EGGS OVER MEDIUM

Well, the New Year is here and with it, comes my last trimester of pregnancy. Feeling more than medium cooked and counting in at a whooping 28 weeks, there’s only a few more to go until the delivery of our little peanut.

I’m feeling pretty good these days. With the nausea gone, my swollen ankles and lack of sleep seem to be my only challenges – well that, and my never-ending
to do list!

D. and I have been keeping busy building strollers, washing tiny garments (so cute) and getting the nursery as organized as possible. I have finally completed sewing my birds on to the sticks for my mobile, so now, I just need to string them all together and hang over crib.

Christmas was over in such a flash that I unfortunately, missed my holiday post – so, that being said: Here’s wishing everyone a great 2011. For us, it will be life changing, but we welcome it with open arms. Bring on the diapers and night feedings!

I have booked in my last day of work, which is scheduled for March 5 and must admit, I am so looking for to it. I’m exhausted and need the metal break!

A TWIG CLOSER TO THE NEST

Fantastic news to start our 3 year wedding anniversary today - just got word from TDH that our Ministry Approval arrived on Sept 7, and that she has since sent out our Dossier package to Vietnam on September 20. Wow!!!! We are so excited to be moving forward again!!! We are now on the official and final list; for a proposal of a child of either gender between 0 to 36 months old. Currently, we are in the line up range of 75-80 people ahead of us - as for a time frame, and due to our new circumstance, we will not expect a proposal to come for another 2 years, which will work out perfectly.

SCRAMBLED EGGS

The scrambling is over, the panic is no more…the bomb has been dropped and our AP and Agency have been notified that we are pregnant. To my surprise, all seemed thrilled, phew! I wasn’t sure how that was going to go over, but I can now sigh with relief and lower my anxiety. I gather it is because we have continued to pursue our adoption plan regardless of conceiving. In accordance to Ministry request, we will need to have an 18 month delay been the age of children. I think this is sounds perfectly logical and appropriate for our family. Hope I hear word from TDH soon – it has been awhile!

ONE EGG IN THE BASKET, ONE IN THE OVEN

Well, the unplanned, unthinkable yet unbelievable has occurred. We have been given word that we are going to become parents in April 2011. That’s right – I’m going to be mommy sooner than we thought, a dream come true - literally! To make matters more interesting for my fellow blog-reading folk, here’s the kicker… the baby we are expecting is not from overseas, in fact, it is not even Vietnamese - but rather growing and kicking inside my belly!

Yup – were miraculously pregnant, go figure! Just over 3 months and counting. The man above sure works in mysterious ways and that stork of his must have been on steroids. All the same, we are delighted and excited. Wow – imagine that, biologically pregnant and paper pregnant all at the same time…bet that’s an oddity.

Do not dismay, we are still going ahead with our plan to adopt from Vietnam. This changes nothing, well, it certainly changes things, but not in our commitment to bring home our little Dragonfly. We will, however, need to delay things somewhat (obviously) and decide when and how to tell the agency. We will also need to revise our paperwork to reflect our new family circumstance.

THE STORK IS SOARING

Dossier completed and mailed to agency for translation. Hurray!

With the sun shining and flying high above the bamboo trees, our Vietnamese stork has begun his journey to Canada. He has a long way to travel (over 7839 miles over land and sea) before he finds himself at our front door step. Carrying with him, our most precious gift; the paperwork containing the proposal of our children. Now that we are considered paper-ready, a proposal could come at any time. Although we are not likely to receive one for quite awhile, I am trying to stay optimistic. Hopeful that our stork is strong, he finds his way to us without delay – is yesterday too soon to ask for?

WORRY FREE, CHICKADEE

Deep breathe. Pour a hot cup of tea and sigh. We are ‘paper ready’ and happy to have the ‘normality’ of our life back. No more running around town for signatures, no more people invading I mean, accessing our family, no more mountain tops of paperwork to fill out. It’s all done.

I will admit that I feel bitter-sweet about where we are at in our journey. I am confident in our decision to adopt two dragonflies and overjoyed that we are done the tedious tasks but I am also feeling this next stage is going to be the most difficult. We are now at the point where we can no longer contribute to the ‘moving forward’ aspect and that’s hard to swallow. The ball is no longer in our court. Helpless to our entrusted agency and the birth country of our children-to-be, all we can do is wait.

A BIRD IN HAND IS WORTH 2 IN THE BUSH

1 year, 2 weeks and 1 day (but who’s counting) since we began our process to adopt, it is now legally official! As of yesterday evening at 7:30pm we finally have our completed Homestudy in hand, signed with approval granted from our practitioner. Out of the 30+ pages of Marris-Walker information overkill, the last and final page states;

As a certified adoption practitioner of Ontario, I hereby approve D. and J. for the trans-cultural, trans-racial international adoption of a healthy Vietnamese twin/sibling group under the age of 3.5 years.

Last night, I slept soundly for the first time in I don’t know when. With this stage completed, we are considered paper ready and on to the next and final task; Compiling our Dossier for Vietnam. A Dossier is a set of legal documents and adoption papers which will include our homestudy package, marriage license, financial statements, health certificates, medicals, passport copies, citizenship information and the list goes on and on. The package is huge and overwhelming but we are almost done and will be sending it off to our agency early next week. Once we here back from the ministry, our agency will have it all translated and sent overseas – this is called DTV (Dossier to Vietnam) Then we wait to be LID (Logged into the Vietnam Directory) Then we wait...and wait and wait some more until our agency gives us "THE CALL" - word that we have been ‘matched’ and that a proposal is on it’s way to us. So exciting...