To the Batmobile

Appa and I have had a couple of days to wallow in self pity and stew in righteous indignation on behalf of our son, but after all that, we're still left with a whole lot of waiting. It's impossible for me to just stop everything until we get our approval, so we've come up with a plan that will work for our family to help us make it through the wait.

We're going to continue to create and send care packages over to Korea with videos and voice recordings and small tokens of appreciation. Little Bro's foster mother might not be able to get them yet, but when she does, she will see proof that we did not take these months of waiting lightly or that he was not being loved by his family. Who knows, maybe if we fill our Korean social worker's desk drawer so full of packages she will just slip some to the foster mother in an effort to get them out of her hair...

We're going to continue with our Korean lessons with a little extra vigor. Every time I recite the hard sounds of the Korean "alphabet," I'm mentally sticking it to a certain someone. That makes no sense, but I get such satisfaction out of the mental image.

Gi-yuk, ni-eun, di-guet, li-uel, mi-em, BI-UP!
(I'm picturing myself in some spandex superwoman outfit, complete with thigh high boots, a cape, and awesome high kick. Take THAT, M.D.)

Today marks 5 weeks of waiting for this approval. Next week, at the 6-week mark (and 3 weeks after we last went rounds asking for some advocacy), we will try again to see if we can even get a status check. Even though I can say with pride that all of my interactions with everyone involved have been polite and not crazy-mamaish, even in the worse of it, I think Appa might take this round of communications to give the tender relationships a little more breathing room.

We're going to revisit with our new agency the idea of traveling over early to visit Little Bro. Granted, we can't do this until we get approval, but it's been helpful to agree that this is something we are going to press for. It's doubtful we can make it work, since our new agency is against it always and the Korean agency has temporarily put a hold on the visits, but we are planning to shamelessly use his status as a "waiting child" to see what we can work out. Honestly, I only feel slightly guilty about label-dropping in this case.

And, most tangibly, because we've been through this process before and know what is expected of us, we are doing all the leg work we can ahead of time. We're getting our copies and letters and pictures together and filling out all the immigration forms. When that approval comes, my family will need only the time it takes to overnight something to the agency to be done on our end.

Does this whole situation suck? Hell yes, but we have to move on and can't continue to be sad and angry (me especially) all the time. Appa's sister is coming into town this weekend for a baby shower, and Little Bug is going to love performing for her. It's going to be super fun.

Light, sunshine, parties, paperwork, online shopping, ziplock bags, hangual, and first steps somewhere in Korea.....It's going to be a great weekend.