Still No News

It is 10:50 am and the message boards are eerily quiet. No one has posted a referral yet and there has been no acknowledgement of TA's being given. Come on TA's!

Gifts A Plenty-Gifts Galore!

This past weekend we went camping. The last weekend in July is always reserved for our annual family reunion camping trip. This trip was extra special since my family threw us a baby shower too! Dreamsicle will no doubt be the best dressed baby in our entire county thanks to the generosity of my family. Such cute clothes! My aunt knitted or crocheted (not sure which technique was involved since I'm really knitty/crochete-y challenged) Dreamsicle a beautiful pink blanket which I will cherish forever. She received jeans, shorts, shirts, everything a little girl needs to be styling for the next year. A little frog covered head visor (perfect to take to China!), Books and fingerpuppets and a sweet teeny tiny gold ring. Oh yeah-that's right-my girl received her first piece of jewelry. She even received her very own princess camping chair! My family is so dog-gone creative that even the gift bags were unique and special. Between quilt square wishes and hand written notes inside gift cards I was a blubbering fool for a good 5 minutes. I'm so lucky to be able to bring Dreamsicle into a family that is so filled with love and encouragement for each other. It really is amazing.

Still no word on TA's but I'm hoping we hear something tomorrow.

No News Yet

Sung to the tune of Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone:

Oh where oh where is my baby's TA?
Oh where oh where can it be?
There has been no news yet and I'm
outta my mind
I'm ready to meet my babyyyy.

Losing my mind folks-losing my mind.

BUT! in other news I have finally found the elusive stacking cups! Yeah!

Happy/Sad

First let me preface this post by saying Congratulations! to all of the families that will be receiving their referrals within the next two days. I am seriously overjoyed for you. When you see the picture of your baby for the first time, well, the feeling is hard to put into words.

Having said that....

When are TA's going to be sent???? The usual order is one group of people will receive their referrals (like we did in June) then 3-4 weeks later they receive their TA's (travel approvals). This event usually alerts the next groups of individuals waiting for referrals that they will receive their babies information, or referrals shortly thereafter.

That did not happen this time.

We received our referral and have been (ahem) patiently waiting for our TA -only to be notified that the next batch of referrals is being sent. What The Heck? Where is our TA? My poor group has been the group with many firsts (not any of them being good firsts) I feel like I need to do a huge public service announcement regarding my apologies to all of the other families who received referrals with me because this is the kind of thing that happens to the McGyver family all of the time. My patience is gone now people. Where is my TA? I just want to get my daughter, is that too much to ask?

Engaged!

Chester made a surprise visit home this weekend. His brothers picked him up from the airport early Monday morning, we sequestered him safely inside the house all day yesterday. Last night we concocted a diabolical plan to get Princess to "meet" me at a local park. When she arrived at the park, she saw my vehicle but it sure wasn't me that got out of the driver seat. Chester proposed, she accepted and wedding plans are already in full swing. The big event won't be until May of 2008 but she is a planner, that Princess of ours.

We couldn't be happier. We adore her and she just seems to "fit" into our family naturally.

Don't worry family-I'm going to have them stop by the family reunion this weekend for a big ol' lovefest.

Oh happy day!

Nesting

There is some serious nesting going on around the Casa de McGyver. Every sheet, blanket, and washcloth (yes, all 22 washcloths) have been washed, dryed and put away. McGyver assembled the highchair yesterday. I have Dreamsicle's clothing choices in a pile to pack for the trip. My backpack is filled with all of the 750 gazillion things that MUST! NOT! BE! FORGOTTEN! to take with us by way of medications, lotions, potions and other assorted sundry.

I'm getting the nervous butterflies beating against my stomach again. We're getting close-I can feel it.

For those of you that have BTDT-may I please ask for a word of advice? Dreamsicle weighed in at 13.5 pounds when she had her check up in April. I'm guessing that she's not going to weigh over 20 pounds when we get her so I'm packing clothing that fits up to 20 pounds. My question is in the diaper dept. Should I take 2's or 3's? I know that I can purchase diapers once we get over there but have heard their not as absorbent so I want to bring some with me. What size would you all recommend? And on a side note-where in the heck did everyone find stacking cups? I cannot find a set of stacking cups to save my life. I've looked at Walmart, Meijer, and Target and have not been successful. Any other ideas? For toys I have a crinkle book, a hard page book, a small plush toy and a set of keys, any other must brings?

I want to come home!

Anxiety

I am beginning to experience anxiety while waiting for our Travel Approval. The CCAA has finally decided to move and different agencies are reporting different things. Our agency is stating that this move has been well planned and should not cause any delays but there are other agencies saying just the opposite. As much as I want to believe my agency, with all that we have been through already I'm inclined to think that we will get caught in the middle of this. I simply cannot bear the thought of having to wait until sometime in September to meet Dreamsicle.

I have been watching the national news and seeing the flooding that is taking place in China right now makes me anxious as well. I keep thinking of all of my blogging buddies who have just received their referrals and their babies are in orphanages in the affected areas. If you are so inclined, please keep them in your prayers that the people of that region remain safe.

