Today at 3pm we went to Holt to meet our son. We took a taxi from our hotel and got there right at 3. Sam and his foster family were already there waiting for us. In we went and there's our son! We spent about an hour getting to know Sam and his foster parents. We were very impressed with his foster family. They obviously cared a great deal for him and treated him as their own. They also talked about how much of a gift he was for them. He brought so much joy to them and made them better people. The foster dad said that he even quit smoking. Sam was cautious with us at first. He was mostly interested in the toys in the room, but eventually started interacting with us.
We had a list of questions for the foster family and we also exchanged gifts. We gave dad an OSU hat and also one for their college age son. They also got some hazel nuts from a place close to Corvallis and a photo album with more pictures of us. Foster dad was excited to see the pictures of us fishing with Chuck as he likes to fish and has already taken Sam out fishing. We also gave them a photo book of Oregon. I wrote a message in Hangul for them on the inside cover. I told them how beautiful Oregon was and how Sam will get to see a lot of the places in the book. We were incredibly blessed to receive a bunch of things from them as well. We got three different photo albums from them including more baby pictures and pictures of him at his 1st birthday in his hanbok.
They said that they had more that they would send us later too. They also gave us the same hanbok he had on in his pictures. They also gave us some of Sam's favorite toys including some that we sent him in previous care packages.
Things went so quick. We took Sam downstairs for a quick medical checkup, got some pictures with the foster family and with DJ. DJ is an incredible woman there at Holt. She matches all the children to their adopting parents, handles all of the correspondences with Holt in Eugene, works with the foster families, and is there for all the gotcha days translating and setting adopting parents on their new course.
Another incredible thing happened while we were there. DJ asked Julie if she wanted to see her file. Julie wasn't expecting or asking for any of this, but DJ got her on the phone with the orphanage she stayed at in Incheon. She has arranged a visit there tomorrow! No guarantees but this could open up a lot more information about Julie's past. She is very excited.
After this it was outside to the taxi. We said our goodbyes to the foster family and were on our way to the hotel. There was so much going on during the visit that there was no time for the moment to sink in. In the taxi we had the first moments with Sam all to ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Kristi holding Sam as he fell asleep in her arms. We are parents now and feel incredibly blessed by the whole experience. Enjoy the pictures.
1 comments:
Congratulations! Sam is adorable. We can't wait to meet him.
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