Our Family Day...

Friday was the day we were to go and pick up our little man. After filling out the adoption forms in Sept 2009, getting matched with him in November 2010...it was FINALLY time for him to be a forever part of our family.

Mason walked into our room that morning wiping tears out of his eyes. He said "I'm crying happy tears! I'm finally going to be a brother again!" (Which of course made me cry happy/sad tears, too!)

To say we were feeling nervous would be a huge understatement. We knew it was going to be a long, hard journey ahead of us. We also knew it was going to be an amazing, wonderful journey ahead of us. There were about a million different emotions we were feeling that day. I was more nervous on Friday than I was on Tuesday when we met him! We circled around as a family & held hands and prayed. We prayed for each of us during this new chapter in our lives. We sat out the various Pororo and Tayo gifts that we purchased for him on the table for him to see when he got back to the hotel. We sure had fun shopping for him!


We showed up at Eastern a little early & we were going to go to the guest house to see if any of my online adoption friends were there. We were surprised when we walked up the steps to see Madden standing there. He saw us and squealed and ran right over to us. It was amazing to see that he recognized us and was excited to see us!








We waited until our social worker showed up and led us up to the observation room to give us his pre-flight report and allowed us to spend a little more time with him and his foster family before we left with him. We all had fun playing together & Mason & Millie loved playing with his foster brother.






We were then led downstairs for prayer before we were taken back to our hotels. When the elevator doors opened, I saw my friend, Ashley standing there and I just lost it. I hugged her and we both cried. We knew our boys were giving so much up, we knew our foster moms were grieving, and we knew our futures were from that moment on forever changed. It was such a crazy, powerful mix of emotions that just started flooding. Then, Mrs. Kim started praying a prayer over the boys. I just stood there with my arm around our foster mom as she held Madden. I just kept wiping tears and just prayed that we would all somehow be ok. After the prayer ended, our foster mom walked around the corner with Madden, knelt down, hugged him and said her goodbyes. It was heartbreaking to watch. Madden's foster brother walked over and wiped my tears with his kleenex. It was soooo sweet how kind and caring he was for me, even though he was losing his little brother. We then were told to walk outside and to get inside the van. After climbing in, the social worker placed Madden in my arms, the foster mom climbed in and said a final goodbye, our friends did the same thing and then the van door shut and we drove off. I just kept hugging on him and wanted him to know that everything would be ok. He did great on the car ride to the hotel and we knew that a new chapter in the life of our family had just begun. In the van, Mason said "You're gonna be with us now, Madden!"

Someday I'll upload the video of the goodbye and prayers...today I'm not ready to watch that goodbye again.

Welcome to our family, Madden YeongJin Penn. We are so grateful we get to call you our son!