Happy New Year!

I'm taking a break from obsessively checking my e-mail in the hopes that there will be some new info on our son (there isn't...) to just wish everyone a very happy 2006! It's been a wild year for my husband and I, and the coming year promises to be even crazier, but I can't wait for it to all happen! I know the wait is gonna be killer but it will be so worth it!

We are heading out to our friends' house tonight to have our "last hurrah" since next New Year's Eve we will most likely be home with our little one. We figure we better get out while we can and live it up as much as we can! Life is going to change in a big way very soon!

So HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone and I'll talk to you in 2006!

P.S. I changed my user ID to just be "Kristin" (that's me) instead of Kritter74. I'm not sure why I set myself up as that in the first place, I don't think I knew what I was doing when I set up my blogger account (I still don't really know what I'm doing but that's beside the point), but I'm coming clean with my real name now!

Post holiday musings

So all the build up and the shopping and hustle and bustle is over and another Christmas has come and gone. It was a good year for my hubby and I, though at times it was hard knowing that our son is down in Guatemala and we didn't get to spend his first Christmas with him. But we did get to spend some good quality family time AND got some good loot to boot.

My husband's brother and girlfriend got us our first gift for the baby, a sweet little outfit that has camping stuff and animals on it (perfect for us) and it just about brought me to tears. I didn't expect it from them, they are usually not that thoughtful! (Sorry but it's true!) Then my brother and sister-in-law sent us 2 books, "What to Expect the First Year" and "What to Expect in the Toddler Years" plus a big fat check which was totally unexpected and so incredibly generous of them! When we called to thank them they said they are so excited for us and they just really wanted to help with the expenses. I don't think they have any idea how much that meant to us, it was really a great surprise and I get teary just thinking about it! Do adoptive mothers get hormonal too?

Other than that we got at TON of DVD's, both movies and tv shows. It's amazing how many movies we got actually! My husband was joking that we should open up a movie rental place out of our garage to make extra cash! Hmmm...not a bad idea actually! Make a little cash AND pass the time before we can bring our baby home? Brilliant!

Unfortunately we have no new information on our son or any pictures yet. We met with our agency consultant today to finish up a few things and she was going to do some digging and see if she could get us an update and/or picture. It sounds like our contact in Guatemala is on vacation until January 9th though so we may not get anything until then! Ugh! I'm trying to be patient but that is a long time from now! I hope they can find something, even if it's not a good picture at least it's something! And I thought we would be able to send all of our paperwork to the consulate this week but it turns out we STILL don't have the final copy of our homestudy yet and probably won't until next week. Another Ugh! Our homestudy went from moving at the speed of light to moving at a snail's pace. We have been very patient and understanding because we know that our social worker had her baby very prematurely and has had obvious reasons to be slow in getting the paperwork finished but come on already! Time's up, we have a referral now, get 'er done!

Anyway, that's all for today! I hope everyone else had a nice holiday, whatever it is that you celebrate! One down, one to go! I'm looking forward to a very happy new year!

Thank you!

I wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog to congratulate us on our referral! I am simply amazed and overwhelmed with emotion over all the well wishes we have received from friends and family both online and in person. It's incredible how fast news can fly through word of mouth! We told a few people and they told a few more people...anyway it feels like now EVERYONE knows that we have a son! Inside I'm still insanely nervous that something will fall through and I know that it definitely could, but I'm trying to just stay focused and positive!

And there must be some angels watching over us at the post office and Secretary of State office because I sent out our request for state seals to go with our final 4 notarized documents on Wednesday morning and they arrived in Friday evening's mail! I specifically sent them out ASAP knowing that holiday mail would probably be slow and government offices would be closed...guess it didn't matter! That means after we meet with our agency consultant on Tuesday afternoon to check everything over we are ready to send our paperwork out! Another Christmas miracle all on it's own! Yahoo!

So thank you again to everyone! May you all have a very happy and blessed holiday!

Santa came a few days early!

