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We have a biological daughter (now 10 yrs old) and a son who we adopted from Korea in 2005 (now 3). We introduced the idea to her once we were fairly far along in the adoption process, and she was very excited about it from the start. She loved the idea of being a "big sister". We just talked openly about it with her, and it went much more smoothly than I expected. (Probably not too different from what cara and Carlee wrote in their responses.)
Our daughter was approx. 6-7 years old at the time we went to Korea. We were gone for 7 days, and our daughter stayed with friends for a couple of days until my parents could get to Chicago to be with her. She was fine, and she was busy with school, soccer, playdates, etc. . . We sent emails and pics from Internet cafes in Seoul every other day.
I strongly recommend going to Korea if at all possible. Don't let your concern for your son be the reason to not go - he'll be fine. :-) It was a wonderful experience, and it provides a great background and context for knowing where your child is from. Plus, it was essentially a 7 day vacation of sightseeing, shopping and eating. After all the adoption stuff, it was a well-earned break. We went to our son's birthplace, and we spent 2 days taking pics, hiking in the mountains nearby and seeing where his biological mother and father were from.
As for the mixed race aspect, where we live in Chicago, there are many mixed race families (adoptive and otherwise), so it has not been a significant issue for us yet. Nevertheless, it's something we think about, read about and try to talk about regularly with our daughter and our son. I understand the nervousness, and I think it's normal. I was nervous about every aspect of the adoption process.
As for learning Korean, we tried to learn some before our trip, but it's a hard language for English speakers to pick up (IMHO). We have books and tapes, but we'll probably send our son to a local school where they teach Korean. That will require a real time commitment getting him to and from the school, so we'll see how that works out when that has to be coordinated with all the other stuff that fills our days.
Feel free to send me a PM if you have any other questions.
Dirk
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