"Out of the office" - On vacation

Hello everyone. Just wanted to check in quickly while we're on vacation. The dossier made it to Uzbekistan! It was delivered on July 7th (3 days late) while we were enroute to the grandparents' house.

The kids are just loving their time being spoiled by the grandparents. The two day drive was a bit excessive, but in the end worth it. Our big secret about a new baby sister was leaked within the first ten minutes of our arrival. I believe the quote from Matthew to Grandmom was, "We have a secret. You can't tell Pop-pop. We are adopting a baby sister from Uzbekistan. When Mommy and Daddy fly on a plane, we'll stay with our friends in Dallas." My mom kept her poker face on and just nodded. While Matthew is known for his tall tales, Mom felt this one had an awful lot of details he couldn't have just made up on his own.

Sean was quick to tell Pop-pop during unloading, "Pop-pop, we're adopting a little sister from Uzbekistan!" Daddy called him away quickly to help with something else and my dad made no acknowledgement that he had even heard the original comment. When questioned about spilling the beans, Sean replied "BUT, Matthew already told Grandmom!" :)

The next morning we officially told them our secret - thinking they were oblivious to our sons' middle of the night ramblings. They did not show the correct level of surprise and admitted they started putting things together the night before. They are very happy for us! My mom said she was always a little sad that I wouldn't have the opportunity to raise a daughter. She couldn't be more thrilled that there will actually be a little girl in the family.

More vacation details to follow when I've got more time... it's almost time to tell the other half of the family. Can't wait to see their reactions! THIS time, we're not going to assume the kids can keep a secret!

Frankfurt, Germany

So, what does Frankfurt, Germany, have to do with anything??? Apparently it's a happening place this time of year or something! Our dossier has been lounging about there since the 29th of June! FedEx has an estimated delivery date of July 4th by 6 pm. Well, that's less than 9 hours to make it 2915 miles "as the crow flies" from Frankfurt to Tashkent. Figuring that's at least 3000+ miles the way the camel walks.... I have no idea what FedEx is thinking!!!

Oh please FedEx... don't you dare lose this package!

Some days it hurts to be a parent

Today we got the sad news that we had been dreading. Our dear dog of nearly twelve years has inoperable cancer. The vet has no precise guess as to how long she'll be with us. Could be a matter of a month or two...could be six months. No idea. Explaining it to our sons and cradling them while we all cried together was as hard as knowing I was going to be losing my best four-footed furry friend. Daisy has always been a fixture in their lives and they keep asking for her to get better. I am not sure if the long slow goodbye is the best, but it will give me the chance to make up for the past several years of giving priority to my two-legged kids over my four-legged one. Daisy and I survived college together, trips to Hoover Dam at midnight, cross-country roadtrips, hurricanes, airplane trips, walks on the beach, Kansas thunderstorms, the adoption of my husband and of three puppies (children) to the pack. She's had an adventurous life and we've matured together. I'm going to miss her.

The other part that's breaking my heart is knowing that we'll soon need to tell the boys about Mike's upcoming deployment. The last time he left the kids were too little to understand the concept of "months". This time they know the "months of the year" song and they know exactly how long it will be. There will be questions of where? Why? Can he come home? Why can't he come home? There will be that first week or so of overwhelming sadness and sudden outbreaks of tears and "I want Daddy!". That will be replaced by an unbelievable clingy-ness, thinking that at any moment Mommy might also leave them. About a month or more into the deployment, we'll settle into a routine. Emotions will even out and the extreme attachment will slowly lessen. By the fourth month, "normal" will mean no-Mike. When he returns, it will actually take a while to readjust to a "normal" that includes him.

I am also sadden by everything Mike will miss during this upcoming year. When he comes home, Sean will most likely be reading and have an even more independently defined personality and interest list. Matthew will have lost that wide-eyed innocence of preschool and playdates. He'll have that hardened seriousness of an elementary school student with the pressures of peers and homework. Jonathan will have learned to talk and become fully a preschool boy... not the babbling toddler. And then there will be our daughter... she will have arrived as a part of our family not even knowing there's a daddy lurking closer to her original home than here. The boys will know her personality, likes and dislikes. We will have established our own little family structure minus Mike.

Parenthood isn't all just cute homemade cards and kissing boo-boo's. Some boo-boo's are deep inside and you just can't fix them. Also, no matter how many foam bumper corners and baby gates you install, there are "hurts" that you will never be able to protect your child from. Those are the ones that hurt YOU the most.

