As it stands right now - the update

I haven't talked about this for awhile so I think it's time again:

We will most likely get THEE CALL around the beginning of the month in either July, August or September. July best case, August more likely, or September also likely.

If we know ahead of time that we'll be included in a batch of referrals, which we might, we'll take the day off and sit by the phone at home. If we don't know ahead of time, I'll get the call at work and then attempt to calmly/safely drive home. When Stew gets there...Dance Party 2007!

I'm considering setting up our video camera so that when we get the call, we'll have the experience recorded. It occurs to me that the little peanut might like to see that moment - how happy and emotional it all was.

Nineteen months and counting

Yesterday, June 21, 2007, Stew and I hit 19 MONTHS since our paperwork was logged-in half a world away. (Is it more than half the world? And if it is...then isn't it both more and less because more than half one way would be less than half the other way? Ok, forget all that. This is how my brain works, just ignore me.)

So anyway, as this drags on and I try to stay in a positive place sometimes I forget how close we really are - finally. This morning while I was getting ready for work, thinking about what we might do this weekend, something hit me hard that I haven't thought about in a long, long time. It's this - Stew and I only have a few shorts months of our lives just being the two of us. I'm reminded all the time about things like "Sleep in while you can!", "Go to the movies while you can!", "Carouse while you can!" The one thing, though, that I hear very little about is this precious time we have, these few months left, of our "just us" relationship. We have a bunch of friends who were married for quite awhile before the kids but I don't recall anyone talking openly about this part of the deal.

It's so exciting to be this close to our referral but today, I also feel a little wistful. That's gotta be normal, right?

New Links

Check out new links on the right!

Half the Sky, a nonprofit organization that provides family-like nurturing care in the lives of China's orphaned children. Their Baby Sisters Infant Nuture, Little Sisters Preschool, Big Sisters, and Family Village programs have improved the lives of over 10,000 children.

A Child's Right, a nonprofit group working to provide access to clean and safe drinking water to children living in orphanages, street shelters, etc, in impoverished urban/semi-urban areas in underdeveloped countries. They just finished up a project in China providing clean water systems to eight orphanages. The photos from their trip are really worth clicking through.

Confirmation

It's true. The cut-off is November 7th (we're November 21).
Feel free to uncross/relax those fingers and toes for a few weeks - until the next batch is headed this way.

New batch of referrals

It looks like November 7th may be the cut-off this time, but I'm waiting for final confirmation on that info. If that's the case, it would mean a pretty small batch of referrals. We'd heard a few weeks ago there was a chance this batch would be huge compared to what we've seen recently.

Yeah, not so much with the huge batch.
That's why they're called rumors? Right.

I didn't completely get on the roller coaster when the rumor about a big batch surfaced but a person does have to at least entertain the idea otherwise you wouldn't know you should get on with picking out a color to paint the nursery. The only word I can think of to describe what's happening right now is excruciating.
So close, yet so (expletive) far.

Everyone keep fingers and toes crossed November 8-10 are included this time and we just don't know it yet.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my awesome, hilarious, smart and handsome husband! XOXO