I knew at age 19 that getting pregnant would not be an easy task. What should have been a routine appendectomy ended up costing me a fallopian tube. Not to mention the fact I had suffered from PCOS pretty much since the onset of puberty.
So when I married my high school sweetheart at 23, I didn’t want to waste much time before starting a family. I knew it wouldn’t come easy for us. We started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist for treatments shortly after our first anniversary. After 18 months of medications and procedures, all unsuccessful, we decided to take a break. During this break my husband and I discussed adoption. My sister had adopted twice from Korea and we couldn’t have loved those boys more. We looked into domestic and international adoption but realized we could not afford such a great expense. We went back to the fertility clinic after a short break and started our first IVF cycle. The medications involved made me very sick and the procedure did not work. We had 2 embryos left and after a few months’ break, we transferred those. That didn’t work either. Insurance had paid for almost everything up to this point but we were very close to our maximum benefit amount. I had said from the beginning that if we had to pay out-of-pocket for fertility treatments, then we would stop. I could not justify the expense for something that might never work. That was March 2010.
My husband and I briefly looked into international adoption again, but due to our age and length of marriage, we qualified for very few countries. The only country we felt drawn to was Korea, and all the agencies in our state were no longer accepting new families into their Korea programs. We knew we wanted to be parents and decided we would enroll in the foster-to-adopt program run by the state. We would become foster parents and hoped to adopt out of the foster care program. We spent the entire summer of 2010 taking parenting classes, doing background checks, and getting the house ready to become foster parents. Two weeks before we were set to get our first foster child my sister called and told me to check my email. She had forwarded an email she had received from her adoption agency. They had an abundance of baby boys that needed homes in Korea. Since their program had closed to new families they had more babies than they had families wanting to adopt. I sent in our initial application the next day, September 28, 2010, praying that we would be able to figure out how to pay for an international adoption. By the grace of God, we found the perfect solution to pay for adoption and we proceeded. We completed our home study and we began our wait for a referral in November 2010.
January 26, 2011 is the day that changed my life. I became a mother. We received the medical information and pictures of a 7 month old boy waiting for a family. We accepted right away and began the agonizing wait for permission to travel to pick him up. We received that call June 23, 2011 and met our son for the first time July 12, 2011 in Korea. Our son was 13 months old at the time.
Tired after 24 hours of travel.
Adoption is hard. We loved a baby for nearly 6 months from half the world away. It was hard not knowing if he was happy or sad, wondering if he was learning to walk or talk. But as hard as it was for us, it was even harder on my son. He had no idea we existed. He had been living with a foster family since he was one month old. This was the only family he knew. He heard and was learning to speak Korean. He was eating Korean food. He only knew the sounds, sights, and smells of Korea. And here were two very different strangers taking him away from every single thing he knew and depended on. And at only 13 months old, there was no way to prepare him for what was happening. To say he was confused and scared is an understatement. He cried as hard as his little body could on the way back to our hotel. I knew from my sister’s experience (and the many other adoptive families I met along the way) that the best way to bond was by carrying my new son in a carrier. Children in Korea are usually carried on their mother’s back for the first couple years of life. My son’s foster mother carried my son on her back as she cooked, cleaned, and ran errands. So I borrowed my sister’s Ergo for our trip. It was the most important piece of luggage we brought. As my son grieved his losses during the night, my tired arms were given a much needed break. My son was held very close to my chest but I had my arms free to make him a midnight bottle. I kept him close to me while navigating the subway system in a foreign country. I walked up and down the airplane aisles during our long 13 hour flight home. I had him strapped to my chest to unload from the plane and wait in the long line at Customs in the airport.
As he started to settle in to our family, he needed to be carried in the Ergo less and less. And then the holidays came. Large groups scared him. He didn’t feel safe and feared being taken away again. So I spent Thanksgiving with him securely strapped to my back. Christmas was the same. Every single time he got nervous or fussy, I would pull out the Ergo I purchased a week after coming home and he would clap his little hands and cheer. When my husband started working on weekends, I would mow the yard with my son on my back so I knew he wouldn’t run in the street. I cooked dinner with him on my back so he could see what I was doing but couldn’t touch the hot stove. I carried him (at the age of 2 and 30 pounds) through our state fair so we didn’t have to navigate his stroller through the crowds. I still carry him sometimes. I take the Ergo out when we go shopping. When his little legs get tired, I just sling him on my back and we go about our day. He loves being carried on my back and I love carrying him. Being 4’11”, it was difficult for me to find a carrier that could adjust to my height without the straps digging into my armpits. I trekked all through Korea without a single sore muscle from carrying my brand new, 25 pound baby. I could mow my yard without missing a single step. The Ergo truly has made my life so much easier.
This post was submitted by reader Paula Odle as part of our Adoption Awareness Month Series. This post originally appeared here on Paula’s blog. Paula has been married to her husband, Andrew for 7 years. They have a two-year-old son, Nathan. They adopted their son through Holt International Children’s Services. She runs a daycare in her home so she is able to stay with her boy.
Christina is a mama, conservationist, DIY’er, vintage fanatic, dog lover and the Ergobaby director of community.
She is passionate about babies, babywearing, birth, yoga, natural living, and healthy eats. When not online reading and writing about all of the above, she can be found spending time with her daughter, creating their family story in Los Angeles.
