Final Post - probably...

Hello everyone. I am sorry for the months of silence, but I felt that any future blogging about our family must be done in a more private manner. I've created a new blog that is accessible by invitation only. For friends (personal and online) and family, please e-mail me and I will send you an invitation to the new blog. I've created a new e-mail account at uzbekblog@gmail.com for this purpose. If you have my current private e-mail address, please continue to use that for all normal correspondence.

Perhaps in the coming months I will post some additional general thoughts on adoption from Uzbekistan, but the details of our family's life will remain on the private blog...

To everyone who has stumbled across my blog while researching international adoption, I wish you the best of luck in growing your family through adoption. It is a wonderful and generous way to build your family!

To the anonymous regular readers of my blog, I apologize for going 'private'... Please just know that I'm fairly certain that our life story will have a happy ending!

And here I arrive at the end of my "Road".... Happy Holidays and Best Wishes!!!!

Home is where the heart is!

A huge apology to everyone that I owe e-mail, phone calls, etc. to. But as you can see... we're on the "move". Everything is going well so far, but I've got to admit that I can't wait to be settled in at our new home. I promise to be better about blog updates, e-mail, etc... but it's going to take some time!!!

On his way home!

I received word from Mike this morning that he was back in the United States. Unfortunately he's still traveling from the East Coast to the midwest, but he is SO VERY close to home. In some ways it seems like just last week we had a very tearful goodbye at the airport, and in others like it was ages ago. In reality, IT was September 16, 2007. Today IS April 22, 2008... you can do the math. The boys and I are just very glad he's "on his way home!"

An Anniversary...

This is no April Fools'... Today is the one year anniversary of when we began our "Road to Uzbekistan" by initiating the adoption with our agency. Honestly, I never thought I'd still be blogging about waiting and paperwork on the one year anniversary. My dream was that I'd be sharing pictures of our four kids playing together and posting stories of our everyday lives. Not yet... Just because a dream is delayed, it does not mean it won't happen. We just need to be patient.

As far as we know, our dossier is still with the MOE and waiting for its final approval.

Dossier - Status Check

On an earlier post from February, I said that hopefully our dossier was safely in the hands of the Ministry of Education (MOE). Well, it wasn't yet. But, now it is. It made it there nearly a week ago.

So, what happens now? We wait. I must say we are getting a lot of practice with that one. The MOE timeline can be a bit variable, plus our travel must be arranged around the other families from AAC (About a Child) who are also reaching that point in their adoptions. So, my travel dates are still at least month or two out at best.

Pack your mittens!

We're heading for the mountains... or at least the east side of them. It seems that Colorado is where my husband's future job lies. This is the Air Force we're talking about though, so until we're standing amongst stacks of moving boxes, it is all subject to change.

I've spent the past several weeks trying to make it look like three children and a dog never set foot in our house. For those of you who don't have kids, you need to prepare yourself for the scratches, dents and other bruises your house and furniture will take on when you bring your kid(s) home. For example, there is the closet door that had a door stopper installed on the top hinge. That's fine for adults who know to stop pushing when they feel resistance. When you couple that door stopper with a two year old and hollow door... let's just say I've got the start of swiss cheese going on.

Then there is the kitchen cabinet door. At dinner time last night, my youngest was either having a "two year old moment" or was simply clumsy... I'm honestly not sure which. He opened the kitchen cabinet door as far as it would go, and then leaned/fell on it. I could just hear the splintering wood as the door gave way the only way it could. One more thing on my to-do-list!

I could go on and on.... the list keeps growing by the moment. And then, while I'm busy working on sprucing up the inside of the house, the weather has the audacity to think it's spring time. The weeds are starting to poke their way up in some very unfortunate locations in our yard. More work to do!

One last note, for anyone who hasn't heard of Old English Scratch Cover... you need to look into it. I wonder if I can special order it in a gallon size.

Skip the globe

Pull out a U.S. map! I think we're staying on U.S. soil. The list has narrowed slightly... the most likely candidates right now are (in no particular order):

Nebraska, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Louisiana and Hawaii

If we stay in Texas, then our adoption/readoption paperwork won't become the disaster I was anticipating! That would be good news. It would still be a different military base hours away, but it would be the simplest of all possibilities.

DISCLAIMER: This is still the military we're talking about. The information won't be finalized or released until March and even then... last minute spontaneous changes are possible.

Speaking of March, the newest estimate for my first trip to Uzbekistan is now March.

Sound familiar?

So, you've decided to wander down a particular path in life. You realize there are twists and turns, but for the most part you are pretty sure of the destination. As you continue your travels, there is a mention of twist ahead. You talk to some other people on the same path, but it seems everyone is in agreement that while the "twist" could be exciting and different it's just not going to happen.

You continue on.... a little further down the road, someone tells you that "NO! There is INDEED a twist in the road." They don't know what it is or where it leads, but word on the street is that you'll know on Monday. After an anxiety, curiousity-filled weekend, Monday arrives. Nothing. So, you start asking all of those people that said "Monday!", and now they say.... maybe next week... maybe March!?!

So, you're wondering... is this our dossier? Is this related to our referral? Nope. Guess again... sounds like international adoption right????

This is whether or not the military will be restationing us this summer! I was skeptical that it was going to happen until this past Friday. Now, I'm fairly confident it will happen, but I have NO idea where we will be going. It turns out that my husband's selected preferences might not even enter into the equation. Take your nearest globe, close your eyes, poke it with a pen... your guess is as good as mine.

What I wouldn't give for ONE definite in my life... oh wait. I've got one. The spoonful of vanilla frosting that I just ate is SURE to add five pounds to my thighs by morning. Ugh.

