Monday, September 26, 2011

3 weeks

In 3 weeks we will be on a plane bound for ET, we will finally get to meet her!!  I would be lying if I said that I was not feeling a bit anxious! I have started having dreams about the flight, being in Africa and meeting CC.  They have been pretty vivid dreams (this is normal for me when I am anxious) everything from missing our Court date to bright pink and blue bugs that are poisonous! That dream came the day we got vaccinated!
When I look back at some of my first blogs, I realized I have come full circle I went from being nervous about being a mom,cooking, hair, schools...to it being all about the process.  I am now back to thinking about those mom things again and getting nervous!  Excited of course but nervous nonetheless, nervous to meet her.  She is 7, she has an idea what is happening, this meeting will be part of her memory of  her forever family.  As I think about this I think (overthink) all the details, the soap we use, that smell will be something she is aware of forever, the clothes if not plain we wear could be something she remembers, if my nails are painted that could stand out for her (good or bad) it is all these tiny little things that make memory's and while they seem insignificant alone, together what they create can be very powerful.  Does this mean that I am debating nail polish color and spending hours at bath & body works, nope, not at all just thinking about it all! Although if I don't get a skirt or dress that is long the judge may throw me out!!!
In 3 weeks my world will be rocked and boy I can't wait!  Now I just need to get packing and shopping!!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

30 Days...

30 days until we meet her, hug her, kiss her. In 30 days our life will change forever, not that it has not already begun, but then it will all be real.  It is hard to believe we started this journey a year and 4 months ago and now it is coming. I asked Duane today if there was anything left he wanted to do before we became parents, neither of us could think of 1 thing!
I need to make a list of all that we do NEED to accomplish before she comes home.  While it is "just" the court date and she will not yet come home with us, time is getting away and there are things to be done.
We are still learning Amharic and I never managed to learn to cook Ethiopian food, going to rely on restaurants at this point. I can't stress about it!
Her room is done, but we are still deciding on her school, we have it narrowed down and are almost positive but still need to meet the teacher and do an observation.
There are small things around the house that need to be done, some functional, some "safety" even though she is not a toddler there is so much she won't know.
Then there is preparing to go on leave at work, while I am very excited about this, it could be right at Holiday season and I am in retail, so again I am THRILLED at this thought (it has been years since I have not worked a holiday) the stress of what I will come back to scares me a bit.
But most of all I am frantic about the first trip stuff, the paperwork (new updated stuff to do), plus bringing all the right paperwork, donations, clothes, cameras...do we have the right luggage? How much is too much? too little?
In 30 days none of this will matter, I will be holding her (if she will let me!) and life will be perfect!  I just have to get through the next 30 days!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Potential Court Date

This was the subject line of an email I received last Thursday from my caseworker.  The email went on to say, we have exciting news, you have a potential court date of xx-xx-xxxx, however due to that day being a Saturday we think it might be an error, so we are checking and as soon as we know we will get back to you....
today is Tuesday...I am sure you will all be shocked (HUGE amount of sarcasm) when I say we have not heard back from them...why have we not heard back...not sure, but could it be because it was ET New Year yesterday and I am sure they were not working Friday, yesterday or today (probably that is why they don't see cases). 
I started thinking about a year ago (and a few months) when we started this process and all the roadblocks we hit along the way.
1. Homestudy agency did not tell us they were only homestudy and that we would have to contact WH ourselves (not a huge deal but...)
2. Homestudy agency said you can have your social work visit without your Dr. appts- oh wait (3 weeks later, no you can't)
3. then there was the every famous slicing of Duane's finger 2 days before our fingerprints were to be taken
4. or how about the Friday following the Thursday we sent in our FINAL paperwork to officially be waiting and everyone (not WH) announced hey all adoptions are going to take a billion years longer than we thought!

I am sure I am leaving some stuff out...but you all get the point.  Here is the coolest thing ever though, it took God to allow ALL that to get us matched with our girl (as most of you know we started out on the sibling route).  It was all part of the process, I cried, I screamed, I panicked and now it all seems so insignificant because we are matched with our little girl and we will meet her so soon.  So am I frustrated because I have a potential court date and we are in a holding pattern on flights, asking off for work and a number of other things, sure I am.  But am I freaking out, crying, saying why me...not at all.  There is no telling what cool thing is happening right now due to this! We are meeting our CC soon and that is all that matters to me! 

We are coming baby girl- He is bringing us all together!!