The Baders Adopt

04/18/2023

It’s been a while since we had anything new to update. We have been pursuing adopting from Korea. Per Korea’s guidelines, there must be at least a year age gap in “placements” and a child can not be adopted out of birth order of biological siblings in an adoptive family home. Zelda was considered a “placement” by Korea’s policies. Now that her first birthday has passed, we are officially back in communication with our agencies getting the ball rolling again.

Today we filed an extension for our USCIS I-600 (petition to classify an orphan as an immediate relative) and were advised due to the length of time it takes to process Korean adoptions…we will be likely looking at having to update our home study 2-3 times. The reason for this is because birth rates in Korea are historically low right now. The average adoption process now takes between 20-30 months. More women are choosing to either not relinquish their child in single mother scenarios or choosing to not get pregnant.

Anytime a need for adoption is lowered is a positive change! As a future adoptive family…we still believe adoption should be the last resort for a child after all possible safe and nurturing options have been exhausted. That being said, Korea still has very low domestic adoption rates within their country. Orphans and adoptees are still treated as second class citizens in their culture. We do not take the loss our future child will experience lightly. We also know that Korea treats international adoption as a last resort for its orphans. We still believe a child would have the best shot at thriving, feeling unconditionally loved and celebrated for who they are by being raised in our family rather than spending their entire childhood in a system. We are still committed to learning the culture and submerging our family in diversity in our attempts to give our child the best life possible. Our adoption is still moving, it will just be a long road. Slowly, but surely. Thank you for sticking with us. 💗

07/14/2022

As we patiently wait out our ”waiting game” until Zelda’s age is compatible with Korean adoption guidelines, we continue to do our research and do our best to learn from experiences of adoptees of multi cultural families. Listen to this & learn with us! ❤️

Reply to Adoption is not a happy ever after family building tool. Perspective parents must be ready and willing to do the work. It is not about you. The systems in place fail children and their families at every turn. We need to focus on supporting and resources. We need better systems...

05/04/2022

I apologize we have been quiet for a while. After a complicated pregnancy, our daughter Zelda made her way into the world via induction at 34 weeks. After a couple weeks in the NICU, she is finally home and thriving. That being said, we have reached back out to Eastern to notify them we are ready to end the pause on the adoption process. (As a reminder, Korea does not let you adopt out of birth order or during a pregnancy). Now that Zelda is here, the timeline resumes again.

Korea’s wait time to receive a referral is still quite lengthy. Once Zelda is at least a year old, we will be permitted to accept a referral. So in the meantime, we will be updating our home study and keeping our documents current as we patiently wait!

03/10/2022

💯💯💯

We are excited to welcome both our biological child later this spring and our Korean child hopefully later this year or early next year into our family.

We are excited to embrace, celebrate, and learn about the unique multicultural aspects that will build our family.

We are excited to teach all our children to embrace and celebrate what makes them unique and what makes the humans they interact with in the world unique.

We are excited to teach our children how to love and how to be loved as we do our best to teach ourselves daily.

12/30/2021

Just sharing this again since it has been a while! ❤️

12/03/2021

11/12/2021

Hey everyone! Just wanted to make a few clarifications on our adoption process as it recently became a little more complex!

While we are expecting a biological child due in May…we are 100% absolutely confirmed still pursuing this adoption. We recently received our approval from USCIS. (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.) This means we have full permission from the United States to adopt overseas. We have also already been home study approved and accepted by our adoption agency prior to this acceptance.

South Korea and our adoption agency policies state that we have to wait for the child we are expecting to be born before they will allow us to accept a referral. (A referral is essentially detailed files containing information on a child classified as an orphan and eligible for adoption.) This policy is in place mainly due to safety precautions of long international flights while pregnant. South Korea also does not allow families to adopt out of birth order, meaning the child we are adopting cannot be matched to us until after the child we are expecting arrives.

Once this child is born..we then notify our agency and will then be able to review and accept a referral. The average waiting time to receive a referral from South Korea is currently 6-9 months. Once we accept our referral…court date and travel arrangements come next.

Thank you so much for your support and your patience through this intricate process. We full heartedly believe children belong in families and are still dedicated to welcoming an orphan as our son or daughter.

Institutions can’t be a long term solution for children without families/kin to take care of them. Growing up in an unconditionally loving, accepting, welcoming, nurturing, consistent, stable, supporting family is absolutely critical. We are beyond grateful for everyone supporting us as our family grows from one to three children in this unique way. ❤️

10/30/2021

Major update #2!

We have a new website, and our old one will be going away. This is something we've been looking forward to for a long time. Since we are now partnered with Lifesong for Orphans, all donations through THIS website will be tax-deductible!

My husband Jared and I have always shared the dream of adopting. While we have a biological son of our own, Edison, we dream to commit our family to loving an orphan and making them our son or daughter. We …

10/29/2021

We are growing our family by two! Our family is not only growing through adoption..but also through a bonus baby! Expecting baby # 2 due in May 2022! So now the child we are adopting, will be baby #3! After this baby arrives..we will then be able to receive and accept a referral. The average wait time for a referral from South Korea is 8-9 months. We now have to wait until this child is born to begin that timeline. And…waiting is hard! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported our little family in this adoption journey. It definitely took an unexpected turn! 🤣 We’re excited to welcome two new little ones in the near future!

10/12/2021

This morning we met with USCIS to take care of required biometric readings! We will have more updates soon. Right now we are in quite a big waiting game. Thank you so much to everyone who has been patiently fighting for this child alongside us. As soon as we have more official updates to follow, we will keep everyone posted!