Answering a couple of questions

There is still no new information on the "pothole" I mentioned earlier. We just have to continue to wait that one out. With any luck though, our dossier is now safe in the hands of the MOE. A ray of hope!

I've had a couple of people ask me how we suddenly ended up with our "twins" and a six month age difference. Our agency has been great about passing along all of the information they receive. Unfortunately, that also means that we receive information that hasn't been fully documented yet. To see our (hopefully) little girl, you would never even expect that she was the younger age given. She's a little peanut. So, the "rumor on the street" was that she was just about to turn two. When the official paperwork was received and reviewed, it turned out that her birthdate was actually six months earlier than estimated.

Here I'll let you judge for yourself... How old does this question mark look? :) We got new updated photographs a couple of weeks ago. She's definitely getting good care at the orphanage and looks like she's getting healthier and bigger(!) in every picture. I can't wait to be able to share the photos publicly!

Speed Bump

Our road to Uzbekistan has developed a nasty speed bump or would it be considered a pothole? It seems that there is a political change occurring that has added a lot of uncertainty to our adoption. This is not a national issue, just one affecting the specific area from which we were adopting.

I honestly don't know what it means for us yet. But, somehow I don't think it's going to be good.

Nichole - It's your fault! :)

Every time Mike and I debated a baby girl's name during pregnancy, we always ended up with the same middle name.... Nic(h)ole. So, we decided to give our new little girl this same middle name. Now the problem of spelling came up. Mike thought it was going to be spelled "Nicole" and I declared that we had always spelled it "Nichole". I stuck by my decision and said that Nicole just didn't look right, it was supposed to have an 'H' in it.

Then... I had to eat my words. I looked back at our e-mails from our last child naming discussions when I was pregnant with Jonathan. It turns out I had always spelled it 'Nicole' too. So, it's all NICHOLE's fault! :) She is another Uzbek PAP who I've corresponded and chatted with over the past eleven months. She spells her name with an 'H'.

So, (I'm sorry Nichole) after considering the fact that my husband will be spelling our daughter's name wrong for the remainder of her lifetime, we have decided to change the spelling back to "Nicole". It still does not quite look right to me, but it's better than having to correct my husband's spelling for the rest of eternity.

Besides, we already added an extra letter to her first name. The poor child might be in fifth grade before she learns how to write her full name. Sorry, but I can't share her first name publicly yet....

It's TWINS!?!?!

While they will not have grown together in my womb; instead they will grow together in my heart and in our family.

We received more concrete information from our adoption agency about our future little girl. It turns out that the estimate on her age was wrong... half a year wrong.

When we started the adoption process we wholeheartedly agreed that our goal was to adopt a younger sister for our sons. That meant keeping a nine month spacing at the very least between our youngest son and our new addition. Even as we read our online education requirements including sections on "artificial twinning" we, again, wholeheartedly agreed it was something we did not want to do.

But, when you find out that the little girl you've been dreaming of for several months is actually a virtual twin (less than 1.5 months difference) to your youngest son... what do you do? For some reason I'd always pictured myself having twins someday. I always thought it would be a surprise at an ultrasound appointment or something. Never expected it to come in the form of a phone call.

Guess Who!

The moral of this story is photograph children BEFORE they are tired and ready to go home. Does anyone recognize the handsome little man on the left? Avid Uzbek blog readers might recognize the famous Cole of Uzbek adoption fame. The boys and I had lunch with Julia and her new son, Cole. I had delusions of discussing the finer inner workings of travel to Uzbekistan, bonding with your new child and conquering the language barrier. Instead, we took turns running back and forth to the buffet line, restrooms and napkin dispenser! Such is the life of moms.

I must say that Cole is a handsome young gentleman. He loves his mommy a LOT and his smile is even more infectious in person. My glass was once again half full after meeting in person a family created by an adoption from Uzbekistan!

Adoption Updates - not much to report

I was just reading the comments that everyone posted to my most recent posts and realized I never even touched on actual "adoption news". There really isn't a lot to report. Our agency is still hopeful that I may travel in February (January is no longer an option), but nothing is concrete yet. There are a few adoptions in line in front of ours and those take priority. Other than taking care of the boys, I've started filling the days with planning for travel and learning Russian. Both subjects are worthy of their own post, so I'll save the details for another day!

Didn't fall off the end of the earth... promise!

Hello to all the faithful readers who have stuck by me during the past month and a half of no new posts! Sorry about that.

The cavalry (my parents) arrived the second week of December to spoil their grandkids and me too! It was wonderful. I actually sat down when eating, occasionally chewed my food and took a shower during daylight hours (I REALLY need to scrub my shower!). It was nice. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end... on Christmas day my grandmother fell at the assisted living facility where she now lives. In a mere 24 hours, she went from "seems fine, bloodwork came back fine - we're transferring her back to the assisted living facility" to "admitted to the cardiac care unit with four fractured ribs, partially collapsed lung and fluid in her lungs". Mom and Dad made the right decision to start packing immediately for the trip home.

When faced when spending the remainder of our holiday break at home with three now-spoiled children and no school, I chose the infinitely less painful option.... pack them up with all of their stuff and drive 13 hours to my in-laws' for more grandparent spoiling. (The picture sums it up quite well. The 'spoiled' stamp is actually compliments of our local USPS.) We spent almost a week in Missouri before we had to return to Texas.

So... I didn't fall off the end of the earth or even forget to pay my ISP's invoice. I'd love to say that I accomplished many great tasks while my parents were here, but I was operating under the 'assumption' they'd be here for a lot longer. So, rather than being ahead on projects, I'm rather behind. That's alright... I'll catch up eventually! Also, my grandmother is doing much better!!! Seems like she'll be able to return home to her assisted living facility in the coming weeks and we might get to see my parents out here again. Next time, I'm NOT putting my feet up.