Making Preparations

We took part in our first "Black Friday" shopping yesterday. Fortunately, because we're still really jet-lagged, we were wide awake by 3am, which meant we arrived at Kohls by 4am. Unfortunately, about 500 people were already there and in line at the register by the time we got there.

Anyway, we did some shopping for both babies, something that had been hard to do until recently. It was hard getting our hopes up and believing that the adoption would happen. Now it's hard because we have no idea how big our daughter will be. She could be anywhere from 15-36 months old! And within those age ranges, she could be really small and under-nourished or big and healthy.

More and more, we're able to act like it's real (see our post from Oct 3rd). And in a few weeks, faith shall be sight!

First of many updates

We'll be updating a lot more frequently over the coming weeks. A lot is happening in our adoption, and it's finally good news. In a day or two, I'll post a "flashback" blog post that April wrote a few days before we got our travel date. We never posted it because I was trying to make it sound a little less sad. I think blogging is like emotional photoshopping. You pretend you're sharing raw thoughts and feelings, but really they're touched up for public consumption.

So where are we? In Virginia, with a flight to Ukraine on Dec 9th. We go to the adoption services department on Dec 13th and choose a child from among a folder of files. Then, after about a month of meetings, court hearings, and paperwork, we'll return to the States with our daughter. Once we get her a passport and visa, we'll then take her back to East Asia.

So much is happening so fast. It's good to have a couple of weeks in Virginia to reconnect with a few people, see family, and get stuff together for the adoption trip.

Side note. By the time baby #2 is born in April 2011, we estimate that he will have been on 15 plane rides...