How it happened....

OK here we go. We have been praying and looking into other options to start our family for a little while now. The long wait in China is very discouraging. As of 2/1/08 they have refered children to those families logged in before 12/27/05. That means all of last year they covered three months worth of logins. Our login date is 5/31/06. China's system goes in order by date. We are 5 months away from our LID, but if they continue at the rate they have been it will be at least another year to 18 months from right now. :(

On 1/25/06 we received a call from Amy (our awsome adoption coordinator) of Catholic Charities. She was wondering if we had given any thought to a waiting child or a child with a special need. The answer was yes. We have given it a lot of thought and with Amy's help found a little girl from China who melted our hearts. We did the paperwork needed and applied for her along with four other families. A few days later we found out we were not chosen. It hurt but it just wasn't meant to be. The next day which was 1/30/08, our angel Amy, found a little boy from South Korea named Ji-Hun. Ji means wisdom, Hun means teach according to a web site I found. We fell in love instantly which scared the hell out of us. We worked on getting some paperwork together and doing some online education that was needed as Amy worked on her end with some interagency forms with Wide Horizons For Children, an adoption agency from Massachusetts, who deals with Holt International, an adoption agency in South Korea. We Fedex'd everything on Monday, Feb. 4th. On Tues. Feb. 5th. Wide Horizons approved our match with Ji-Hun and forwarded this info to Holt International for approval. We were told because of the Korean holiday (Lunar New Year) we would probaly get news on Monday or Tuesday (2/11 0r 2/12). On Monday morning I got a call from Amy saying we needed to come in to sign some paperwork (inter-agency stuff) and when we got to the office she told us she lied and congratulated us.

WE HAVE A BOY!!!!!!!

Ju Ji-Hun who will be James Ji-Hun Grabowski.

We will be sending a package to Holt with pictures and something for our son :) and some disposable cameras so they can take more pictures of him and his foster family. We also will recieve updates until we leave to get him. We will keep you all informed. Thank you all for your prayers.