, but I love when God shows up like that.  I mean, I know he’s omnipresent, but you get what I mean…I hope.