First, thank you to all who have been sending us prayers and kind notes about today. We really appreciate them! When we landed in Los Angeles we learned from our US agency that we were assigned to the more strict judge, the one who has been known to be so thorough as to slow down the process for many families. We didn't know how strict he would be in person, so we've been a bit worried as we've waited for today to come.
This morning we woke up, dressed up and headed downstairs to meet the five other families going to court today. It took nearly an hour in traffic to get to the court house, then we sat in the hall and waited our turn. Surprisingly, Tony was pretty nervous all morning but I wasn't too bad. We did manage to get a photo of us waiting to go in (ignore my crazy hair -- it was promptly fixed after I saw the photo!).
When our turn came, we were called into the room and sat on one side of a long table. Our social worker served as a translator and sat next to us. The Judge was in the front of the room behind a large desk. He seemed friendly and asked us the following questions:
1. Mostly to Tony: Do you speak Korean?
2. Both: Explain what you do for your job in detail.
3. Me: Do you plan to work after you bring the child home? If so, who will take care of him?
4. Tony: How severe is your asthma and when do you have problems with it?
5. Both: How do we resolve conflicts in our marriage?
6. Both, a follow up: When compromise doesn't work, how do we solve conflicts or come to an agreement? (this was a hard one for our social worker to translate; I have a feeling he didn't really get an answer)
7. Have we met our child and how did we feel when we met him.
8. Any final statement for the court?
It took all of 10 minutes, including the difficulty in translation. After we were all done with court, we headed out for a traditional Korean BBQ lunch and a bit of relaxing.
I know everyone is curious about "what's next" so here is a summary of what should happen:
1. In the next few business days the Judge will issue Initial Approval. When he issues this, a letter is sent to ESWS (the Korean agency), who will then let CHSFS (the US agency) know. We should at that point know if we are in the 14 day wait or if the judge is taking additional action (i.e., recontacting the birth mother) first.
2. There is then a 14 day wait, which is part of the legal system here. So, depending on when Initial Approval is given AND whether the judge is taking additional steps, we could begin our 14 days as early as sometime next week, or it may be an extra week or two.
3. At the end of the 14 days, the judge issues Final Approval. Again, the approval is mailed to ESWS who then contacts CHSFS, so this could take a few days.
4. CHSFS calls or emails us to tell us we have Final Approval -- and we book our return trip!
As you can see, we don't have a solid idea of how long this will take. We don't know if we will be back in Korea before the holidays, during the holidays or after. We are officially back in the waiting game. However, we are hopeful that the judge will move things along quickly.
A General Update
Our time in Korea has been pretty good. Cold and windy, but otherwise good (and whatever bug I had eased up on Wednesday, so I was thankful for that). It's a very busy city, with many places open from 10 or 10:30 am until 4 or 4:30 am. Overall it feels safe and most of the areas are clean and well lit. I would never want to drive here, though. Driving seems as crazy or more crazy than New York.
Tony has mastered the subway system, of course! We've also done a lot of walking, shopping (because it's inside) and a bit of sight seeing. One evening we went on a food tour with another couple here to adopt, a mother and daughter that stayed on our floor, and another women here on vacation. We had fun checking out traditional Korean restaurants, wondering through back alleys we would never have found by ourselves, trying a variety of foods we probably wouldn't have tried on our own, and enjoying some of the typical Korean adult beverages. I don't have time to post on all of that now, but here's a photo of our group:
We were also blessed to meet two lovely families staying on the floor with us (including the mother and daughter who came on the food tour). They flew home this morning and I have to admit, the floor is very quiet now. It feels a little lonely! I am so glad we got to know them.
Tonight we are heading to the North Seoul Tower to check out the city lights, and tomorrow we fly out to Narita for our overnight in Japan (and probably a bit of sushi). There is of course much more I could post, but I'm running out of steam and need to wrap up. As with most travels, we are looking forward to being back home, back in our own bed, etc. It's strange to leave a place so far from home knowing we will be back soon.
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