Foster Parents/ Gotcha Day!

Today is the day that we have been waiting for. We spent the morning swimming (as soon as the pool opened at 5:30am), eating breakfast, and then taking a nap. We enjoyed a peaceful morning knowing that it would be an emotional afternoon. We arrived at the SWS agency at 2pm to meet with Ben and Cami's foster moms. It is an amazing experience to be able to meet with them and talk to them (through a translator). We are so blessed to know that these wonderful women loved our babies for the first few months of their lives. The kids felt right at home while visiting. Ben enjoyed sitting on his foster mom's lap while he played with some cars and a transformer-like character drawing pad that she had brought for him. Cami was very happy that her foster mom got her a pink kitty purse. We had to laugh that just yesterday, Ben had seen the transformer-like character and wanted to get one and Cami LOVES purses and small stuffed animals, so both gifts for the kids were a hit! We presented the foster mom's with some organic honey that we had purchased at the Madison Farmer's Market and also a scrapbook that Dana has been working on for several months. We felt it was important to show the foster mom's various pictures from the kids lives from the past few years. We found out that neither foster mother is a foster parent anymore. Cami's foster mom is now taking classes at the university and Ben's foster mom is opening a restaurant tomorrow. We now know that God is showing us very clearly why he waited so long for us to get Ian. If we would have traveled sooner, we would have missed the Memorial service/ Funeral for my grandma. We would have also missed the opportunity to be at Ben's foster mom's restaurant opening tomorrow. For those of you that don't know, Ben's foster mom was his second foster mom. After his first foster mom became ill, a new foster mom took over. She had him for under 2 months, yet developed such a close bond with him. Ben became very attached to her as well as the 2 foster brothers he had. We feel so blessed to have had these women care for our children. We feel honored for her to have invited us to such an important event tomorrow.

While we were visiting, the kids saw Ian and his foster mom arrive at the agency. She barely walk in the door to the agency and the kids were already excited to go and get him. It was a little chaotic ending our visit with Ben and Cami's foster moms and transitioning to Ian and his foster mom. We felt so torn, wanting to spend more time talking and observing how comfortable our kids are with them and wanting to get Ian into our arms. The time with them just seemed to short, while the time away from Ian has been too long. We have many, many pictures with them which we will treasure.

The time with Ian and his foster mom was nice. She has loved the time with Ian and is comfortable passing him on to us. She has been through this over 30 times in the last 11 years, so I am sure that there is some sadness, but it is something that she can mentally separate herself from. Ian seemed in a little shock from when he was handed over to us until he finally fell asleep in the taxi about 2 mintues away from the hotel. He was content until about 15 minutes after arriving in our hotel room when he realized that foster mom was no where to be seen. It breaks our heart because we know that this is an extremely scary time for him. We look different, smell different, talk different and there is a lot of noise with a brother and sister that want nothing more thanto kiss and hug him and play with him. It has been hard to explain to the kids that he is a little scared and needs his space. They have been longing for this moment for so long and don't quite understand why Ian doesn't want to play with them.
He is peaceful now as long as I have him on my back with the blanket covering him so he cannot see anything. If I take the blanket off, he gets very upset and crys. I figure that he just feels more secure not seeing these strange people!

Justin is off running with a guy he was planning on running the marathon with several weeks ago. They connected and he came to the hotel about an half hour ago to go running with Justin. I am glad that he has the opportunity to run in Seoul, especially with another avid runner. Once he gets back, we will upload more pictures and video. We know we are in for a long night, so keep Ian and us in your prayers. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!