The Big Reveal...

So, I'm getting a little nervous. As an avid watcher of shows like Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, there's always that final buildup where the newest creations are shared with family and friends. Our adoption is facing the "big reveal" in the next couple of weeks.

Some of you may disagree with this, but we've kept our adoption news a secret from our parents. Why? Won't they approve? No, nothing like that. I guess we wanted our surprise to be more about a grandchild than this major paperwork process we had gotten ourselves into. Plus, I'm afraid they would have done too many internet searches and read about disrupted adoptions, fraudulent agencies, travel warnings, etc., etc.

We'll be visiting both sets of parents in the next couple of weeks and sharing the big news. Since our sons have been sharing the news with EVERYONE they talk to, we figure the secret will be out within the first ten minutes of walking through the door!

I'll be sure to share the reactions when I have a spare moment or two. Keep your fingers crossed! My guess.... utter surprise, disbelief, "how are you EVER going to keep up with laundry and dishes?" and finally.... "oh WOW, a granddaughter!"

Recap - the happier stuff

So what's happening with our dossier you ask? Right now it's sitting in a FedEx sort facility in Frankfurt, Germany. It's been there for a couple of days now. The estimated delivery date is July 4th. That has got to be the most frequently checking tracking number ever issued by FedEx. I've almost got it memorized.

Since I last left you.... we took our entire dossier to a notary on a Saturday. We signed our lives away and made copies (of the papers - not our lives). Scanned and e-mailed everything to our agency for a fast review before hitting the road to Austin. There was one speedbump in that we were missing one form from the agency. Got that on Saturday... found a notary open before noon on a Sunday (that's a big deal in this town!). Hit the road Sunday afternoon for the state capitol.

Spent Sunday evening chatting with a yahoo group friend who lived in Uzbekistan for two years. We went through photo album after photo album and sipped tea from an authentic Uzbek tea set. I loved every minute of it. It truly made it seem more like a real place with real people than all of the websites I've been looking at. I can't wait to see it for myself.

Monday morning I headed out to the state's certification/apostille office. Mapquest lead me astray with a wrong way turn onto a one way street. Thankfully the building was on the corner and I just found a parking space and hoofed it the rest of the way. The process took just a few minutes. It was well worth the drive though when the woman "bundled" two documents that weren't supposed to be. I had listed them separately on the office's form and had not stapled them (everything else was stapled into bundles), but she bundled them because they were from the same notary. Not acceptable!!! I had her redo it and then our dossier had grown by about another six pieces of paper.

Tuesday I received the last packet from the adoption agency. Slipped that into the dossier and overnighted it to the courier in Washington D.C. (Caring Hands.... Highly recommend them!!!). By Wednesday our dossier was in our nation's capitol and headed to the Department of State the next morning. Friday afternoon it was back on its way to our house after getting an extra page of "official looking" stuff from the Dept. of State and an unintelligible stamp from the Uzbek embassy.

Monday afternoon it was back with FedEx and headed to our agency. Tuesday afternoon it was again with FedEx and on its way to Uzbekistan. That poor stack of paper must be getting dizzy after being whisked around the country so many times.

And now... we wait. I don't know how the referral process works from here exactly. I think it's going to involve some waiting. While I'm waiting... I think I'll check that FedEx tracking number again. It's been at least five minutes now.

Eating Frogs

I read an article in our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago where the author talked about sayings her grandmother used to have. "If you have to eat a frog, don't spend too much time looking at it before you have to put it in your mouth." and "If you have to eat two frogs, eat the largest one first."

Well, I've got a lot of frogs all lined up. We found out a couple of weeks ago that Mike is going to be deploying to one of those rather nasty middle Eastern locales. He'll be gone for almost nine months. (To anyone who might know or speak to our kids... they don't know yet!!!)

Next frog, our dog (who has been a part of my family longer than my husband) has been diagnosed with cancer. She's having surgery this week and we'll know more after that.

It's been a long couple of weeks. Adoption news has been a bright point in our lives, but still everything is overshadowed by the impending absence of my husband. How will this affect the adoption? We're not quite sure yet. Part of the reason we chose Uzbekistan is because we could still adopt if only one of us could travel. This was a worst case scenario we had at least considered. My questions now are how it will affect the paperwork and especially the re-adoption in the U.S.

So, for any military families considering adoption, bookmark this blog! We'll walk you through the process of adoption during deployment... or at least we hope to!

It's HERE!

'nuf said!