Through our blog, we’ve written a number of posts describing the process of Ethan’s adoption (and more recently, Sarah’s Adoption). Posts on Ethan and Sarah’s adoption processes are tagged adoption. This pages seeks to summarize Ethan’s adoption story.
In the summer of 2006, we attended an informational meeting by Adoption Horizons in Carlisle, PA, to look further into the possibility of adopting. A few months later (January 2007) we officially began the adoption process (ironically, the same month we both began work on our doctoral dissertations).
Along the way, we chose to adopt from South Korea, and after completing all of the required paperwork, we received a phone call about the referral of a baby boy on September 25, 2008. In the post we wrote shortly afterward, It’s a Boy!, we posted the first photo we received of Ethan.
Four months later, on January 29, 2008, after working hard to complete the first complete rough drafts of our dissertations, we finally received the call that everything was in order for us to travel to Korea to pick up our baby boy. Amazingly enough, the call came the day after we emailed our rough drafts to our faculty mentor. See It’s Time!
When we arrived in Korea, we wrote 30 Hours, even though we had not slept in those 30 hours. It was quite a trip!
We wrote several posts while we were in Korea. In fact, the blog was one of the highlights of our time in Korea as it provided a key connection point with friends and family, many of whom were nearly 7,000 miles away. In all, approximately 70 comments were posted by others on those posts. Most of our posts during our first trip to Korea are tagged cross-cultural experience.
When the day came for us to go and meet the baby at the foster family’s home, we met Ethan for the first time. Immediately afterward, we simply posted a photo aptly titled, 1,000 Words. A bit later, we reflected on the experience in The Meeting.
As expected, our first hours with Ethan were rough. At the time, we described the experience as “absolutely brutal.” But we survived and ultimately made it home on an extended Valentine’s Day (due to the 14-hour time zone difference). See Ethan is Home!.
Thanks for sharing our journey. We are extremely grateful to God for the gift of Ethan!
