Meeting Charlie HyeonWoo!

I woke up about every two hours and could not sleep. Between jet lag and the anxiety of meeting our son for the first time neither one of us slept very well.  We finally got out of the bed around 6 am and began getting ready and gathering all our gifts and children's care packages sent from other waiting families.  Our meeting was scheduled at 11:00 am and we ended up leaving two hours early! Which we are glad we did because even though we had our handy dandy wifi egg and phones it still took us a while to figure out which bus to take and which subway to use to get to our agency.  We arrived at the agency about an hour early and they have a little cafe in the bottom floor.  The cafe is staffed by single mom's who were able to keep their children and by working at the cafe allows them a source of income to be able to provide for themselves and their baby.  In Korea it is very difficult for single moms to keep their babies as culturally they are not given opportunities for jobs, many times their family turns against them, and even unable to continue with their education if they were in school.  There is also not much support of single moms from the government. It is absolutely heart breaking the choice these mom's have to make to give up their babies.  In my mind and heart this is the most selfless act possible to give your child life by birth but then give your child a future through adoption.  We will be forever grateful for Charlie's mom.  We do not know her exact circumstance but we do know she chose life her son and it was her hope to allow him to grow up to live a happy life with adoptive parents. We promise to fulfill her hope and have already loved this boy with our whole hearts since the day we saw his face 20 months ago.

I couldn't even really drink my coffee I was so nervous!  My hands were shaking as I would try to take a sip.  After attempting to drink our coffees we walked over to the office still about thirty minutes early  to let our agency know we were here and waiting in the lobby. We stood around for a few minutes and then I looked over to the door.  Bouncing up the steps outside came our son!! We walked through those double doors like he owned the place!!  The foster mom nor he saw us and turned left toward the office. Brent and I looked at each other in amazement!! A few seconds later one of the social workers walked the foster mom and Charlie over to us and said, "you can play here in the lobby, this is your son." I can still hear those words in my mind, "this is your son." Those were the sweetest words I have ever heard. Charlie starred at us for a few seconds and I really think he recognized us from our pictures, then he ran over to a power wheels car they had in the lobby. We greeted the foster mom who speaks absolutely no English, and of course we do not know any Korean.  So we held hands for a few seconds and I tried to thank her the best I could.  From this point on I felt like the world stood still and there was no one else there except the three of us.  Charlie needed help to get in the toy car so I reached down and picked him up!  Even though holding him for less than 1-2 seconds that moment was worth every second we have waited in this adoption process over the past three years.  He kept looking at us with occasional grins, we pushed him in the car, gave high fives, clapped, helped him buckle himself in the car.  He would interact with us but about every 5 mins would yell out for the foster mom "umma"to make sure she was close by, she would respond and he would keep playing.  This went on for about 20-30 mins and then we headed up stairs to a meeting room where we spent about an hour playing, tickling, giggling, and eating snacks.  I was also able to ask the foster mom with the help of social worker about Charlie, what he's eating, bed time routine, potty training etc.  In the mean time Brent was throwing Charlie up in the air with squeals of excitement.  At one point while I was attempting to talk with the foster mom, Charlie came over climbing on my back grunting and pointing to a light switch he wanted to turn on and off  :)  The communication was really difficult even with the social worker present due to the language barrier so the questions had to be short and simple.  I was so hoping to express our gratitude to the foster mom but it's just not possible.  At first I thought it was my southern accent that the social worker had difficulty understanding me but after talking to other families this seems to be just the way it its! We had some of the sweetest moments with our boy, I will always always cherish and remember these sweet first moments.  So many giggles and wiggles from this boy! Once the meeting was over we said our good byes until the next meeting scheduled for Thursday.  We watched as he bounced down the steps and turned and waved telling us bye.  We left the agency and just wondered through the streets of Seoul. We were just trying to process all that had just happened.  We finally just sat down on a bench, talked, and looked at pictures we had taken and then I just began to cry.  It was a happy cry, a cry of relief and gratefulness. I think all the moments leading up to meeting Charlie finally hit me at that moment.  We are so thankful for God's sovereignty in all of this.  It is absolutely amazing, we are so grateful to the Lord to be chosen as parents for this precious boy.