Korean Court

We were submitted to the Korean Court on January 29th and waited for what seemed like forever to hear of our court date assignment. And then on March 19th, we finally got the email we were waiting for. The email that gave us a "finish line." The email that told us we would get to meet our daughter!

We were given a court date for May 3rd. This was 7 weeks out, which was a little sad for us as that seems like so far away. But a date is a date and we were so excited to be able to book our trip to our baby's birth country! We immediately got our flights and hotel booked. We were so excited, although we wished we were leaving the next day!

Here is what our itinerary will look like:
April 27 PM - Leave Chattanooga
April 29th - Arrive in Seoul at 4AM (yup, you heard that right. Super early!) We plan on exploring all day and fighting jetlag. We will be staying in Insadong and I cannot wait to explore this amazing neighborhood!!
April 30th - The day we meet our precious baby Lyla! We will attend our first group meeting and meet our Lyla and her foster family.
May 1st- We will have a city tour provided by our adoption agency.
May 2nd - (Madilynn's birthday) We will get to see Lyla again! And we will also be prepped for out court hearing.
May 3rd - Our court date! The judge, who reviewed all of the paperwork we have sent to Korea, will ask us a few questions which should only take about 10 minutes and then we will be done! I've heard it's the easiest part of the whole process! haha.
May 4th - We get an extra visit with our sweet Lyla because she will be at a playgroup at the adoption agency and we were approved to be able to join her!
May 5th PM - We head back home and continue to pray that God gets back to Korea soon!

Once we complete our court hearing, the judge will send the initial ruling of the approval for the adoption to the birth parents by certified mail. The amount of time for this to be mailed out will vary upon each judge’s work load. Once the court receives confirmation back that the birth parents received this notification, the 14 day waiting period will begin. We should  be notified of the final decree being issued about 4-5 weeks following the court appearance date. If the birth mother did not confirm notification, the case will go to public notice.  If a case goes to public notice it takes about 8-10 weeks from your court appearance until our decree is issued. But we are praying that we will be back in Korea late May/early June!