Okay, Deep Breaths Now...

I totally freaked out. Yes, I did the happy dance after I took the mail out of the mailbox and *thought* I saw the Dept of HomeLand Security address in the pile of papers, calmly placed the pile on the counter and slowly went through each piece telling myself not to be disappointed if I was wrong. The happy dance did involve a little jumping and woo hooing for sure (Not red shirt kind of dancing but still a decent effort). Then I snapped a picture for posterity and skipped downstairs to the office to post the good news. It all went down hill from there.

First, blogger is RIDICULOUS. I know free is free but yeesh, it is so frustrating not to be able to post pictures (or anything for that matter) when you have something important to show! So all aggravated I decided to skip that and instead read over the materials for our next education session which goes over the next stage of this process. I started to totally. freaking. panic. How on earth was I supposed to remember all of this? There are lists upon lists!!! Things to bring, things to buy there, contact names, fees to pay, gifts to give, court dates, forms to sign..aaahhhh!!! Is it not stressful enough that I am going to be given ownership of a live human being as soon as I get there??? I got really REALLY cranky. Just ask my husband, oh wait you can't because I snapped his head clean off (unfortunately for him his response to my crankiness is always to get mad at me...not exactly good for his health...you'da think he'da learnt by now).

The thing about Colombia is, when you get there, your baby is presented to you fairly quickly. From that point on, for all intents and purposes, you are the official parents. Therefore, care of said child is now YOUR reponsibility. Now while that is a very good thing for many obvious reasons, it is also overwhelming because you basically have to bring (or buy when you get there) everything to take care of a brand new baby for several weeks.

Cause the other "thing" about Colombia is that there is a long in-country waiting period. Because you must be seen before the courts, and because the assignment of your court is by lottery, you could wait several weeks. Some people have waited 2 weeks, some 6 weeks. It's a crapshoot. This does not bother us, because a) our jobs are cool with it; b) we have no other children to worry about c) no matter how long the wait we are pretty much guaranteed a kid at the end and d) we could use an extended vacation in a country that has a rainforest.

But, having never taken care of anyone but myself for 30 odd years, I am more than a little frightened. No running to mom(note to self: ask mom how she feels about traveling to South America). Granted, those adoption people know all of this, and will have lots of experienced baby people on hand to help, but it does not for one second alleviate the hyperventilating that starts when I think about it. I am going to seriously drag one of my cousins out to help me do some of this baby survival kit shopping. Gah.

Okay so what are the next steps here? To be honest I am not totally sure. Now that we have the I171H, our dossier (they call it the "document packet") will be overnighted to our agency either tomorrow or Thursday. Assuming everything is in order (note to self: go to church and light a candle), they will overnight it to the orphanage. From there we wait for a referral or "assignment". I have no idea how long this takes. I am assuming (hoping!) that it will come within one to three months, but who knows. Once we get THE CALL we will know the name, gender, age and health info of our child and soon thereafter we are emailed a picture. Then we start packing and running around like lunatics. We will travel within one to two weeks of THE CALL. That's when we start learning REAL QUICK LIKE how to keep a baby alive and in good health. We wait around, knitting, sight seeing, smiling at spanish speaking government officials, signing papers and eventually GO HOME WITH THE BABY (assuming of course we were successful in the maintainance of good health thing).

Thank you all so much for your words of congratulations. And thanks for your comments on why you chose the program you did. It was truly fascinating to read. It's amazing how we are all led down this path in different ways. And as usual, thanks for all the support, it is so unbelievably critical to my sanity.

Lastly, thanks to Erin, who reminded me that the SUPER HUNKY John Leguizamo is from Colombia. I should have my application rejected for not knowing that. Heh..just kidding.

Questions?