Only hours after I posted yesterday wondering how long it would take to get a referral we got THE CALL! We now have a referral for a baby boy! Our son was born on November 15th in Mazatenango, Guatemala and is apparently a healthy little guy! We are thrilled to say the least. We don't have any pictures yet but hopefully soon! I'm actually surprised that he is over 4 weeks at the time of referral but that's just fine and thankfully we are all ready with paperwork and just have to take care of the power of attorney and witness forms and we are ready to send it all out! Yay!

We do have a name in mind but we haven't decided officially yet. Hopefully we'll see that picture soon so we can decide of the name fits the boy!

We are so excited! This is the best Christmas gift EVER!!!

Out and about

I spent the last few months not saying much about our adoption to people other than close friends and family because it was so early on in the process. But now that we are approved for the home study and on the waiting list for our baby I feel ready to take the plunge and be a lot more open about it. However, now that I am ready to talk I'm finding it's awkward to bring it up and I even get kind of nervous when I talk about it. It's weird because I am completely and totally excited about adopting and I'm eager to share this excitement with the rest of our friends, but I think maybe my problem is that I'm actually this really shy person and to have such big and exciting news puts me in a spotlight that I don't feel comfortable being in. I guess I better get over it because more and more people are going to find out now, you know how word-of-mouth goes! Maybe we let the cat out of the bag too soon?

So anyway, now we are "out" and I find it to be a big relief but it's also a strange feeling. I spent the last 4 years of my life avoiding babies and anything related to them, and now I find myself looking for cribs online during my lunch break! I also broke down and bought some clothes for our as of yet unknown bundle of joy, even though I swore I wouldn't do that until we had a referral and knew for sure it was a boy (we said boy was our first choice since the agency said there was nobody on the waiting list for boys, but we would be open to a girl too). But I couldn't help it! You see, I work for a children's clothing company and this past week for Christmas they offered us "employee appreciation" which was 40% off at our outlet store. Well I went there to buy clothes for our niece and nephew but I left with a sac full of clothes for our baby too! I found deals that I just couldn't pass up, and so much cute stuff! I got one little 0/3 month outfit that I hope to send in a little care package and the rest I got a little bigger in the hopes that he hasn't outgrown it by the time we get to see him! I guess I'm getting excited now...too bad we won't probably have any news on a referral until after the holidays but you never know!

Speaking of the referral, I'm not exactly sure how long that will take now. We decided to specify 2 different contacts in Guatemala that we would prefer to work with because they are faster than some of the others. (Thanks so much to Kim for the advice!) So it could take a little bit longer to get a referral, but we decided we would much rather wait for that and then possibly be able to bring our baby home younger. In the mean time we can get all of our paperwork done as far as we can and be "ready" when we get the call! I guess we better get cracking and decide on some names! :)

Sick

I would just like to thank my darling husband for sharing his germs with me. I now have the cold he has had for 2 weeks and is finally getting over and I feel like a big pile of poop. I realize part of marriage is sharing, but germs should be excluded! I knew I should have put him in a plastic bubble until he stopped sneezing! ;)

Tagged!

My friend Kim has tagged me in so I will give this a try!

Seven things to do before I die (not in order of priority):

1. Become a mom (almost there!)
2. Learn to speak another language
3. Learn to play the guitar
4. Teach my husband how to fold clothes properly
5. Build a big house and move out into the country
6. Lose weight and actually keep it off
7. Go on a cruise


Seven things I cannot do:

1. Knit or crochet
2. Draw freehand
3. Play any musical instrument
4. Not eat any kind of baked good or junk food item that is presented to me
5. Do math without a calculator
6. Lose weight and actually keep it off (see above)
7. Drive a stick shift vehicle


Seven things that attract me to my spouse:
1. His stunning blue eyes
2. His sense of humor
3. His ability to calm me down when I'm freaking out about something
4. His caring personality
5. The way he tells me he loves me all the time, even when I have been in a bitchy mood all day
6. I know he will do just about anything for me
7. He's just so darn cute!


Seven things I say most often:

1. Hey guys, what's happening? (In the tone of the boss from Office Space)
2. Gotta go outside? (to my dogs)
3. Good girl! (again...dogs)
4. Holy crap!
5. Molly, Maggy...Come here!
6. What?
7. I'm tired


Seven books (or series) I love:

1. The Harry Potter Series
2. Any mystery novel by Mary Higgins Clark
3. Childhood Fave: Charlotte's Web
4. The Lord of the Rings
5. Novels by Nora Roberts
6. Little House on the Prairie series (another childhood fave)
7. Lillian Jackson Braun's "The Cat Who..." series (Is that dorky? My mom got me into those books!)


