We have entered the waiting portion of this adoption process. The first step of the adoption is a whirlwind of paperwork and social worker visits. The last step is another whirlwind as we prepare for travel. But there is always a window in the middle when there is nothing for us to do but wait. This waiting period will be a lot shorter than any we have ever done before, but it is still hard. I want to bring my little girl home now!

We are trying to use this time as wisely as we can. We expect Shea’s transition to be difficult, and we will probably need to stay home and focus on her most of the time. So we are trying to spend some time doing fun family outings and taking care of the things that we won’t have time for once Shea is with us.

Victoria was born with a small cyst above her left eye. It was not dangerous, but our pediatrician told us that we would want to have it removed at some point. We decided to go ahead and do that this month. She did great and made lots of friends at the hospital. Looking at her, you can’t even tell that she had anything done.

We also finally celebrated Greg’s birthday. With all of the paperwork for Shea’s adoption during the first half of the month, I completely lost track of time and missed it. We figured it was better to celebrate it late than to skip it all together. This past Thursday, the kids and I kicked him out of the house just after breakfast and spent the day making his dinner and cake. The big four even made posters and helped blow up balloons.

We know this time of waiting will pass quickly enough, and we will have our new little girl home with us. Until then, we will just have to keep filling the time as well as we can.