Crawling out from under

I'll just jump right in--ya'll know I'm of course sorry for the hiatus!

I spent the first week of the month in Miami for a conference (well inside a hotel in Miami) and it was a long week of meetings, group sessions, dinners, late nights out, and more meetings. I did have a nice time, but since we had just returned from vacation, I was feeling very out of it until about mid-week. Then I couldn't stop worrying about all the things I had to do when I got home!

I worked last M-T-W and left on Thursday with my mom for my cousin's wedding in Wisconsin. We had a great trip. I hadn't seen my cousins since my wedding six years ago. I also got to meet the two newest members of our family (my cousins' kids) and I spent time with my aunt who adopted 25 years ago after a long battle with infertility. It was much more enjoyable than I expected and I am glad I was able to go.

In between my trip to Miami and my trip to Wisconsin, we spent hours scouring the house, attempting to make it shine for our SW. We had our first nearly 3 hour visit last Tuesday night and tonight is our second visit. All of our paperwork is submitted, we have passed our 'safety audit' for our home, and hopefully tonight, we will receive a date that we can expect our official approval--about 3 weeks from now.

Yesterday we worked on the final touches for our profile and finished for the hundredth time our letter for the birth family. I had to just put it down and walk away because every time I read it I wanted to change something. DH read it with me and we agreed on the final version--he said don't read it anymore. Of course I will before I send it to the design people tomorrow but I won't change anything. So our finished profile will be mailed tomorrow and we expect it to be complete for both print and online publishing within about a month.

The last piece is filling out the 'will accept' profile and reviewing it with the adoptive family SW at the agency. Since our agency does blind matching (birth family chooses adoptive family and you are automatically matched if your 'will accept' criteria is met/matches the birth family situation) we have to really consider all the social/medical issues we are willing to be okay with and once we've filled this out and discussed it with the SW, we will be activated. My goal was to be activated by July 1 but now it looks like it might be closer to the middle or end of July.

And then we wait.

We can't wait to just be waiting. Because then it is out of our hands. We will have done EVERYTHING possible to start our family, and we will have no other choice but to trust that God's plan is in process and that it will continue to develop and fulfill itself as it is meant to. I already take so much peace from that belief--it makes my heart relax and rejoice all at the same time.

We can't wait to just be waiting!


P.S. Here is the first baby item I have purchased for our future little one (and I actually can't seem to put it away...I love looking at it!)