And Then There Were Three.....

Well, it worked. We received our referral when we were in Barcelona. Had I known that all we needed to do was leave the country we would have traveled internationally sooner!

We have a little boy, born October 23rd in Busan. He was a preemie but seems to be doing really well and our pediatrician was pleased with the quality of care he received as a newborn and his progress since then. We are....so many things! A little overwhelmed, a little stunned, and happy beyond what I can find words to measure. His birthmother and birthfather named him Hayoung and we're keeping that as his middle name. His first name is going to be James, after my dad and my brother.

It's so strange, you plan for and think about the referral moment for so long. You imagine it in your mind over and over again but it didn't really happen the way we thought it would. We were in a waterfront mall shopping in Barcelona after my conference had ended and we got "the call." So there we are crying and hugging and trying to hear what's going on thousands of miles away. The tourists all thought we were crazy.

Of course, we didn't plan well. We didn't have Alex's dad's contact information with us so we had to call his aunt first. And everyone that I called, including my dad, wasn't home. All we knew at that point was his birthday and that he was premature so we had enough time between when we found out and when we arrived home to work ourselves into a worried frenzy. I instantly became on of those parents that pediatricians hate after researching prematurity issues on the web and freaking myself out. But we met with a great doctor, the father of a colleague of Alex's, and he was able alleviate most of those fears and provide us with realistic information.

And now we're frantically working on our acceptance paperwork so that we can hopefully bring him home very soon.

My first snafu as a parent was to send pictures and an email to some friends with our son's name misspelled. Damn. James Hayoung, not Hyoung. I'm an idiot. I'm sure it's just the first of many mistakes I'll make as a parent. But you know, I'm just excited to be here.

Hope you're all doing well,

Lauren