The latest news from my agency was: “We expect to match all our dossier-ready families over the next couple of months” so that sounds promising. By tomorrow we will have waited officially 5 months. I am hoping that we will receive a referral sometime in the next few weeks. I really feel ready for the first trip. I do not feel quite ready for the second trip and for bringing her home. I still don’t completely understand what I need to do to prepare for that- especially all of the post adoption stuff I need to do (i.e. testing with her pediatrician, re-adoption, social security number, attachment stuff, toddler needs, post placements etc.) I am working on getting a better hold on everything I need to know. I am glad that I will have some time in-between trips to get this sorted out. I am anxious about meeting our daughter for the first time. I just don’t know how I will feel or she will feel. I want to feel a connection, but I know it might take some time.

Every time I think of the moment I will meet her or the moment we can take her out of the court room as officially ours I get butterflies in my stomach. Of course I don’t know what she looks like so I imagine her- and she looks different every time. Sometimes I dream about how she looks. Again, always different.


My biggest fear is the lack of sleep I know that is going to come. Right now I can just fall asleep and take a nap whenever I feel tired. I can sleep all the way through the night and no one wakes me up (for the most part). I know that this luxury will end with a new toddler in the house. I think it is so hard to be tired and sleepy and not be able to sleep. It isn’t that you just aren’t able to sleep- it’s that you have to be tired and then cope with life and all that is going on around you and at the same time try to stay cheerful. I know there will be some tough adjustments at first. It is hard to mentally prepare for this, but I believe over time the rough edges will smooth out and she will be able to integrate in to our family. I am very excited for this new personality to come in to our home!

Labels: Russian Adoption, waiting for referral