Seven movies I watch over and over again:

1. All three Lord of the Rings movies - The extended DVDs of course!
2. Sleepy Hollow (with Johnny Depp)
3. Saving Silverman
4. Office Space
5. A Knight's Tale
6. Notting Hill
7. All of the Harry Potter movies


Seven people I'm curious about that I'd like to join in:

This is really tough for me since I don't know of many people who actually read my blog but haven't been tagged already! I'll pick the one person I know of...
1. Dennise (Though she may be busy getting ready for her trip to visit her little girl!)

Then there are a couple people who read my blog but don't have their own...perhaps it's time to start one? (Or just give your answers as a comment to this post!)
2. Aussie Jenn
3. Kerri

I'll just stop there...but if you DO read my blog feel free to post a comment so I know and then I'll add you to the list below!
4.
5.
6.
7.

Nothing new

Ho hum…nothing much to talk about. It’s funny because when I started this blog I thought I would have so much to say but I guess we are just in a limbo state now. I have gotten a little more into the Christmas spirit and did a little decorating and power shopped my way through the majority of our list. I hope our family doesn’t expect as much from us as they received in years past since we are on a much tighter budget this year. They’ll get over it.

No news on a referral yet, not that I’m surprised since it’s only been a few days, but I guess we could technically hear something at any time. That is exciting but it also makes me sad to think that there are so many women in that country that have to make the decision to give up their child. I have actually been thinking about that a lot lately and I get a little emotional over the subject. I cannot imagine having to give up my child but I feel so thankful and blessed that we are able to give that child a better chance in life than they would have had otherwise. At least I hope we can, I have been feeling a little insecure in my parenting abilities lately but that is a subject for another day…

So I’ll leave you with a shot of Molly, Santa’s back-up reindeer, with her faithful sidekick Tabby the cat. She is waiting patiently for “the call” in case she is needed this year, in the mean time she's hanging out watching Animal Planet!

Winding Down

Well, our home visit on Friday was quick and painless and our home study is officially complete. Our social worker said she should have it all typed up and ready to go by the end of this week. We have all of the reference letters and documents that we need for the dossier paperwork, now we just have to send out for state seals on everything (what a pain…in WI we have to pay $10 per state seal, one for each notarized document in our dossier packet which equals 18 seals total). Our international coordinator told us she had the agency put us on the waiting list as soon as she had verbal confirmation that the home study was ok, so we could get a referral at any time even though we aren’t quite paper ready!

And while I’m thrilled that everything is coming together and the paper chase is calming down a bit, I feel that I am slowly but surely losing control of the situation. As soon as we get a referral and all the documents are sent out all we can really do is wait. And I don’t like to wait. I must admit that throughout our 4 years of TTC I learned to have much more patience than I had in the past, but that doesn’t mean I like sitting around waiting for things to happen! So I know that once I don’t have reference letters to chase down, applications to fill out, or social workers to tell my life story to, I am going to go just a little bit nuts with the waiting!

Anyone have any words of advice for a control freak like me? How do I go from a constant state of impending deadlines to sitting back and letting things happen without going insane? Am I going to have to resort to actually Christmas shopping, decorating and writing out Christmas cards?!? The horror of it all! ;)

No Holiday Focus

I cannot get into the Christmas season this year. The only thing my mind can focus on right now is the task at hand...finish homestudy...finish dossier paperwork...send everything out...wait. Maybe when I get to the "wait" part I will be able to think about decorating and shopping a little, but not this week! So everyone (and I am talking about overly-exuberant offline friends and family, not my blog and e-mail friends) please stop asking me if I have my house decorated yet, if we have our tree up, if we have our Christmas shopping done...the answer is NO, NO and NO! And for heaven's sake stop asking me what I want for Christmas! When I say "CASH" I am not kidding, do you know what my bank account looks like right now?

Whew...back to cleaning the house! Home visit is today at 4pm!!