Official Wait

We are home study approved, finally! This seemed to have taken so much longer than it did with A. I think the new home study agency & new SW'er was really a big change for us. This SW'er really seemed to be working on too many cases at once, so I feel like things really took much longer than they should have!

Anyway...now that we are approved, our wait to bring F home officially begins. We are matched, we are his parents...but now the real wait begins.

I hate how long this all took & none of the time 'counted' towards bring him home. We have been told that the waits are getting slight shorter & things have been running faster lately, however I do not want to get my hopes up.

We also got 2 amazing updates on our little guy today...so it's been a great evening! He is growing like a weed, developing greatly & we just can't wait to have him home in our arms.

Crazy

If I didn't feel crazy enough before going into this adoption process for time #2, I do after Saturday!

We got to spend 5 and a half hours with a psychologist & let me tell you...that is enough to make you go crazy!!

638 question test, yes 638! Questions like, do you hear animals talk to you that others do not? Or how about...do you feel it is ok to go around the law if you do not break it? Or one of my favorites...if you were a reporter would you like to report on the theater?

How about drawing pictures? Now mind you, I am an awful drawer; even my stick people suck. We had to draw a house, a person, a tree & then anything else you wanted. Well those 3 things are about all I can draw, so the freebie was fun for me!

Then the last 'test' was a page, front & back, that had the start of sentences. Things like:
Women___________
I fear_____________
This place_________
My nerves_________
By the end of this, the 'my nerves' sentence about got finished with: are shot after all this crap!

I also spent 2 hours with a psychologist alone answering questions & another hour with him along with G.

So needless to say, it was a 'great' day! The psychologist still needed to grade our pictures, sentences & test (which I am not exactly sure how) but after speaking with us he felt we would make good parents. We figure this is really good for A since we have been parenting him almost 2 years!!

Stitches

This adoption is already so very different than our last one. With A's adoption we literally had to beg & plead for updates. We got 4 updates the entire 10 months that we waited for him. We have already gotten that many updates on boy #2, F. Our poor little man fell the other day, leading to a visit to the hospital & stitches. Within hours of this happening we were told, sent the doctors report & pictures. This being only a day after we received his 15 month update...my mind is blown!!

We are moving right along however. We have almost finished all our paperwork for the homestudy & have our first visit next week. After that there is only 1 more visit. We then have a "dossier" to do, & I say that word very lightly because after China...this is nothing.

They are still telling us 18-24 months to get F home however, which is heartbreaking. It is going to be very hard to watch this little guy grow up without us. I am however thankful that we will get at least 1 update a month so we can watch him grow up!

I'mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Back!

I would have never thought I would be back here, blogging....about another adoption! Yep, you read that right. We are adopting again; another 'surprise' adoption.

I don't have a long story how we ended up here..it is very short, so short that we have only known about this little guy since Wednesday (yep, today is Friday).

Wednesday was my birthday too, so I guess you can call this all a very expensive birthday gift!

This will be another international adoption, but this time from Korea. We are so very excited to be the parents of 2 boys! I feel that I was always meant to be the mama of boys :)

He just turned one & we are hoping will be home right around his 2nd birthday.

I will be back blogging & documenting our journey to bring him home, as this is the closest thing he will ever get to a baby book from us.

So here we are, back on the roller coaster! Thanks for riding with us a 2nd time.

The Time Has Come

Ive been doing a lot of thinking & I think the time has come...the time to say good bye. This isnt good by forever, just for now.

It is time for me to regroup & decide what I want to do & where I want to go with blogging, but I do know it is no longer here.

I cannot thank each & everyone of you enough for all your love & support since I started writing back in 2009. For commenting & holding my hand through our IF & adoption journey. I truly do not know how I could have made it through everything without you...so THANK YOU!

Until next time....

Where to go from here...

As you can tell, I haven't been around much. I am not sure where the blog fits in my life anymore. Part of me thinks that it is done..it served it's purpose as we dealt with everything & now that I am a mother it is no longer useful....then I stop & really think. This place has been such a home, a place of comfort, has been part of my life for so long & brought many wonderful people in my life & am I willing to just walk away from that?

What will I write about here? I love the fact that I am mostly anonymous  here & can say what I want...so you know, I think I will write about whatever I want :)

The blog will be taking a change, that is for sure...the post, I am sure will be few & far between, but I am just not completely ready to walk away yet.

For those of you that have been with me through everything, thank you. I do not want this to turn into a mommy blog that people will get hurt or upset about..I want this to just be a place where I can rant if I need to, vent..whatever. Having a 'special needs' kid results in a lot of ranting...along with the fact that he is a very normal toddler :)

So we will see what happens & were I go from here...the journey continues, just in a different way.

Crazy week

We leave on Thursday morning at 6:30am & 24 hours will end up in China. I still cannot believe it! This week has been a whirlwind..between hotels, planes, trains...starting to pack, it's nuts!

We received our itinerary for the trip the other day & I am surprised by the amount of free time. I am glad we have this time however. The first 3 days that we are in A's city it will just be the 2 of us. We will really get to know where he is from. We are hoping to go to where he was found, along with really taking in the city.

It still boggles my mind that soon we will have A in our arms. We meet him & become a family on the 14th. I cry at the thought of hugging him & seeing him in person for the first time. I just hope I don't cry too much when the time comes, don't wanna scare the poor guy.

We are just trying to pack, get things together & everything in place at home. I have his doctors appointments at Cincinnati Children's set for when we get back, our first post adoption visit made & the dentist...it will be a whole new world for all of us.

I will continue to try to blog while we are in country & keep everyone updated.