Expecting from Ethiopia and Getting Stuff Done!

 

Isn't this necklace cute?!  I love it, annnnnnnnd I might need one!  The only problem is I can't remember which Etsy shop I found it in - oops!  

There are times during this adoption process when I feel a little jealous of my friends who are pregnant or have been pregnant, NOT because they had a biological child, and I am not; but because they got to have a physical reminder of what is coming.  I mean, you can't exactly ignore your belly at say, 36 weeks of gestation!  Ha!  I guess lately I've been really longing to have some adoption apparel, perhaps to sooth that very need in myself - I want to have something to remind me that I have (will have) a baby waiting for me on the other side of the world in less than a year.

Mr. C and I are in the process of making some super cute "Expecting from Ethiopia" t-shirt designs for our Cafe Press Shop, and I'm going to have to break down and buy one!  I guess I just want something physical to hold on to during this whole process; which is why I think the necklace above is so darn precious it nearly brings me to tears!

I've been been thinking about Baby C soooo much lately!  Not that I didn't before, but I think having moved into a house where there is a room painted and ready and purposefully set aside to be Baby C's is really hitting me hard.  I wonder daily the same things over and over: boy or girl?, what part of Ethiopia will s/he be from?, is his/her birth mother pregnant now? or will she get pregnant in the next few months?, are the birth parents together?, when will we get to travel to Ethiopia?, when will Baby C's birthday be?  And the list goes on and on and on forever.

It doesn't help that my mind is all over the place right now!  We've just moved into our new house; which is across town (about 20-30 minutes from our old house).  So far, we've managed to get loads done; but there's still LOADS to do!  All of this and adoption paperwork?  I might just lose my mind!

Anyway, I told myself that I need to start blogging about these little moments in the adoption process; or we would have Baby C home already, and I wouldn't have the time or memory to write them down.

Soooo, here's where we're at:  

We have scheduled our adoptive parent physicals for next week. 

We have contacted all of our friends and family members that will be our referrals for our home study, dossier, and official adoption agency application giving them SASE's, instruction sheets, and lots of THANK YOU'S!

We have contacted my OBGYN to get a special notarized letter from him saying that my surgery was a success, and I do NOT have pre-cancerous cells any longer (praise Jesus!). 

We have contacted a dossier service (KBS Dossiers) to help us authenticate our dossier documents. 

We have a conference call established with Gladney's Ethiopian in-country coordinator, Belay Tefasse, next week (majorly excited about this!).

We have gathered (nearly) all of our new "official documents" for our dossier (marriage licenses, birth certificates, divorce decrees, and all other such documents must  be no more than two years "old" at the time of the application/dossier process; so, we both needed new birth certificates and a new marriage license).

We have started filling out grant forms and loan applications.  (Note: If you are interested in adoption, but don't think you can afford it, just start searching around the web.  You will be surprised at how many grants are offered to help bring home special needs children and how many organizations offer low or no-interest loans to adopting parents.  I need to write a blog about this in the future to help those of you out who are interested; I think it would help a lot of people at least start their journey to have this info!)

Whew!  Now that I write it all out, it seems like we've accomplished a lot lately, doesn't it?  Hooray!  Now, I should also say that we have done all of this while having nearly ALL of our actual application type paperwork DONE.  Yes, all done!  By this, I mean that all of the "circle one", "fill in the blank with info", "write down your reasoning for ______" type of paperwork has been finished for about a week now.  I sat down one morning and starting writing and filling out and circling, etc.; and I didn't finish until about 4 o'clock the next morning, but I didn't care, it felt great to have that stuff done!

There's still so much left to do, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I went out and bought a fabulous 30-pocket, accordion folder to house all of the necessary info for Baby C's adoption - it's FULL!  Which makes me feel good, because that means we're accomplishing things! Yay!

Yeowza!  I didn't realize it was nearly 10!  I know it's not "that late", but when you've been moving for 4 days straight and barely sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours a night, it's LATE!  I've got to go to bed now...hopefully, Mr. C and I will keep up this frantic work pace on the adoption paperwork; so, that I'll have some more exciting updates for you all!

Sweet Dreams to You All!

*mandie*