Well, it's been awhile since I last wrote.  A lot has happened. For starters, we took a step back and reflected on why we went down this adoption road in the first place.  It certainly wasn't to buy a baby!  So, we have bowed out of the domestic arm of the Marshallese adoption world and have gone back to the international one. We had not formally finalized our home study for domestic, but it still cost a pretty penny to switch it to an international home study, which oddly enough, looks almost identical!  We did have to take two additional classes online as well, that were required by our placing agency.  International homestudy finalized yesterday.  Now it is being sent to our placing agency for approval.  After that, we get to start on our dossier.  I expect that to take another 6-8 weeks.  After that, we are looking at 3 months of so for a referral. So, with any luck, we will be spending time in the Marshall Islands this winter! 

Oh boy.  Where to even start.  Well, for starters, we have backed away from this particular referral and heartbroken does not begin to describe how we feel right now.  I do not want to expose details because there is an innocent child involved and that is really sad and they deserve respect and privacy.  Let's just say that lawyers are not all to be trusted.  We had gotten a referral for a beautiful child.  There were a couple inconsistencies in the story as to how they became available for adoption but we fell in love with her instantly and overlooked a couple things.  Those inconsistencies grew and after a couple days, it became blatantly apparent that we were not dealing with a very straightforward adoption case, or a very ethical lawyer.   It was a heartbreaking decision, but we decided to go with our guts and stick to our morals and integrity and back away from this referral.  We are now back to playing the waiting game.  We are toying with the idea of reentering the international waitlist and foregoing the domestic adoption route.  Our personal lawyer is awesome and he supported and encouraged us in our decision to walk away from this referral.  The lawyer for the baby and birth mother, however, exposed the horrible side of domestic adoption, especially from such a vulnerable group of people such as the Marshallese.  I hope that this beautiful child can be united with a loving adoptive family or back with her biological parents soon.  We are now at a crossroads and trying to decide what path to take. Stay with domestic and risk another heartbreak, or go with an established international program with strict guidelines and a known timeline.  I am leaning towards the latter at this time.  Sigh.

Why is it that nothing ever happens on a weekend?  Seriously!  I just want to fly to go get our baby girl, but I won't hear anything until tomorrow at the earliest.  Meanwhile, we are busy getting her room ready for her and deciding on a name.  It's just busy work though and is not really distracting me from the fact that our little girl is just waiting for us to fly and get her.  Sigh.

It's a girl!  Oh my goodness, she is so beautiful!  She is just 2 months old.  I cannot wait to snuggle her up in my arms.  We may get our order to fly within the next 10 days to go meet her.  So excited and so nervous as well. What if the birth mother takes one look at us and changes her mind? 

Where to begin?  Within one month we will be a family of five!  Incredible and unbelievable.  All we know is that our baby has been born.  We are awaiting news about birthdate and gender as well as our marching orders to book our airfare.  While we have been planning this for almost 8 months, this last little part has gone so quickly!  Time to find our baby bottles, crib, baby toys, etc.  So exciting and a little bit scary as well.  I promise we'll update this blog with details about our road to adoption after everything is completed.  We will be flying within 30 days.  Eeeek!  (=

Oh my goodness...we may have just been matched with a baby!  So excited.  No specific details yet.  My heart is in my throat.  Will update when we know more!  Eeeek!

Time is slowly ticking by with no real progress. We are mostly finished with our home study.  Our social worker needs to interview our live-in childcare provider and then finish her background check for the state.  Of course, he's on a 10 day vacation so now we have to wait for that to wrap up.  He was supposed to interview her before he went out of town, but was too busy to do so.  Sigh.  So, we wait some more.  After that interview is completed, he'll work on our actual written report, which we will then review and finalize. New timeline for completion looks to be the end of July, nearly 5 months after getting started!  After that is sent off, we should have more of an actual adoption timeline.