Officially paper pregnant!!!

Who knew you could be so excited to officially wait!

On May 22nd I got the email from our agency that our dossier had landed in Maseru, Lesotho.  It feels so crazy to know that a file with our pictures, our medical, our entire life story and essentially every detail about our lives is sitting somewhere in Lesotho right now!!!

What does this mean?

Well, our file will now be shown at the matching meetings that are held every 3-4 months.  Lesotho works differently than Ethiopia and doesn't exactly follow a list.  In Ethiopia you were essentially given a number and referrals came in that order.  In Lesotho, only a few dossiers (from each country that they work with- Canada, Sweden, US, and The Netherlands) are on the table at each meeting and the government workers will look at each file and find a family for the children that are ready to be adopted.  So this means we can be matched at any of these meetings at any time!

I'm not expecting to be matched for at least a year though.  I tell myself this because I am a realistic person but who knows what will happen!  The next meeting is sometime in June but these dates can also change.  We'll see if I remain calm in June…

party of five or six?

                   
                               (crazy kids celebrating our signed off home study arriving in the mail!)

all my life I have been attracted to big families.  I always wanted to spend time at the houses where it was loud and busy and messy and full of love.  Those were the families that always seemed to have their priorities set as well.  They weren't the one's necessarily going to disneyland every summer or putting their kids in tons of lessons.  They were just somehow the houses filled with chaos and yet also peace.

I dream of a future where our kids come home for dinners and the table is FULL.  I know that some of our kids might even move far away so I figure the more kids you have the better chance at getting the full holiday dinner table!

When we were first married we took care of my bosses four kids for a month and got to live the insanity of coordinating driving to piano lessons, soccer games, and one kid working at a restaurant.  It was pure craziness.  But we both loved it.  The month we spent doing this has stuck with me and whenever we tried to decide if we should adopt one or two the memory of that time would come to me.

And for this reason and many more we are applying to be on the wait list for siblings from Lesotho.  For some reason I keep seeing twins…. but who knows.

We have said that we "prefer" one boy and one girl but we know that if we are shown a referral for two boys we wouldn't say no.  But of course, one can dream.  I would LOVE for my daughter to have a sister as I do.  And I would love for my son to have a brother.

After deciding all of this (and it took quite awhile…. right until the last day of our home study) our agency has said that the likelihood is quite small that there will be siblings under the age of Holly (currently 3.5).  And since we cannot change the birth order they have asked us to also be open to accepting a referral of just one.  So we might even get a referral for one child but if it is one we have said that we prefer a boy.  Our son is currently surrounded by female cousins and he is begging for a brother.

We are also open to a variety of medical needs.

So there it is.  The who of who we are adopting.

So what do you think it will be?

Dossier is done!

I am so happy to say that I finally finished our dossier.  Man, things are much slower the second time around when you already have two kids.  The old me was so on top of every piece of paperwork, staying up late to get things done.  This time I tried and usually ended up too tired or overwhelmed or busy to finish it each night.  In some ways it was good because when things didn't go as planned and some things had to be re-done again…. I had way more patience.  In the end I finally sent off every last piece of paper and one massive cheque and I got the email from our agency yesterday that they have sent it to Lesotho and will let me know when it arrives safe and sound.

When it gets there that is when you could officially say we are "paper pregnant" and the real waiting begins.

It could be months, it could be a year, it could be several years.  Who really knows in international adoption.

But we are ready to wait since we know just how worth the wait it all is.