Seven Months and Counting

I haven't been very good about blogging lately, mostly because I'm not sure what to write about. We started this blog when we began our adoption journey and have added a lot of posts about our daily life, travels and events. There's been many daily life kinds of things going on lately but not much to update regarding our adoption. Believe it or not, we've been on the waiting list for seven months and nine days. Wow. We had hoped that we'd be closer to receiving our referral by now but in reality, we are probably only half-way through our wait to learn who Baby Ailor is. On the other hand, we are probably half-way through our wait! It's a glass half empty vs. half full kind of place to be.

So how are we doing? We're doing ok. August was a very hard month. We wanted to see lots of referrals and that didn't happen. September and October gave us hope as we creeped up the waiting list. And actually, the fall is going by very quickly. Just two weeks from today, we'll be on our way to visit my family in PA for Thanksgiving. And then December brings my birthday, Christmas, and lots of activities so before we know it, 2010 will be here -- the year we will finally become parents!

One confession ... I did purchase a 2009 Baby's First Christmas ornament for our tree, just in case we learn next year that Baby Ailor was born sometime in 2009. I just want him/her to know how much he/she is already loved and wanted and anticipated and thought of minute by minute of every day!

Mark and I seem to both have up and down days in feeling stress or anxiousness and luckily, so far, when one of us is down, the other is up. Something we like very much about each other --our ability to balance each other and lift the other's spirits. Mark finds himself clenching his jaw when he sleeps -- that's how his stress in waiting is manifested. I tend to become introverted and quiet. But we continue to look ahead and find ways to anticipate and prepare for Baby Ailor and to mark the waiting time with fun things. For example, we continue to enjoy building friendships with others who are already home with their children, from Ethiopia, Guatemala, and through domestic adoption. Seeing our friends with their children gives us so much hope! We are also continuing our one project a month, choosing some kind of project or task around the house that will help us to be ready for Baby Ailor. Last month, we found a book about baby sign language and will be trying to learn some basic signs that we can use with Baby Ailor. This month, we are hosting one of our Taste of Ethiopia events in PA so that our family and friends there can learn more about Ethiopian food and culture. We've shared this event with our family and friends in Indiana and are really looking forward to taking our show on the road!

One neat thing that has come from our longer wait ... our agency is now able to offer us more background information about our child. They will be giving us both a DVD and a lifebook to share with us and our child, as much information as is known about his/her background and birthplace. We are extremely grateful that we'll be able to have this information to share with our son/daughter as he/she grows up. One thing that you as our friends and family need to know is that this story belongs to Baby Ailor and is something that we as his/her parents will be keeping very private. It's important that little Ailor is able to share his/her story as he/she wants to. It's not meant for gossip and we, as his/her parents, want to be the ones who share his/her story with him/her as he/she is developmentally ready to know and understand it. Feel free to ask us more about this because I'm not sure that I'm making sense.

That's about it for our update. We continue to (almost) patiently wait and know that the day will come when we are united with Baby Ailor! Thank you for continuing to keep us in your thoughts and prayers -- your support is felt and appreciated!