Dossier Done!

Since I last wrote, we have completed our dossier! It was dropped in the mail in early November, and we are currently waiting for it to arrive at the Uzbek embassy.

This process has been a little frustrating. We don't really know what or when to expect next, and our adoption coordinator doesn't seem to have a strong idea of what to expect either. When we started this process, one of the reasons we picked Uzbekistan was that we would only have to make one trip to the country. Easier on Eric's work schedule, amongst other reasons. Now it sounds like we may have to take two trips... Some laws have changed in Uzbek, and they are now making the process a little more complicated. Ulgh. Just what we need.

I'm just praying that by some miracle we'll still only have to take one trip. It's not just the added cost of taking more trips over there, but that Eric may not be able to take that much time off work. I cannot imagine going to get the baby without him! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

In the mean time, we've kept ourselves distracted by slowly putting a nursery together. My office has officially moved to another room, and last week we bought a crib and a rocking chair for the nursery. I've started cleaning out the closet in that room (gahhhwd, there's a lot of crap in there), and have come across some interesting things. A broken accordion, a bunch of floppy disks from college, a fondue pot, and pieces of a quilt I started making over 6 years ago. (i've always been a project starter, my hubby might say...) I don't know if it's a nesting instinct or what, but somehow I got the motivation to finish it into a baby quilt. Results below...


So that's done. And suddenly this is all starting to seem real. I'm gonna be a mom...I made this blanket for MY little baby! ...And then I get all choked up...

Eric and I have been fantasizing about how weird we're going to make this kid. HA! In a good way, of course. :) Really, it's so fun to think about how we'll be raising this little person. What fun times we have ahead of us. 2008 is our year!!

One step closer to Baby Borat...

So, for those of you who don't already know (I apologize for telling you this on a blog, but...), hubby and I are adopting a baby from Uzbekistan. Yes, I'm gonna be a baby mama! We started the adoption process at the beginning of June, and it has taken most of the summer to do the home study (the first big step in adopting). Today we found out the home study is complete. woo hoo!

Here's the clif notes version of what comes next: We will get a visa to bring a child back into the USA, and have to get approval from the FBI to rear a child...so we're working on that now. It will probably be a month or two before we know anything else. (Hmm... I hope the FBI doesn't find out about the underground dance movement I started in college. That would be detrimental.)

After we get the visa, we will submit a huge packet of information about ourselves (called a "dossier") to Uzbekistan, and they will decide whether or not we are worthy of a baby Borat. Assuming that goes well, (they don't find out about the underground dance movement), they will refer us a baby Borat, and we will travel there to pick him/her up. Overall timeline until travel is 4-6 months from today.

The adoption process is a long, detailed and confusing thing. I think every day I have Eric explain it to me again. I have a new appreciation for everyone that has gone through this before me. It's tricky! And the wait, and not knowing how long the wait is, is a killer.

I'll keep you posted on what's happening when we find out more. In the meantime, any speculation on what Borat's gonna look like is welcomed. (We are open to the idea of him/her being born with a mustache.)

(Also, there has been some confusion about the Borat thing. Uzbekistan is a bordering country of Kazakhstan, and Borat is from Kazakhstan (if you haven't seen the movie, click here). Since we don't know the sex of our future child, we've given it the pet name Borat. Of course, we haven't completely elminated it from the list of superb name possibilities. "My name-uh Borat Dilbar" has a nice ring to it, don't ya think?)