So sad...

I was planning to post nursery pics either tonight or at least soon, but an unexpected turn of events has me not in the mood (though I promise I will soon). Don't worry, I'm fine and it has nothing to do with Cameron or the adoption, but last night I was reminded that I need to count my blessings every day...

I woke up last night around 1am and saw flashes outside. Thinking it was lightening I looked out the window expecting to find stormy weather, instead I saw several police cars, an ambulance and fire trucks parked just down the block. The house about 4 doors down from us was on fire, and apparently it was quite a blaze. I went outside since I saw several of the neighbors out there checking things out as well (we're all out roaming in our pj's at 1am, it was an interesting sight) and talked to a few of them for a while until the smoke got to be too much for us. They filled me in on which house it was, and we did know the people who owned the house, though not very well. They had bought it not more than a year and half ago and had completely gutted and remodeled the place. They had added on a huge garage with an addition above it and had sunk tons of money and time into the place. They had done all or at least most of the work themselves and the place was looking so nice. Well in an instant that beautiful house is pretty much gone! Their entire garage is burned to the ground and though the main structure of the house is still standing, it looks completely trashed and I doubt there is much salvageable there.

There is still no word on what started the fire but I'm guessing with all the paint, stain, etc. in there from the work they were doing it wouldn't take much to start it. It started in the garage somehow and quickly spread to the house. Thankfully the owners got out of the house in time, apparently one of their dogs was barking and woke them up and they discovered the fire. But I believe they had something like 5 dogs and I heard that one of them didn't get out, poor thing. It's all so incredibly sad, and house fires are scary enough when you see them on the news, let alone when it's happening on your block! So as much as I thought our social worker was crazy for having all those darned smoke alarms all over our house, I'm sure glad they are there today.

I miss my boy

Ok, don't laugh at me now, have a confession to make. Since we have come back from Guatemala to visit Cameron I go into his room at least once, sometimes several times a day, and just look around. I look through all his cute little clothes, his fun new toys, all of his stuff, and I just imagine him playing there. I turn on his little crib aquarium thingy and I listen to the music and watch the the lights and bubbles and I actually find it soothing so I know he's going to love that thing! I smell all the baby lotions I got from my shower, I even smell the diapers (clean ones, not dirty!) and those smells remind me of his sweet little baby smell.

Why do I torture myself this way?

Please Mr. PGN, sign our papers so our boy can come home! I miss him so much it hurts.

Almost to that point

This waiting game is hard. Harder than I ever would have imagined. You just can't understand until you are in the thick of it just how difficult it is. And while I know that all of our family, friends, co-workers, etc. are well meaning in their inquiries about our adoption process, I am just about to the point where I am going to rip someone's head off the next time I hear "Any news yet?". There is one woman in the choir I belong to who has asked me that very question every time I've seen her in the past two weeks. This normally isn't that often but we're in concert season so between rehearsal and performances I've seen her about 6 times! Today I finally said to her, "You know, I don't hear updates all that often so NOTHING is new since I saw you on Thursday night." Was that rude? Because I don't mean to be rude, I'm just telling it like it is. Besides, I'm pretty sure when the day arrives that we DO have good news to share people will NOT have to ask, I'll be shouting it out before they can even open their mouths to form a sentence! So I guess this is going to continue and there isn't much I can do about it, but it's annoying! Does anyone know of a giant rock that I can crawl under and hide from the world until we are out of PGN??

And as far as that goes, I'm trying to stay positive and believe that things truly are getting better in PGN though I just don't know if that's the case. I've been scouring the internet for news and have indeed read reports that yes people are getting out of PGN now, but I also hear that there are many still stuck, some cases from December, January, February...how is this fair? As much as I want our case to zoom through without problems, I also want those case that are "stuck" to be resolved so those families can move on as well. I can only pray that this new head of PGN gets his head out of his ass fairly shortly and realizes that he's only hurting the children of his country by not allowing them to move on to their forever families. So come on Mr. PGN dude (probably not his official title) let's get things moving down there!

