Since we have been telling people about Dong Joon, I have been fielding a lot of questions - When did you decide to adopt? How long did it take? Is Veronica adopted? So, I thought I would give everyone a little background, since most people know only pieces of our story (I guess Erek and I don't give a lot of details to people).
When Erek and I have been married for almost seven years (go us!). We were blessed with a daughter (with the help of modern medicine) on September 8, 2004. Veronica Maria Ilumniada was born at 32 weeks gestation and weighed a whopping 2 pounds, 7 ounces. Here is a picture of a very tiny Veronica:
And this is Veronica today:
Even though we had a wonderful (yet tumutuous) experience with Veronica's birth, we decided that adoption was the best way for us to build our family. We began the process in October of 2005 with Wide Horizons for Children. We chose that agency because we were originally going to adopt from the Philippines and WHFC is one of the only agencies that has a Philippine program. We were told the process would take about two years, so we decided to start right away. However, after we started our homestudy in January, we ran into a few problems (which I won't get into) and we realized we were unable to continue with the Philippine program. Needless to say, we were very disappointed, as we were already a Filipino-American family.
About Dong Joon
After a lot of soul searching, we decided not to leave WHFC and try to adopt a "wait
ing child" from their listing. We figured it would still be a while for us to be ready to adopt, but then we saw him. Last March, as I saw Dong Joon's picture for the first time. Before I go on, I should explain that many of the waiting children that are listed as "ready" to be adopted have correctable medical conditions or disabilities. Dong Joon, like Veronica, was born prematurely (28 weeks) and weighed 2 1/2 pounds at birth. At the time, our paperwork was not finished and we were not able to ask for more information, but I would check every day to see if he was still available for adoption. Erek was intrigued as well, but be were sure some other family would adopt him before we were ready. But that wasn't the case - when we finally approved by the Department of Homeland Security to adopt from overseas, Dong Joon was still looking for a family. In August, we were formally matched and we were approved for travel this week.
Anyway, we can't believe that by this time next week Dong Joon (or "D.J.", which we might call him) will be in our custody. We will have a son - and Veronica will have a little brother!
