Congratulations are in order.

I wanted to send out a giant congratulations to all who have recently returned home with their Vietnamese treasures and for those that will be traveling soon. For the rest of us waiting, paperchasing, and waiting some more. I pray our patience will sustain us and may we be distracted by mudane (sp?) things and completing housework and projects until our little ones come home. (Maybe that will make the wait easier.)

Click, the movie

Wow. I was not expecting this movie to be so darn emotional. It sounded like such the stupid far-fetched comedy to go see and lift your spirits. Boy, was I wrong. Granted, it had it's funny moments, but it had a moral. What Adam Sadler movie is supposed to have a moral?!? Oh well. I guess I will have to go back to reading movie reviews so I can know what to expect.

Sheer sadness

(I just posted this and Blogger ate it. Grrrrr.....)

Today I got a call from my agency's Director that she needed to clarify which country I was going with, Guatemala or Vietnam. She had a note on her desk and wanted to double check. I said I was going with Vietnam and that I had just sent the updated information to CIS. She said okay, because we just got a boy in. As soon as I got off the phone with her I started sobbing uncontrollably. This would have been my son. I could have been posting pictures of my new little guy right here, right now. This is just heartbreaking. I wish money were never an issue. I thought I was a patient person and now I can see, I am not as patient as I would like to be. I am not even that far along in the process and I'm already tired of waiting. I just pray for those that are farther ahead and have been waiting for much longer are able to endure. This is so emotionally difficult at times. I feel sorry for my friends who are trying to be supportive and there is really nothing that they can say or do to make me feel better. If you've never been through it, you really have no idea.

On a positive note: The mobile fingerprinting agency came today to take g-ma's 2nd set of prints. They didn't get them all (she's 84 and very wrinkly-fingered), so hopefully they can just do a background check and see that her record is clean.

Nesting

Of course I'm nesting, it's midnight, what else would I be doing. Not sleeping! That would be crazy. I just changed the title of my blog to reflect the now new distance to Hanoi (7,474 miles instead of the 2, 522 to Guatemala). I am deleting all my Guatemala references as I am sure I will devote hours of research when I decide to adopt my son from there. Sleep tight, nest tonight, get some sleep another night.

Mark THIS off your list

I couldn't be happier. My medical is done. And my doctor is an ass. I know, that's not very nice, but he is so rude. I really need him to stop suggesting that the only way I am going to be able to avoid cancer is if I get pregnant. Oh, and to share some new findings or laws that the government says or has made about same sex marriages is just not okay. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.) It's just that I'm not gay, so I don't follow the gay rights movements or laws, but how nice of him to suggest. Again, what an ass! Let's hope I have very little dealings with him in the future.

I met with the gal in my agency that is working with the Vietnam adoptions and she didn't seem too knowledgeable about the other agency they work with, but I still feel confident that they know what they are doing. Now to collect the info. for my dossier and sent in a country fee for Vietnam. I finally have a country. I wonder how many miles away VN is? I'll have to google that. :)