Happy 6 Months Cameron!

Ok, his 6 month b-day was actually yesterday but I didn’t get a chance to post. I can’t believe our little boy is a half a year old already! I miss him so much and I just can’t wait until we can go back and bring him home forever! I’m praying that things in PGN start moving, not just for our sake but for all families who are waiting to bring their little ones home! In the mean time, happy "half" birthday baby, we’ll see you very soon!

A quick update

Sorry I've been MIA but it's been busy in my world. My New York trip was fast and chaotic but we got some stuff accomplished there. And I got to hang with my brother and SIL for a while which was super nice. I don't think I mentioned it before, but it turned out they were in NY at the same time as I was for vacation which was just the weirdest coincidence! They live in the San Francisco area and I'm in WI making it hard for us to get together, so it was really neat to be able to hook up with them in the big city! I wish we lived closer but unfortunately that's not the case.

Then my baby shower on Saturday was really nice and we got at TON of stuff! Once again I am so amazed at people's generosity, especially when babies are involved! Plus there were a lot of people there, I think I counted almost 30 people and that didn't even include some of our family and friends who will be invited to yet another shower that my husband's family is throwing later on! So we could potentially rake in a ton more loot before all is said and done! Cameron is one lucky little boy!

In adoption news, we finally got confirmation that our case entered PGN on April 28th which is great news! Unfortunately, we have been warned that there is a new person heading up PGN who apparently is not fond of adoptions and has said he won't be passing cases through quickly. Per our agency he feels that they are full of fraudulent documents and is telling his people to go over cases very closely. We have been told us to expect 4-6 weeks minumum time frame to be in PGN and not to be surprised if it takes much longer. So I'm psyched about that as you can imagine. As always it seems like we're finally getting somewhere then run into a brick wall. I'm trying to stay positive and hope for the best but at the same time I'm bracing myself for the worst. We'll see how this all turns out!

Moving on

Well...I knew that the massive high I was on last week after coming back from our trip was not going to last forever and I was correct. After almost a week of people asking how our trip was and gawking at pictures and asking the same questions over and over ("Was it hard to give him back?" and "Now when do you get to bring him home?" seem to be the favorites), the attention is getting to be not fun anymore and I'm feeling a little bit cranky. Don't get me wrong, I love that people are interested and care about what's happening in our lives, but now I'm trying to get back into my "normal" routine and not think about it because I'm going to drive myself insane! I'm just missing my little boy so much, it hurts SO MUCH to know that he's in Guatemala and I'm here and I have no clue how long it's going to be before we can bring him home. I'm just praying that we at least hear that we're in PGN soon (it's a holiday in Guatemala today so we didn't get an update from our attorney today as usual). Then I can start counting days, weeks, whatever and go from there. I know it may be a long haul but all we can do is hope for the best.

Anyway, at least I'm super busy with work and that is keeping me occupied. I'm actually traveling to New York on Wednesday and I'll be there until the end of the week so I'll be really busy and the week should go quickly. Unfortunately at the same time I'll be mostly computerless while I'm away! Eeek! I don't know if I can go 3 days without being able to check my e-mail every 5 minutes! It might just be my demise, I'm not kidding. I already told my boss that I'm going to confiscate her laptop at least twice a day so I can check my e-mails and make sure there's no news!

Then this coming Saturday after I get home my friends are throwing me a baby shower! I'm so excited and I can't wait! It's not even so much the gifts I'm psyched about (though that's obviously the main point of it and that'll be great), but it's more like I finally get to join this club that I've been trying to get into for so many years! The official "mommy to be" club! It's hard to explain but if you've deal with IF in your lifetime then I think you know what I mean. I've spent so many years avoiding baby showers, or going to them with a fake smile on my face and breaking down in tears all the way home. But this time it's so different and I'm so thrilled that I have these great friends who are doing this for me! But anyway, that's enough mush talk for tonight. Have a great week everybody!