Tuesday, November 21, 2006

It's Really Happening!



We've had many exciting advancements in our adoption process. First, in what was quite possibly the US Government's fastest approval process, I received my passport in a record 4 days! I had filed the application on a Monday afternoon, and four days later found myself picking up the Express Mail envelope from the post office.

I was actually there to pick up another package that had come in and was surprised when the postmaster brought out two envelopes. I knew what it was as soon as I saw my handwriting on the outside of the SASE. I became almost giddy in a schoolgirlish manner and began saying "It's my passport! It's my passport!" The postmaster looked at my like I was crazy, and I so badly wanted to explain the reason for my excitement, but I just grabbed the packages and ran to the car so I could share the news with Jerret.

A few days later we received a DVD with video of our baby. It is only about 5 minutes long, and he is only 3 months old in the video - so he really doesn't do anything exciting - but we just sat and watched in awe as the caregivers picked him up and laid him back down, shook the rattle in his face, and tried to get him to push up with his legs. Seeing this video made everything a little more real. I have been talking with other adoptive parents online and reading books on adoption parenting that stress the importance of working with your adopted child one-on-one. I can't wait to watch him grow.

Tomorrow we go to get our fingerprints taken and will only be about 2-3 weeks away from filing our official paperwork in Kyrgyzstan. Of course, this is all occurring over the holidays, which will cause delays in the approval process in both the US and Kyrgyzstan, but we can pray that this doesn't happen!

For those of you who don't know where Kyrgyzstan is, I have attached a map (and don't feel bad, it only declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991). I'm still trying to play it cool. We were told that anything could happen between now and the time we actually bring our baby home, and I have heard the horror stories. I don't want to set myself up for a big disappointment, but that is impossible. All we can do is pray. Pray, pray, pray.

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