I'm anxious about what to do regarding our plane tickets. Do I go ahead and bite the bullet and pay large sums of money to purchase the adoption rate tickets now or do I gamble and see what I can come up with once we know for sure when we will be traveling? With the price of fuel being what it is right now, I'm up in the air on this one (geesh, no pun intended I swear).

I need to let the people know who have emailed me with their anxiety over their take on my feelings about receiving our daughter that I really don't have blinders on. I may write on my blog all sunshine and light types of posts but in real life McGyver and I are fully prepared to deal with any issues that Dreamsicle may have. We know what the risks are and will love this lil' darlin' no matter what. We've overcome other challenges with our children and both of us know that the road may be all uphill for awhile. But when you get to the top of the hill-the view is spectacular.

Weekend Update

McGyver and I spent the weekend up north. We have a 5th wheel that we normally camp in (McGyver likes to tease me that I don't "camp", I "RV") but because our weekend plans involved water he talked me into staying in his hunting camper. The camper slides into the back of his truck which allowed us to pull the floating playpen behind the truck. After getting over the initial insult of my insisting I had to clean the camper before I would stay in it, we headed north. Late Friday night we arrived at the cabin of our friends. We stayed in the camper that night, then got up early Saturday morning for our water adventure. We are life long residents of our fine mitten shaped state but shamefully had never been to this particular body of water. When we arrived at the lake I was in shock. The water was so clear that you could see the bottom, even in 10 feet of water you could still see the bottom. I was so mesmerized by the fact that I could see the bottom that I kept begging McGyver to jump in the water just so I could watch him go under and still see his body as he touched bottom and came back up. There were 5 families that made the trek up north with us and we spent the day boating, grilling and socializing. In the evening we actually docked the boats and were able to walk into town and have an adult beverage while the kids went for ice cream. What a fantabulous time we had. We came home today but we will definately be making another trek up there this summer.

On the Dreamsicle front~we have another picture of our angel baby. A woman from the NanKang message board had donated some items to the orphanage. As a thank you they sent her a picture with 9 babies in front of the donated items. She generously posted the picture knowing that 4 families had received referrals from this orphanage this time and thought we might like to see the photo. I opened the picture and there she was! On the far end, leaning like a drunken sailor onto a walker that had another baby in it. She is about one month older in this picture than she appears in our referral photos. She still has a receding hairline but seems to have more hair where she sports hair. The look on her face is hard to describe. She doesn't look sad, she's not smiling-but she seems...serene/content. I love this picture so much. She still looks like a tiny little munchkin but she is just like a bag full of eye candy to McGyver and me. We hope to receive travel approval sometime within the next week (crossing fingers and toes on this one) so be ready for an out of control mom- to- be once I receive word of the date that we will actually be traveling to pick up our bundle of sweetness.

Shower

Today has been a great day. I have no idea how the 60+ people that I work with pulled it off but they managed to throw me a surprise baby shower. A Surprise baby shower. Dudes-I am the one that checks our company email-I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that 60 people could keep such a huge secret from me. The gifts-oh the gifts! Dreamsicle is the proud owner of three onesie's that are custom made-the first one reads-My big brother drives a dump truck and has the name of our construction company on it. The second one reads-My big brother is a Marine and has the Marine Corps eagle, globe and anchor symbol on it. The third one reads-My big brother is a Flying Dutchman and has his college logo on it. She now owns a hand made quilt-it is knitted-the cool thing about this is that each square was knitted by a different person that I work with. I am so touched. She also has a hand made quilt from one of the ladies that custom makes a baby blanket for every baby here. So many, many goodies (and her high chair-yeah!). I am literally going to have to back my vehicle up to the front door to haul my stash out of here.

Random Ramblings

This weekend was a good one. Spent alot of time on the floating playpen, hanging out with friends. We watched the fireworks from the boat again this year, there were some really cool ones. Each time one of the more spectacular ones would appear I would whisper into McGyver's ear, think about next year.

I had a t-shirt made with one of her pictures on it (the one with the grapes of course). It was easier to have people stare at my chest than worry about bringing her photos out onto the water and run the risk of getting them wet. This is the one weekend of the year that we virtually run into everyone that we know so believe me when I tell you that my way was much more efficient than hauling out the trifold picture frame.

It's amazing how much stress has been released from my body since we received our referral. I had no idea how much it was affecting me until I had a chance to unwind this weekend. No stomach pains, no reflux, no insomnia. I'm telling you-stress released.

We have decided to send a care package to Dreamsicle. We will be including, among other things, a small photo album with McGyver, myself and the boys. One person per page. This has become quite the project. Every picture I find of myself I'm not happy with. I don't want to scare the poor baby, or freak out her caretakers so I think we will be taking some new photos today. Bad hair and weight gain over the past twelve months has not made for a cute mama. We are also sending her a blanket. We started sleeping with it last night. I fell asleep holding the blanket and realized in the middle of the night that the blanket I chose was rather warm. This resulted in making me start to sweat. In my sleepy half delirious consciousness I made the connection that sweaty mom was probably not the scent I wanted to send to my daughter so I threw the blanket off of the bed. Maybe we will each just hold it for awhile as we watch tv.