David's Story
By Melissa & Peter K
After two rounds of unsuccessful IVF treatments, my husband and I examined several agencies and read "Adoption For Dummies". During the research phase, a question kept popping up: Just how do you decide from where your child should come? Peter and I met with Maryanne Ludwig, who helped us form a plan to run a domestic adoption through a "local" Florida agency and an international adoption through WHFC. There were only two countries whose paperwork and requirements were flexible enough for our plans: Guatemala and South Korea. With Maryanne’s help, we chose South Korea.
For us, the home study and South Korea paperwork took about 3˝ months each to complete. By May 2006, we had officially entered the South Korea program and were awaiting our referral. By early September, we were tearing open a package to view the pictures of the little boy who would someday call us Mama and Dada. Just before Thanksgiving, WHFC had said it would be another month or so, and considering the holidays, it may even be closer to February or March before our son came home. One week later we received another call – he was coming home in six days!!!
I remember saying that walking back and forth in the Tampa Airport greeting area was like my labor. My husband said that we had waited all those months to be a bigger family, a few minutes more would be O.K. - but it still drove me crazy. When I watch the video of our greeting David, I realize that his happy smile has hardly left his face. We thank his birth and foster parents on a regular basis. We are also grateful for all those who helped us on our journey. Feeling blessed, we are very proud to call David our son.