Metcha Day

I made it to Landia yesterday! And I got to meet the girls today and bring them back to my apartment here. We met the girls in the morning, had a break and lunch, in the early afternoon went to court, and then went back to the orphanage to pick up the girls. They asked me if I wanted to take the girls this afternoon or tomorrow so that I could get ready. Tomorrow probably would have been the logical choice, but I went with my heart instead.
Beach balls and bubbles have been a hit so far.  They just fell asleep after I made a rookie mistake of giving them too much liquid before going to bed. Faith already used her little potty, apparently I am not waiting until we get back to the States to potty train as the orphanage asked that I continue to put them on the potty at regular intervals to not undo their work.
So far they have been so quiet and rather shell shocked. I am waiting for the "scandels" as my translator called them. They are definitely shy and somewhat reserved.  I am guessing that Hope will have a harder time attaching. I haven't gotten any laughs out of her and scarcely a smile either and she definitely avoids eye contact.

Travel Dates

I got travel dates on Tuesday.  I leave for Landia in about three weeks.  This past week I have spent trying to figure out paperwork such as insurance and leave.  Most of it still isn't figured out.  I also sent out an email to lots of friends and family to update them on the current status of the adoption and what happens from here.  This means that I now have readers!

I also bought plane tickets and reserved an apartment for the month that I will be in Landia.  Now I need to finish cleaning and purging items from my apartment, so that I can make room for two more people and all of their stuff.  My mom is visiting next weekend to attend my shower, but also to help with childproofing, finishing some of my home improvement projects, and gardening.

Frenzy

I have been staying busy this week.  I took on extra hours of work and have tried to finish various projects and trying to make sure that my apartment is ready.  There is still so much to do.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a doctor that specializes in internationally adopted children.  It did not go how I expected it to.  She basically thought that most of what was listed in the files was probably not any issue.  That is good news, but also strange to hear because I thought that their diagnoses were definite.  I guess that I will find out once they get to the States.

Tomorrow I am going to do some childproofing.  Yay!

I was wrong

I got a surprise email yesterday afternoon...a referral.  I was not expecting that in the least.  It is for the two year old twins.  I have not accepted it yet, but do plan to.  Now the hectic craziness begins :)

Not Today, Not Today, Not This Week...

Every afternoon this week, I have had the moment where I realized that my official referral was not going to come that day.  Tuesday marked the one week from submission point, which was the earliest that I realistically thought that I could get a referral.  This afternoon I was on the elevator when I realized that it wasn't going to be this week.  However, at the end of the day I received an email from my agency asking about travel dates with the expectation that official referral will be coming soon.  I am now hopeful for Monday :)

Out of Translation

Translation of my dossier is done!  This means that my paperwork was submitted to Landia's Ministry this morning.  They will now review and approve my application.  My agency is hopeful that I will have a referral in a few weeks.  I have restarted my countdown until the end of the month, which is an arbitrary date to pick as my expected referral date, but it is as good as any.

Got it!

The I-800a approval arrived in the mail on Saturday.  I got it on Sunday night after I got home and scanned and sent it off to my agency ASAP.  Now I am just waiting for my dossier to finish being translated.  In my head I am aiming for a March 20th submission date, but that is probably because is just two weeks from today.  I am sure that on Monday I will be saying that it will be submitted one week from then, because Monday will be exactly one month since it theoretically could have started being translated.  Basically I am at the point that I am expecting to hear news soon.  I am so excited, but scared too.  I just spent 30 minutes trying to calculate my leave at work.  If I leave for Landia on Memorial Day weekend, I can take leave all the way until Labor Day.  This is the plan if I am granted permission to host the children between trips.

I have started learning some Latvian.  I don't know how useful knowing colors and being able to count up to ten will be, but that is about how proficient I will be.  I never did make that to do list, but I have mostly gotten out of my can do nothing but try to figure out the future.  Maybe that is because it is getting closer.  I just realized that in April I should be Landia's public list of adopters with files in their system.  It is just a simple chart with dates and information about the kinds of children that the adopters would be open to adopting, but one of those lines will be mine.