Almost walking!!!

Happy Monday!

Thank you to everyone who has offered to help in our tasks we need to complete before we continue this adoption for this little guy. (As a side note, we decided on the first name Rai, so this will replace "little guy" from here on. We will keep his Korean name as a middle name.) Rai has some signs of mild Cerebral Palsy, such as not bearing weight on his heels or tip-toeing, and was born premature with a weight of only 2 pounds. Although he is developing quickly and now weighs over 19 pounds at nearly one year of age, our agency would like us to be prepared in the event that his needs are more severe than we originally thought. To show we have considered this carefully, we have been asked to do the following tasks:

1. Watch a video of Rai to better see his development
2. Visit with a child who has CP at United Cerebral Palsy (in Dallas)
3. Have a pediatric neurologist review his file for a consultation

Video
We have already requested a video, so this requirement will speed up the turnaround time. Videos are not common with adoptions, but CP can vary greatly. We do have pictures, but this will give us much more information. In addition, we'll be excited to have our first baby video to help us get through this wait.

Rai's 1st birthday is November 23, which is next Sunday. It's hearbreaking that we will miss this birthday, but with any luck, his foster mother may be able to send pictures or possibly a video to capture it for us. As soon as we are given approval for his adoption, we will send a video of our family to Rai in Korea.

UCP Visit
Luckily, we can complete this task this week! The director was very understanding of our situation, so we have an appointment this Wednesday for a tour of the entire facility. UCP provides many services for children and adults in the area who have other special needs in addition to CP, including therapy and a Pre-K for children between 18 months and 5 years which provides an entire school day of therapy and development building. Our tour will include meeting the children in the Pre-K program, so we will visit with several children at once.

Pediatric Neurologist Consultation
So far, the earliest appointment for a Pediatric Neurologist is Wednesday, December 17. We are on the cancellation list, but with the holidays approaching, this list is quite long already. I put in one last plea to the office on Friday since we do not need an entire hour without the child present to examine. If I sound impatient, it is only because the committee only meets on Thursdays, and since the committee will most likely not meet the day after our appointment, we may not have a decision until after the new year. :-( We'll keep our fingers crossed that something comes up earlier.

Picking a name...
Choosing a name is not an easy task! When I let Aaron pick out our cat's name, he chose Little Wing Lucille. ("Little Wing " after the Stevie Ray Vaughn song, and "Lucille" after BB King's guitar.) Needless to say, we just call her Lucy. In the case of our baby, we were 99.9% sure we would be adopting a boy since girls are more popular in Korean domestic adoption. After we came to this realization, long before Rai's medical records came, we started brainstorming names. Aaron found it amusing to yell out signs during our roadtrips to see if they would work as a name. (I can't really see naming our child Buda or Lewisville.) My strategy of getting a baby name book was just an ineffective. Most of the 60,001 names are either the popular names throughout history (John, Robert, etc.) or they really aren't names a child would be caught dead with (Dacosta, Gormlee, Joktan, etc.). There are a few amusing lists of names (i.e. Names for Vegetarians or Future Nobel Prize Winners) but the book was overwhelming. The online lists were a little easier to take in, and from the list of names I had in mind, Aaron liked Rai the most.

I chose Rai because it's Japanese but could also pass as an American name. Although Rai is Korean, his name will very much reflect his personal identity. First name - Japanese (Japanese influence from my mom's side and my own work), Middle Name - Korean (his birth culture which we plan to add to our own family culture), and Last Name - American/European (the culture of his adoptive family and everyone else he will come in contact with once he arrives), although our last name, Young, is also a Korean name as well.

We nearly changed our minds because of the meaning (second son), but everyone seems to like it. Yes, he will have to endure "Rye, like the bread?" since it is pronounced the same, but there are worse nicknames. Amy also has a friend will the same name (different spelling - Ry), so it is a real name. :-)

And now for the finale - Almost Walking!
On Thursday, we received an update from Holt with Rai's recent doctor's appointment. Since the doctor was on vacation in October, this is the first update we have received since early October. Words can't begin to express our excitement. NO MENTION OF TIP-TOEING OR CP! This does not mean these things are no longer an issue, but he is not currently showing the symptoms that were flagged for CP before. For example, he was crawling rather quickly, but his lack of sitting balance was a sign of neurological problems. Now he is not only sitting without any support but standing holding on to furniture!! (Baby gates, toilet seat locks, door/cabinet locks are becoming a sudden realization. Aaron has already installed a few cabinet locks, but we have much to do before we travel to Korea!) And he's getting bigger! At 19 pounds, I think this puts him in the 12 month clothing size. It's hard to predict what size he will be wearing by the time he comes home.

I think that is all for now. I'll post sometime after our UCP meeting this week with updates, and hopefully we will hear about an earlier appointment and/or the video in the meantime.