We found bedding

We finally found bedding for the nursery that we both agreed on and liked. It is Aloha Baby by Lambs & Ivy. I bought it last night on ebay for about $40 cheaper than it is going for in the online stores. I think we might have found some furniture also, but I want to look around a little more before I order it. I can't wait to start working on the nursery. I have waited for over 3 years to do this!

Big News

We received a possible referral for a little boy. We got the call last week and it totally took us by surprise. We have been debating whether or not to tell others since it's not for sure yet. He doesn't come off the database till September, so we wouldn't be able to travel till then to meet him. Once we agreed to register our dossier in this region (which we agreed), we will receive medical information and a photo. My agency is just not sure when we will receive this information. Hopefully we receive it soon, so that we can have it checked out by an IA doctor and make the final decision on whether or not to travel and meet him. All we know right now is it is a boy and he will turn 1 sometime in September. That is a little older than we were hoping for, but we are getting used to the idea.

If it all works out, we will travel in September and that is not far away. There is so much to do!

Our dossier is finished

Well, our dossier is finally done. Thank god! During lunch, I am going to Fed Ex to ship it to our adoption agency. Hopefully when they receive it, they don't find any mistakes. My luck they will. We are now in the waiting stages. Now if only our I171-H would hurry and come.

Great article

I found a great article on one of the many message boards I go to. It made me cry because I can relate to her in so many ways.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17937816/

It's about moving from infertility treatments to adoption. She said it best "I'd forgotten the most important thing: I wanted to be a mother more than I wanted to give birth. At the end of this long road, there will be a child waiting for us - the child we are meant to have."

Can't wait to shop

Even though I can't wait to shop for anything for the baby, there are a few things I am really looking forward to buying. I have found some really cute things on some adoption online stores.

These would be for me:

These would be for the baby. How cute are they?

These would be for the grandma's & aunt:

And here are some other things that are really cute:

Almost done with the dossier

Well, I can honestly say, we are almost done with the dossier. We have visited the psychologist, doctor, two different police stations, CPA and Property Appraiser's office. We have filled out and got all the paperwork needed. We also received our passports in only 3 weeks (we had to expedite them though). On 6/6, I sent out the first batch of paperwork to the secretary of the state (SOS) to be apostilled. Hopefully we will receive them back sometime next week, but I know they are backed up. We are going to my aunt's tomorrow night to have a ton of papers notarized, then I will send them out on Monday to the SOS to be apostilled. Our home study is done, typed up and in the mail to us. Once I receive that along with some of the other papers needed from them for the dossier, I will send the third and final batch of papers to be apostilled. Our home study agency will also be sending our written home study to the USCIS, then it will be several weeks (or months) before we get their approval. We should be paper ready (term used in the adoption world) in a few weeks. I almost don't know what to do with myself. Getting everything ready for the dossier kept me busy.

Things are slowly coming along...

and I am exhausted! I can't even begin to tell you how busy this dossier is keeping me. I will give you a little recap of all the running around and calling around I have done. On 5/17, I went down to the Tampa Police Department to get a local police letter done. Our agency said our place of birth needed to be included in this letter. Well, of course the police department refused to do that. So, this past week I called the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department and pleaded with the lady there till finally she agreed to add it in their letter. We went on Friday to get that done. On 5/22, we went to have medical exams done (again). Only this time there was much more our doctor had to fill out and write. Thankfully, my wonderful Aunt Candy drove all the way over to our doctors to notarize these forms. And did I mention that both the medical form and local police letter will expire after 3 months. So, we will be getting those done again soon. After calling many different psychologists and psychiatrists, we were finally able to find someone to see us and evaluate us (we have an appointment on Monday 6/4). There is nothing certain that they have to do, but make sure we are sane enough to raise an adopted child and write a letter saying so. As soon as most of them heard the word adoption, they said they couldn't help us. I had to find a CPA to verify our assets and that was also quite a task trying to find one to see us. Luckily my mom called the CPA they use to do the books and her work and she was more than willing to help. She will be doing this for us on Thursday. Thursday night we drove down to Davie because we had an 8a appointment to get fingerprinted. It was a long 4 hours there Thursday night, 10 mins at the USCIS office on Friday and a long 4 hours back. Now all the USCIS needs is a copy of our written home study (which should hopefully be done in a week). I have heard it takes them anywhere from 2-6 weeks to approve (at least we hope they will approve us). Are you lost yet at all we have had to do? Well that's not all. We also had to get 6 certified copies of our marriage certificate and certified copies of our house deed. Thankfully my friend Sam works at the clerk of courts (?) office and was able to get all that for us. We still have to get a property verification letter from the appraiser's office and are not having any luck with that so far. I have been told by others that they had the hardest time getting this letter. I have learned through this that there are quite a lot of rude people out there at these businesses I have called. It seems as soon as they hear adoption, they can't help you. It's quite frustrating! We have to compile a set of pictures of: every side of our house (done), every room in our house (done), 3 different angles of babies room and a minimum of 12 pictures of us and family. I'm still working on that. There is also tons of paperwork we have to fill out and get notarized. We are also waiting on our passports to get here since copies of those are needed for our dossier. We paid extra to have them expedited, so hopefully they will be here in the next few weeks. Then we have to send EVERYTHING to the Secretary of State (in Florida) to appostile each document (at $10 each). It's amazing everything you have to go through and get to adopt. Most people have no idea. I know in the end it will all be worth it, but for now it's exhausting and sometimes frustrating. At least it keeps me busy.

We have been looking at dressers and bed sets for the nursery lately. It's funny that we have waited for 3 years to be able to pick out and buy these things, but yet we can't seem to decide on any. We change our minds on an daily basis. It's such a hard decision.