Hello all!!
Since the last post, we have got 2 more updates on Hudson... One good, one not so good. I always stick with bad news first, so I can end on a high note...The first one was to all waiting families as an update on timelines. Here's some background: S. Korea is reducing the number of foreign adoptions and encouraging more domestic adoptions (which is not a bad thing by any means) however, this means that every year the government regulates the number of babies that can leave the country. Last year our agency met their 'quota' of babies early- around August. What that means is that no families can travel to pick up their child until the following new year. So in February 2010, those families finally started to be able to travel. They had a long wait- around 6-7 months. Typically they tell us the wait should be around 3-6 months, but it is almost always 4 months.
Jonathan and I expected to be closer to 5 months given the backlog of families from 2009. Then we got a letter from the agency. They have moved all waiting times from here on out to 8-12 months. After working with the Korean agency/orphange, Eastern, it was just not realistic to believe the original timeframe could be kept in light of the recent goverment announcements. So now we've been told to expect our baby's age to be 14-18 months instead of the original 9-10 months.
This was pretty upsetting news to us as we thought we were so close. We have plenty of things to thankful for though. Nothing has changed with our baby. Hudson is still ours, we will just get him a little older. His foster parents are taking really good care of him and love him to pieces. He has a foster baby brother (I think around 3 months) that is probably entertaining him a lot. And now we just have more time to get the nursery together and save $$.
The second update we recieved just yesterday. Hudson apparently has eczema (doesn't every baby though?) Heck, I still get it on my hands every once in a while, huh must take after me... Anyway, that is why we got the update and pictures! It was a really nice surprise to see his face! He is getting so big! Here are the updates on his 8 month progress report:
- He is about 18.5 lbs
- He eats apples, rice and bread
- He is a night owl and goes to sleep at 11
- He tries to crawl, can roll over and uses his pincer grasp
- He responds to his name and 'no'
- He plays in the sitting position
- He imitates speech sound "umma, appa" meaning momma, papa