Keep it Fresh and New

It has been said that if you don't have anything to say, type something in your blog anyway. So, I will! I have been very, and I mean, over-the-top, don't even say the word 'baby' in the house. Emotional!! I think I just needed a morning meltdown, where I could blubber and sob and in the end, feel a little better. I just want my baby home now! I'm TIRED of waiting, I'm SICK of no progress. I just want this whole thing over. I think I have said that before, probably because I feel the same way. I have my doctor's appointment tomorrow with the traveling notary :) WooHoo! I am hand delivering all the remaining documents (or at least some of these newest ones) to the agency tomorrow. I am so excited to see some progress (albeit little). I want to talk with the Agency about their Vietnam (VN) program, wait times, referral info., medical information and all the other million and one questions I have. That reminds me I should start writing these down. This whole situation makes me feel so helpless and nervous and anxious and stressed and broke. I need to have some funding for this adoption ASAP. We (my mom and I) are still working on refinancing the house and should have this completed (or at least have some timeline) by the end of the month. Noooooowwwww, my mom says, "maybe we should go with the Guatemala program, I really don't think I want to be on a plane to Vietnam for that long." Grrrrr. Make a decision for me already. (That's what it feels like. She is providing a large, almost complete, contribution financially to the adoption from refinancing our house and I don't want to use all the money just to pay for lawyer fees.) I wish the world didn't revolve around money. Gosh, then it would probably be sex or chocolate. It always has to be something. My mind is just racing with all the possibilities and what she doesn't realize it that I already see my child in that country. My son is in VN, my son is already in Guat., my daughter is already in Haiti. This whole wishy-washyness just doesn't work for me. I get too emotionally involved in things and I need to work out all the chess plays before the pieces are even on the board. I CANNOT live without knowing what is going on. That's it. Tomorrow morning I will let her know on the way to the doctor's appointment that I need to stick with Vietnam. I need to talk with the agency about wait times and if they are not astronomically long, then this time I will go with VN. If they are the same as Guat., then I will stick with VN. I can't deal with the back and forth crap. Of all the things to frustrate me and make me break emotionally my choice of country should not be it. Well, I have vented enough. I hope to have grand and wonderful news to share tomorrow. I am hoping that, because the agencies are not having families complete their dossiers (since they expire in 6 months from receipt, or something like that), maybe, once they have some more referrals, I will get one too.

On a side note, I run a home daycare and had an interview with a 10-month-old cutie and his mom, hopefully he will start full-time soon. The extra money would be a lifesaver.

Map of Vietnam

Here is a visual of where I shall be headed (shortly I hope).

Some Updates and Photos

I wanted to add some more info. to the timeline:
July 4th Baby crib was put together
July 13th I bought the bedding, and my goodness, it looks so darn cute.
I just love it....Had to share. Oh, by the way...It's from Target. (Say with French accent, it just sounds better.) :) I first saw it online, but not at my local store (darn small towns), but the bigger Target about 45 min. away had the whole collection.

Has it really been this long?

Well here is the latest timeline update I have:
June 15th 3:30-4:30 Natalie the SW came for her home visit
June 20th 1:00 Last Insurance Exam (yeah!!! We passed)
June 22nd G-ma's fingerprints from traveling fingerprints completed
Supposed to have a doctors appointment today, the doctor cancelled. :(
The cancellation of my appointment really set me back emotionally. The only day they had to reschedule me is August the 29th. Yes, 2 months later!!! This is the only thing I am missing to complete my homestudy. During this same time we found out that my mothers credit score dropped and mine isn't high enough either. This has delayed us in refinancing the house which is the funding for the adoption. At this point in time I am looking into adopting from Belize because they have very low country fees. You have to do a lot of the leg work yourself and that seems a little daunting, but it is an English speaking country which at least helps for the communication factor.
July 8th 1:30-3:30ish Babies in Hotels Class in Orinda (Guatemala, Eastern Europe and Ethiopia specific)
As my mom said, 'Every time I go to one of these classes it really starts to seem real.' I couldn't agree more. One of the couples that is adopting from Guatemala received there referral a little over a week ago and the wife emailed me pictures. He is so adorable and, of course, it made me cry because I am only a couple of weeks behind them, well I was, so I would have been receiving my referral pretty soon as well. This is just such an emotional journey. Sometimes it seems like maybe it's not even worth it and then before those words even pass your lips, you think, YES IT IS!!! It is just really hard to wait and feel like you are not getting anywhere; and fast.
July 11th Called the Doctor's office to see if they can squeeze me in for an appointment.
Last night I read an email from the agency Yahoo group about Vietnam. They are apparently open, I didn't even know they were closed. There country fee is a lot lower and the process is a lot faster. I emailed my agency last night to get more info. This would be a blessing and I feel a lot more confident about this than Belize. I am within the age requirements and actually starting to get really excited about finding my son (or daughter) in Vietnam. Hopefully I will have better news and a lot sooner.