Funny thing; looking back.....

Today is Wednesday, January 25th, 2012.  Three years ago on this date I wrote a post for the blog my husband and I started to keep our family and friends up-to-date on our adoption goings-on.  I didn't necessarily post that frequently--it was my first foray into blogging--but I happened to post on the 25th....which is pretty providential, seeing that I only posted three times that January, considering what we ended up doing basically three years to the date in 2012......just last night.  But first.....here's what I wrote back then:

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SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2009

my nemesis....conquered

i am finished with my delightful scrap-book as of ten minutes ago....now, i don't want anyone to get the wrong idea....i have a lot of respect for you ladies (and possibly some very confident men) who enjoy this hobby.

i get it...i mean what's not to love about cutting out countless pieces of paper to realize you are just one piece short of what you really needed so you get to run back to the scrapbook store for one 50 cent sheet of paper, or laying out an entire set of pages and finding one misspelled word that you already wrote in silver ink so you are forced to do the whole thing over again, and your cat constantly climbing up onto the table, counter, roof (wherever you think you can finally get away from him) and walking through paper glue and biting the corner of a picture, or sliding a finished page into the plastic sleeve and the plastic sleeve slides under all the pictures and rips them off the page, or having piles of paper, stickers, glue, scissors, etc. laying all over your kitchen table for weeks on end as you work on this glorious masterpiece.

all that to say...that i'm excited to be finished with this. i really am proud of it and it's so strange to think that this will go from our hands into the hands of someone who will be our birth mom. chris and i have talked a lot about the pictures we've chosen to put in this and would laugh about the context of the photographs and then wonder what someone else will think about them...if they'll notice something about "us" that we didn't notice or pick up on something that really speaks to them that we couldn't possibly have imagined and most importantly if they'll get a glimpse into who "we" are and if we seem to be a good fit for their child.

our home study report is still not officially filed...BUT...the reason that this book will be turned in tomorrow is that we received an e-mail from our social worker on monday requesting that i bring our book down if possible by tomorrow, the 26th, because there is a couple that she's very interested in showing our book to. they are due in march.

they are due in march. they are due in march. those are five crazy words that don't really have any finality for us....as of right now. but they could. and that has really gotten us thinking this week about how real what we are doing is. when we started this process at the end of september that's all it was....a process....and now we're being confronted with a possible end to that process. not that adoption is ever over....it's our reality forever....but those preliminary hoops, so to speak, could be coming to an end. we'll have to wait and see. the anticipation is so exciting and so very cool....we just can't wait to see how it all plays out!

   we did go and register yesterday.....and just in case anyone was wondering babies r us has a special registry    list for parents who are adopting....it's even labeled "domestic adoption registry list." and the strangest   thing.....adopted babies need the same stuff that non-adopted babies need....who would have thought?

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It's so crazy to even remember what the old me was like.  That 'me' who was working on a scrapbook to be turned in to our adoption agency for this random couple to look at it.  A couple that took almost three weeks with our book, trying to decide if they wanted to meet in person....changing our life forever.  And when I say it's hard to remember what that 'me' was like I don't say it with anything but thankfulness that I'm so different now.  I have this little girl that is the reason that Chris and I are who we are........now.  I can call myself not only a mama, but an adoptive one--and I couldn't love this crazy road of adoption more for what it teaches you about yourself, your spouse, the struggle that other families go through to come to this amazing decision to make you a parent, a child, and what unconditional love is.  

So, here I am three years to the day that I finished a scrapbook, to be turned in to my agency on the next day, hoping, praying, that it would possibly result in a baby.  I didn't really hold out a lot of hope.  It was a long-shot I thought, it was too quick, and frankly it scared me----because if it did work---I knew (kind-of) what it would mean.  

But it did work.  They chose us.  

And last night, we took our little girl to pre-school orientation--the little girl that was born just seven short weeks after I turned that scrap-book in.  Had someone told me three years ago on this day what I would be doing just three short years later I never would have believed them--and that's cliche--I know--but it just couldn't be more true.  

  Getting ready to head to orientation.  One day--soon, I hope--I'll be able to get pictures of Georgia's face.  For now, she turns her head every time the camera comes out.  Sigh. 

No lie....she asked to bring this apple to meet her teacher.  She saw it in a book we got from the library.......and it's gospel.

My timid girl turned into a different kid once we got into the gym at school--it was like someone set her free.  Who in the world loved those scooters....a.k.a finger pinchers....in elementary school?  My kid does--she was flying all over that gym and was a big sweaty mess when we finally convinced her to leave.