waiting... to be waiting

So we are waiting to be waiting lol. Don't know how else to say it. We have been waiting to be waiting for six months and it just feels like forever, which is depressing because I'm sure our actual wait will be longer than that. I worry about our to handle the real wait, because I won't have a step by step process that we have had while we were waiting to wait. Dear Lord, please give me patience.

We have baby furniture up and in our nursery!!!! It makes me so excited. But then I get sad about being excited because of the wait. haha. It is def. a hard balance to find between being excited and hopeful and trying to keep in check with reality and realistic wait times. I am constantly telling everyone the average wait is 1.5-3 years, but really I keep telling people hoping it will sink into my head. I have lately been having trouble holding back from buying clothes and such. haha. I did buy one onsie (just one) and that has satisfied me for now. Hopefully it will for a long time so I don't just go out and splurge. However when we bought our furniture we got a gift card with it, making it a little harder to resist lol.

Here a few pictures of the start of the nursery. I'm ready to start making it cute.

Here is what I got with my gift card.. Couldn't resist

Dear Birthparent

Oh the letter I've been thinking about writing ever since we started thinking about adoption. I mean really what do you say to the person or people that could make you a parent. Jeff and I each have to write a letter individually to put in our profile. How do you know what is important to include and what is ok to leave out. What are these expectant parents looking for? what will turn them off? what do you say to make yourself stand out? I am trying very hard to make it sound like me and not like a professional letter. My first attempts at starting it came off too impersonal when I read it back, with nothing that felt like me. I feel like now after four of five drafts I'm starting to get closer to what I want. I have had trouble limiting it to just one page, but finally was able to.
I can't help but get excited that we will soon be a waiting family. Because at that point any day we can be chosen or matched. But I also hate that I am getting excited because I need to be realistic and know we will probably wait for a year or two or three. I'm so excited to be waiting yet it also makes me nervous because we will be done with our checklist of things to do, and the hardest part starts... just waiting and waiting and waiting.
Our adoption counselor did encourage us to network, and said she would gladly send our home study to other agencies or lawyers if we liked. We did not orignially know that was something that was encouraged, so that opens up many new doors and is something we will probably look into once we are approved.
I have some anxiety about making our profile perfect. I am not a perfectionist, but every few minutes I am tweeking one part or another, constantly over analyzing how this picture or how that sentence will be viewed or percieved. I often think, I need more pictures of this, or this picture isn't good enough, or why don't I have a picture of this. I want it to be perfect and at the same time don't know what would make it perfect. I try really hard to know that it will seem perfect to the expectant mother that is carrying our child. I do believe that we will be matched with the child that was intended for us, so I need to let go of the perfection issue I have been having.

These are just some of the thoughts I have during this last part of the process, and all these thoughts really stem from the main question that is constantly turning in my head "how long will we wait?" and "what can I do to make that shorter?" haha

Surprise

So surprise to me and you... We are done with our home study visits. We thought we had one more, but today as we did our service plan meeting they told us that we are finished!!! It feels so very weird, I'm kinda shocked and excited all at the same time. Now we wait while they write our home study report and see if we will get approved or not. I hope so much we will be approved, it will be a few weeks before we know anything. During this time we must finish our adoption profile by which birth families will pick us. It is a lot of pressure to represent yourself accurately on paper. How do you do that? And knowing exactly what to say in your "dear birthparent" letter is a true challenge as well. I hope we represent ourselves well.

So I may have gotten real excited about being finished with the process and I may have went out and bought baby furniture!!! hehehe I can't wait to start and finish decorating the nursery.

After our home study is approved (thinking positive) and our profile complete all we have left to do is wait. Please pray we will not have to wait long. The average wait is 1.5-3years and that seems soooo long to me hopefully I can survive it.

our jobs and an update

Sorry it has been awhile since I have updated or written anything, kinda had a lot of things going on....

We are both extremely lucky to have jobs that we love. i know how lucky that makes us, your job as much as you don't want it to affects so much of your life. Jeff absolutely loves his job, he is one of those crazy lucky people that gets excited about going to work. I truly wish everyone could feel that way.  I really like my job, but still dont feel like I do as much as he does.

things i love about my job.....
-the sweet precious little babies
-giving a baby to their mom/dad to hold for the very first time---love making people that happy
-watching a new parent worry about how they are doing with everything even just changing diapers just because they love their baby so much, and want to do it perfect
-cuddling in rocking chairs at 3am just because I can
- giving a little guy their very first bottle and watching them work so hard to figure out what to do with it
- making cute little signs and foot prints to hang up around their rooms ( i must admit i'm not good at this but still enjoy it)
- feeling like I am helping a baby get well to go home and be with their family
 
Crazy thing, I took on a second job temporarily as a clinical instructor, very unexpected and makes me nervous, but seems to be going well so far. Who wouldve known I was going to be doing this.

Adoption update:

We had our individual interviews today at the office, lasted a total of 3hrs. It was 1.5 hrs for each individual part. I feel like I did better today, and was able to be more of myself. I still had the nervous sweats going on, but that is just going to happen haha. Jeff says he felt like he did well too. When we talked afterward, it seemed like we answered most of the questions very a like, so I think that is a good thing. Lots of deep personal questions today : 0.  We already scheduled our next visit, which will be next Wed. at our house again. Two visits down and hopefully only two more to go!!!