Because I know y'all were worried...

I'm happy to report that the FBI has finally declared that I am NOT a hardened criminal!

That makes our homestudy officially complete and approved. And per my last post, now all we have to do is wait to be matched with our little one! :-)

And then they were waiting...

I'm loathe to admit it, but the completion of our paperwork and submission of our photo books lacked some anticipated drama. I expected to be overjoyed to be done with all the "work" (prior to the REAL work that lies ahead!) but I honestly was in a little bit of a funk for a few days.

I majored in music in college and studied flute. I practiced for hours every day and in my senior year, I spent the entire year working on really challenging repertoire for my senior recital -- April 30, 1995. Every ounce of energy was spent preparing for that concert. The culmination of my music career to that point, starting with picking up the flute in the 4th grade. Friends from near and far and family were there to watch. I bought a special (and now totally dated) outfit and fabulous (and, yes, totally dated) shoes. I walked onto the stage as proud and confident as I'd ever been. And I remember that I wasn't at all nervous. I knew that music cold and I got to just revel in the pleasure of playing for the audience.

I expected that once the concert was over, I'd feel great relief. All that work -- now over! I could now just cruise through the end of senior year, having fun with friends and hanging out! But I woke the next morning about as blue as could be.

My friend Beth, who had studied psychology, "diagnosed" me with what she called (or I remember she called) post-transcendent fulfillment letdown syndrome. My funk was a "now what?!" disorder -- I had lived so much of that year in preparation for that one moment and now that that moment was over, what was I supposed to do? Who was I? Where was I headed?

So I thought of that "condition" (and Beth, wondering if she'd made up that name or if it's something real!) when the paperwork was done, the photo books printed and delivered. The work of the last several months was over. Now what?! Now we wait. We reorganize. We talk to other adoptive parents (our fabulous agency has connected us with some mentor parents). We read and research. We register. We celebrate the little moments we have together, because sooner or later, there will be three of us. Funk over.

Off to the Races (almost)

The photo book and dear birthparent letter are done and IN from Shutterfly! The agency seemed to like it and our social worker used the word "love" three times to describe it, so we done good! They look so, so nice and I'm really pleased with how they capture our spirit and energy! Oh, you'd like to see it? Sure! I think it'll work if you just click HERE.

We'll deliver them to our fabulous agency in the coming days. The only thing left outstanding is the issue of my FBI background check. Since I have unreadable fingerprints, they have to search me by name, which I suspect means they won't find me because, to my knowledge, I am not a hardened criminal. But we've been waiting on this to get taken care of for 3-4 weeks now, so hopefully we'll have that done soon. Because when it does, we are officially out there, waiting for our baby!

So I am officially allowing myself to start the fun stuff -- we got rid of some old furniture this weekend and bought a lovely, compact desk that will sit in the corner of the nursery. It will house, among other things, our new MacBook (which we HAD to have for the baby, of course). We have a little more re-org to do on that room and then we can paint, get a crib, and start decorating! FUN FUN FUN! Thanks to all the friends who have been sharing their lists of what we do and don't need -- if you have advice, please share.

A colleague told me today that I'm glowing and I have to say, I've never been happier!