4 weeks down, 4 more to come

wow, can you believe it's been 4 weeks, or should I say we survived 4 weeks of waiting! 4 weeks today at this very time in the morning I received a email asking me to call. It didn't fully click that this was 'the call' that would change my life forever. I listened while my agency rep described my daughter. my daughter, how wonderful those words sound.

Since then we have getting ready, preparing, making lists and wondering how you ever really prepare for this. So all those seasoned parents out there please share your secrets with me, as I'm sure I'm forgetting something. :)

now, for the next 4 weeks, urg! this is getting a little harder. We haven't gotten updated pictures in a couple of weeks and I'm a little sad to think about how much she has grown and changed.

snow and such

We had a great visit to Colorado, two surprises. When we arrived Thanksgiving day my aunt came to the airport to get us. Little did we know we had a surprise visitor waiting at home for us. My sister and her son where there! It has been a little over two years since I had seen them so I was very happy.

We had a great dinner, my mom made way to much food as to be expected with her.

Then Friday we went to my aunts and they had put together a surprise baby shower! It was great, we didn't expect to be having a baby shower. We got some adorable baby clothes and cannot wait to take our daughter back to visit.

It was really strange to be coming back from Colorado to a snow storm in Seattle! It's very beautiful!

I'm officially tired of waiting, I know it's only been a month but I'm really wanting to go to Vietnam soon. I asked the adoption agency for an update, of course nothing new. Urg, one of the hardest part of this is blindly waiting with no updates! oh well...

Turkey Week

We are in the middle of remodeling our guest bathroom. And when I say 'we' I mean my husband and I, no contractors. My mother keeps making oh so subtle comments about the timing of this. But hey this is a good distraction from waiting to travel. So, we took out the title in the shower, the bathtub and the floor this weekend. I cleaned up last night and went to shut the door to keep the cats out of there. And had a sick feeling to my stomach, PANIC! So I slept horrible last night partly because of worry about having everything ready and partly do to the chocolate pie I eat at 8:45pm giving way too much sugar for my own good.

We have gotten no updates on travel; I think we are still in Step 2 waiting for provincial approval. Does anyone know approx. how long this takes in HCMC?

We are going to Colorado for thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and taking a break. We land at 3:30 and dinner is at 5:00pm so let's hope for no snow, at least until we get to my mom's!

Jenn's blog post reminds the true mean of the holidays, so it's my turn at the table.

I'm thankful for my husband who I cannot imagine any day without seeing his smiling face. I’m thankful to the people of Vietnam for allowing me the opportunity to care for one of there precious babies. I’m thankful for the adoption community who has welcomed my family with open arms.

eats and sleeps easily

Yesterday we got an update on our daughter. What a parents dream, they said she "eats and sleeps easily". Now let's hope she is still doing that when we get her. My husband and I read that and looked at each other and said, that’s our daughter they are talking about! What a great feeling.

We are very lucky because we have gotten updated pictures already, so in all we have about 16 pictures of our sweetie! Usually we will get updated pictures every month or so. We are looking forward to the updates but think it might a little hard to see how much she's changes.

We also heard that families will not be traveling the 2 weeks during Tet. We where thinking it would be really neat to be in Vietnam during Tet but now know this won’t happen, a little disappointing. I sure hope we can travel before tet, if not that would delay things to end of feb or march. Who really knows, it’s so much of a guessing game at this point.

This past week I have been having pretty bad stomach problems, which have slowed me down in general. Last weekend I didn’t really do much at all. I hate that. Oh well…

Our week since the referral

It's amazing how one phone call can change your life so drastically. It has been a week since we where introduced to our daughter to be. Since then it's been a whirlwind of running around, make list and trying to think about how differently our life will be in three-four months. Pretty amazing.

I'm trying not to think about our wait to travel and keep focused on our great referral and trying to make the transition for our daughter less painful.

Who knows maybe we will be going to Vietnam for Tet in Feb. That would an experience!

Happy 3mn Birthday

Today is my daughters 3 month birthday! I wish I was there to give her a kiss. Since our referral last week I have been floating! We are so thrilled and don’t understand how we got so lucky. Waiting is so hard; it’s amazing how one day can change everything.

I’m also really worried about running out of time before we travel. I’m a big planner, I think I might drive my husband crazy because she our referral I have been on go mode. I know it can border line neurotic but hey what can you do. Since our paperwork is already in HCMC I’m thinking the travel will be within 3mns. With the holidays that is really right around the corner, wow! I’m really excited.

Some things we found out about her are, when she got her medical done, she weighed the exact same weight 8.71lbs that I did when I was born. Another thing, her name Lien is the Vietnamese name we love, we where actually considering naming our second child that. So it will be a perfect middle name for her.

OUR DAUGHTER!!!

WE are trilled! You can see her announcement, click here

WE GOT IT!!!

I cannot type because I'm shaking, but we got our referral. I'll provide more details later!! WOW

- I cannot find my husband!, where the heck is he. We promised not to look at her pictures until we where together so I have a message sitting in my inbox with attached pictures and I cannot click on them. So, I'm trying to distract myself.

She was born on August 7th :)) I'm was expecting her to be older, so this was a huge surpise. I'm so excited