Let’s back up
In May of last year we knew that our agency in Korea had reached it’s quota for emigration permits (EP) and that our littlest son would not come home in 2011. Fast forward to November 2011, when rumors started to circulate through the families working with our stateside agency that all of our children had somehow been submitted in the very last EP batch. It turns out that we were all submitted because our stateside agency is due to close in the near future due to the loss of the agency’s director early last year; our Korean agency submitted all of our agency’s files so that the closure could happen in a more timely manner. Being submitted held no guarantee of actual travel, but the hope and positive energy of that little bit of news could probably have floated all of our children home in a big happy bubble.
Emigration permits can take weeks or even months to be granted, with the trend at that time running about four to six weeks. If we were going to get good news, it would likely coincide with the Christmas/New Year holidays.
What does it all mean?
When the rumors started flying about EP, the speculation meter hit an all-time high. Would they arrive before Christmas? Would we even be granted EP, given the fact that the babies referred in Dec. 2010 would not even receive EP before the end of the year? Should we buy another set of presents to put under the tree? Honestly, I did not think that he would come home. I didn’t let myself believe that it could all work out and be true. Friends and family joke all of the time about my eternal optimism, but on this I could not afford to believe because I was afraid that if I got my hopes up and he didn’t come home I would be crushed. We had heard nothing official from our agency, who always err on the side of caution and preparing their families for the worst-case-scenarios, so it was truly a huge guessing game.
Then one day we got a call from our agency’s stand-in director, who asked for our updated email, cell phone numbers and work numbers, because “we are hoping for some very good news to call you with in a day or two”.
And like the Grinch, my heart grew a few sizes that day, and made room for the possibility of miracles.
Long Story Short
EP was granted, travel and escort were arranged, and Desmond was due to arrive in the United States on Tuesday, December 20th. We shopped for more presents, got all of our wrapping done, cleaned the house, packed and repacked the diaper bag, and made about a million excited and nervous phone calls to our friends, Steph and Jay, whose daughter was coming home on the same flight (along with the sons of two other families). On Monday we headed to NYC, stopping at the Ikea in Paramus on the way, because what else do you do the night before meeting your youngest child? We stayed in a hotel next to JFK airport, which had a great breakfast waffle station but also smelled ridiculously of Carpet Fresh. We did not sleep at all, a result of both excitement and the musical group in the room next to ours who insisted on singing and playing instruments well beyond 2 am. It didn’t matter, though; our happiness could not be tempered by exhaustion.
Getting ready to head to the airport in the morning was one of the most pinch-me moments I’ve ever lived through, as in Pinch-me, because this can’t really be happening. We cannot seriously be on our way to meet our son for the first time when he was not expected to come home for another 6-10 months! For a bit of perspective, families with our Korean agency and the same referral month (March 2011) still have not been submitted for EP as of May 2012. Even if they were submitted today, they might still be weeks away from approval and travel. To say we were lucky is the understatement of the century; our families had been given the most amazing gift and we all knew it.
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