After reading the article I have included below, I decided I wanted to reflect a little bit on the grief Pete and I (and our family and friends) experienced following our failed adoption.
I don't think I'll ever be able to write the whole story.
What I'm ready to share is the moments and days following it all.  We waited in the hotel lobby with a social worker from CPS for the boys Mother and Grandmother to arrive to get them.  I was holding "Miles" and Pete was holding "Timothy", I don't remember much about this, other than time seemed to be moving very slowly, and passing way to quickly all at the same time.  I just kept kissing them both and fighting back tears, readjusting their swaddles and hats to make sure they would be warm in the cold Michigan air.  His Mom arrived, we walked them to the car, lots of tears and hugs and Pete secured them in the car seats, and they were gone.
We cried the entire walk back to the hotel room.  Once inside, the room was a chaos of baby things, I fell to the floor and sobbed like I never have before, and haven't since.  Those minutes were a defining moment for our marriage.  In fact, the whole experience was changing us as a couple, but those moments, alone, the babies gone, and the chaos reminding us that only a few short moments before they were there, I felt closer to Pete than I ever knew was possible.  I think it was the first time I really let myself let go of any control I ever thought i had over my life, and just "be" with the person that matters the most to me in the whole world. In all our broken messy sadness.  I'm not going to share the details of what we discussed, or the intimacy of being so broken with someone else, but it was, I think, the epitome or what sacramental marriage is meant to be.  We packed up the car rather quickly and started the five hour drive home.  We didn't want to spend another minute in that city.
While we ventured home, our family and friends were busy cleaning our house of all things baby, and stocking our refrigerator.  Let me just say, this action of love, on a Saturday night was unbelievably humbling and helpful.  Words are failing me.  How you express the gratitude you feel for such an act is beyond me.  So blessed.  So understood. I would not have been able to walk into our home with those reminders.  If you have someone in your life who has a failed adoption, offer to do this, I promise you, they will feel your love.  The next day at my parents house I had a conversation with my sister-in-law on the back deck, and while I don't remember exactly what we talked about, I remember she was crying right along with me, and this gave me strength in a way.  Our families lost those boys that day too, the ones that met them and the ones that only dreamed about them.
My parents had been with us for most of our time in Michigan, if they had not, we would not have survived it, I'm serious. Nothing I can say about what they did for us will do it justice.  They know, and we know.  They left the morning we returned the boys to their Mother, not knowing at that time that would happen later that day.  I begged them to continue on their journey home after discovering she had changed her mind, and reluctantly they did.
We spent time with Pete's parents later that same week, and went over all of the craziness of the experience.  They embraced us, they understood.  More love, more support, all of what we needed.

Now, five months later, we are waiting for a 13 month old boy in South Korea!  And I can't wait to hold him!

So I guess what I'm saying is, no one grieves the same, no ones experience is ever identical, so when i share things like the following article, don't assume that everyone experiences their grief like this.  Just know that for all those people in your life that may have or had a failed adoption don't minimize their experience.  Feel it with them, love them through it, and help them find the joy in the journey.

http://stillstandingmag.com/2014/02/grieving-child-never-died-grief-failed-adoption/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=stillstandingmagazine

I really am the worst with keeping up the adoption blog.  I guess I feel like when you wait there isn't much to share, its rather boring for the observer. But, here goes nothing.
Since my last post we are officially waiting, we've got all the appropriate approvals that we can get until we arrive in Korea.  Things are looking as hopeful as they can on that front.  It still doesn't feel real. Perhaps because of our failed adoption I have walls up, I just can't seem to let myself embrace it fully.  I still look at his picture and cry everyday, I'm still buying things, but in the back of my mind I think "just be ready for this to not work out".  The counselor in me recognizes this for what it is, and I'm oddly peaceful about it.  If there is one thing I've learned in the past two years with all of this, its nothing is certain, you have little control, and there is no point pretending it to be otherwise.
Don't get me wrong. I'm excited. We are slowly getting the house ready.  Very slowly. I'm trying to imagine what life will be like this time next year, and I really can't even wrap my head around that.
Since baby boy will be a little older and because its international, we are going to have return to our plan for bringing him home like we have with our Ethiopian adoption.  That means that at least for a month pete and I will be the only ones meeting our sons needs.  He has to learn that we are his parents and that we provide for him. That means if he cries we are the only ones to comfort him, when he is hungry we feed him, we change his diapers.  That doesn't mean our friends and family can't love on him, (wild horses couldn't stop that anyway :) ) Its just for a little while we need to help him trust us.
The general consensus on this is about one month for every year the child has lived apart from you.  This of course can vary from child to child.  We will cross that bridge when we get to it.