"The Meeting": 11 Months in the Making

This morning started out better than either of us could have hoped.  We had successfully slept through the night and even woke up refreshed a few minutes before the alarm was to go off.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, neither one of us was very nervous for this first meeting with Louis.  Our experience with Liv no doubt set the stage, plus being in familiar surroundings didn't hurt either.

Eastern has a new cafe on the first floor that has opened since our last visit in 2007.  All proceeds go to helping the mothers making adoption plans, so we were excited to both support this effort and get some much-needed morning coffee.  Apparently most cafes don't open in these parts until about 9am, including this new one, so we couldn't support it this time as we were due to meet our social worker at 8:50am. 

No problem, we remembered a nice bakery down the street that held earlier hours:

 And we did choose this familiar local bakery over one that looks a little more like something in the USA found across the street:

So breakfast came and went, and we were ready to head down to meet the social worker.  It was there we figured out our schedule for the remainder of the week:

Wedsnesday- meet Louis again at 9am
Fri- get Louis permanently at 4:30pm!

We also learned that we would be meeting in a group at 11:30 am to hear some words from Dr. Kim (not the original Dr. Kim as he passed away earlier this year; not Dr. Kim's son as we don't know his involvement at Eastern anymore; this is a woman and may be a related Dr. Kim, but we did not get a chance to find out yet) followed by a noon lunch featuring fantastic authentic Korean food.

Since there are so many families coming over here to "catch up" the adoption process (Korea had things on hold for about 8 weeks), this meeting with Dr. Kim was in a group as opposed to one-on-one as in the past.  This was nice for us, however, because we got to meet several other couples going through the process.  Many were from Minnesota (Champlin, Brooklyn Park, La Crescent) and others were from North Carolina, Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL.

But I digress!  So after getting our schedule for the upcoming days, we went to the play room where we would meet Louis and his foster mom for the first time.  Due to traffic they were a few minutes late, but that gave the A/C a chance to do its job (it was off when we arrived in the room).  It turns out we would have probably needed about 3 hours for the A/C to truly work- so our first meeting turned out to be hot and steamy!

Louis, or Ha Joon, came in on his foster mother's back and looked pretty relaxed.  We crawled onto the floor and waited for him to be unwrapped and brought down to play with us.  Prior to this, our social worker had been saying what a great little boy he is.  He always shares with his foster brother (she gave the example of splitting a cookie in half, which Liv and the pugs will appreciate) and even picks up toys the foster brother drops and gives them back (no doubt this will also be appreciated by his older sister).  He is even-keeled, doesn't have stranger anxiety, and never really raises a fuss about anything.

Well, we just became the exception!  Once he was put down on the floor with all of us, he took one look and started to cry.  It wasn't a loud or even obnoxious cry, but it was a sad cry.  His foster mom had been showing him pictures of us and I think he knows what is going on and that his life is about to change.

So, after some unsuccessful playtime and trying almost every toy in the room to get him to cheer up, the foster mom put Louis back on her back and he calmed down pretty quick.  We asked if he was tired, but both foster mom and social worker didn't think so.  We had a different opinion on the matter:

So after he calmed down a bit Tiff tried to hold him, but more toward the front.  This didn't work much, but probably because he wasn't used to it, not because he couldn't be soothed. 

I decided to try him on my back to see if that would work to calm him again.  What do you know?  I happened to guess right for once!  It wasn't the most comfortable position as I was squatting near the floor and didn't want to move, but it felt great that he was hanging on and relaxing on my back.

After a brief (real brief- about 10 minutes) nap, things were starting to turn for us and our little guy.  He had calmed down and was now getting used to us being around.  Our time in the room was up at this point, but coincidentally Louis had to have a check up (down the hall) right after the meeting.  Tiff took him off my back and things went much better:

We left the room and went out in the hallway toward the back where the clinic is located.  There we were greeted by other foster mothers and many other children.  It was very cool and the curiosity levels amongst everyone were high.  (Jeff/Melissa- doesn't she look a little like Amelia?)

Now the situation was getting much more relaxed and we were all having a good time.  Louis now felt right at home in Tiff's arms and I really enjoyed taking this picture given the start to our meeting just an hour earlier:

The real surprise of the day came a few minutes later when Tiff looked down to the clinic's waiting area and saw...Liv's foster mom!  We walked up and tried our best to introduce ourselves, mentioning Park Hee Seon (Liv's Korean name) and showing her Tiff's "Mom" and "Hee Seon" necklaces written in Korean.  She kept shaking her head denying that we should know her and making us feel like some crazy paparazzi!

We had actually prepared a large photo album for her and her husband.  We were going to leave it here at Eastern to be sent to her when possible.  So with a dash of speed I went up to the room to retrieve it and secure our reputations as sane people amongst the foster moms in the clinics waiting area.

I came back and right away flipped to page 1 where it showed a picture from our trip in 2007 of Liv, her foster parents, Tiff, and me.  She looked at a few seconds and then the light bulb came on (and we were redeemed!).  It was so fun to see her face as she flipped through the photos and saw Liv age about 4 years in a matter of seconds.

Here is a great picture of Liv's foster mom (with her current foster child), Louis' foster mom (flipping through the photo album of Louis' future sister), and Tiff with Louis (ever-curious about what in the world that sign is telling everyone?):

We stayed back in the waiting room area for about 20 minutes waiting for Louis' turn with the doctor.  It was very entertaining watching each foster mother learn of the antics that had just taken place: crazy Americans thinking they found their kid's foster mom, foster mom denying she is the right person, a photo album proves the entire thing true...we've all seen it in the movies hundreds of times :).  Louis' foster mom seemed to get a kick out of telling the story to every new person who entered.  Great memories indeed!

Finally Louis got called into the doctor and Tiff got to play the role she will have the rest of his life: Mom.  He was weighed and measured, his heart and lungs were listened to, his tongue got depressed, and throughout all remained on Tiff's lap very cool, calm, and collected! 

Yes, this was the little guy we had heard about earlier.  We had a rough start together, but that's all behind us now.

It was finally time to say our (temporary) good-byes and see them off.  In typical Korean fashion, he got wrapped up tight even though the weather is in the high 80s with 80+% humidity (I'll save the weather for another blog).  We miss him already, but we know the week will go fast.

See you Wednesday, Louis!