You've Got Mail!

I don't know about you, but I usually check the mail everyday.

Late this afternoon, I realized I hadn't checked our mail in few days *gasp*. I went down to find that our mail carrier had done his best to squeeze days worth of mail into our tiny mailbox. As I was sorting through what was mostly junk mail and bills, the item at the very bottom quickly caught my eye. It was a package from Holt, our adoption agency. The last time I received anything from Holt was months ago and it was a picture of Bethany with her foster mother on her last day in Korea.

This envelope was much bigger and bulkier, and look.....

I just had to take a picture. :)

I wondered what Holt could possibly be sending me and tried not to get my hopes up. To my surprise and excitement (i was literally jumping for joy!), after months of sending  pictures and letters, I finally received something from not just one foster family, but two. Yes, Bethany was blessed to have two families who loved and cared for her. This package actually made clear a lot of the specifics regarding Bethany's placement and now I have a better understanding of where and with whom she spent the first ten months of her life.

Her first placement was with a foster mother and foster sister before she was placed in Holt's custody. They sent a wallet sized picture of themselves (now i finally know what they look like), a cd with close to a hundred pictures, five video clips, and Bethany's umbilical cord stump (yes, for real!).

I can't tell you how happy I was to receive all these things, especially the cd! You see, the only pictures I had of Bethany prior to her referral were the two referral pictures from Holt and the rest were pictures of her when she was six months and older. I always felt sad about not having pictures of her first five months of life and wondered how Bethany would feel about that once she got older.  I am so relieved and incredibly thankful to her first foster family for sending these. We know so little of Bethany's life as it is, that any glimpse into her life before adoption is something I greatly treasure.

only 4 days old

 1 month

 2 months

 3 months

In her fourth month, Bethany was placed through Holt and lived with her foster mother, father, brother and grandfather. This was news to me as it was my understanding that she had been with a foster mother and sister. Other than the items I received with Bethany when she arrived, this is the first time I've heard from them. The foster mother sent a beautiful letter. She misses Bethany very much and hopes to receive more updates in the future.

Although our final post placement visit is coming up in just a few days, I plan to continue sending letters and pictures to her birth mother and foster family. It's my earnest prayer that for Bethany's sake, we too will receive more items to be treasured from Korea.