DEEP BREATHS

This last week was a tough one for us. We continued to not hear anything and we wanted to know what our dossier was doing. Was it finished being translated? Was there an issue? Do they need more information? We had no idea. Which is literally the hardest part, you feel like to know nothing.

I talked a few times with our agency last week and they gathered from our NGO that we may hear by the end of the month for our official referral and travel by the end of March or April. WE WERE BUMMED. And VERY confused. What was going on? Why would it take so long?

Well... this weekend we decided to distract ourselves from this news we would plan a staycation and do something with Leo and Magnolia every single day. We went bowling on Saturday, went to Wings and Waves on Sunday and the Zoo on Monday. Once we got back from the Zoo on Monday I checked my email and to my utter shock, we heard from our agency saying that we have our official referral and tentative travel dates. Say WHAT?

We are relieved for our official referral. While you can still lose your referral the odds go down once your referral has been signed by the MOJ (Ministry of Justice). We are so very excited. Our travel dates are tentative only because they wanted to make sure they would work for our schedule. Uh, yes, of course, they work, we would have been on a plane last week if we could have.

I quickly started looking up flights and BOY it's expensive. Yiker YIKES. BUT I have been tracking flights for weeks with all the possible weeks we COULD fly. So I was not surprised to see such a LARGE number per ticket. We can fly humanitarian, which does not save us money it does allow us to change our flight if needed with no penalty. We felt good enough to take the plunge and bought our tickets! We will arrive in Sofia two days early to poke around the city before making our way to where sweet D lives. We then get to spend the week with him. From others who have been to this orphanage before us, we will get to spend 9-1 with him every day, which believe it or not is a lot more than most people get to spend with their little ones. We will then have the rest of the afternoon to explore or nap or cry or eat our feelings. Who knows?

After we are home we will then be scurrying and then WAITING. We need to go through immigration again, be FBI fingerprinted again, have notarized doctor visits and fill out more paperwork. Because adoption = paperwork. But then we wait. For... 4-6 months. I just cannot. even. think. about. it. Feels like an eternity to even think about. DEEP BREATHS.