The Most Important

Yesterday we bought THIS: (We fondly refer to it as "Baby Heaven".)

(Since I'm the one writing I get to choose the picture.)

For at least five years I've been thinking about what kind of "rocking chair" I'd want for rocking my babies to sleep. I'm a fan of comfort and a traditional rocking chair just never appealed to me. I'm also a fan of tucking my legs up under me when I sit down. For a while I pretty much assumed that we'd be getting some sort of recliner. I hadn't seen anything out there was as comfy as I wanted. But we hadn't really looked at anything seriously until just a few weeks ago when we were approved and officially waiting for baby.

That was when my mom gave us the most appropriate card with a picture of a baby on the front and lots of little baby items surrounding it and a caption that read "What time is it?" Inside she wrote "It's time to get that rocking chair..." I'll admit I let a few tears come out on reading it. Was it really time for me to get my rocking chair? Really? I'm so used to things not turning out how I'd hoped and for waiting longer than I'd ever thought possible. Somehow my mom knew the perfect time to help me stay excited and feel like things were going to be real with this baby thing.

When her first grandchild came along Mom started a tradition where she helps buy the rocking chair for the mommy-to-be. I'm glad to say that I'm no exception.
Zack and I went shopping a few days later, walked into the store and literally walked straight to the perfect rocker. It's roomy enough to tuck my feet under myself, it reclines, it's cushy and comfy and it's ridiculous how well it matches the crib and furniture we picked out 5 years ago. We might have walked away with a rocker that night except for the fact that they had none in-stock. So we waited until there was a sale and then we ordered it.

Our rocker and ottoman came last night and we set it up in the baby's room. As I sat down and was enjoying it's heavenly comfy-ness, Zack said "This is probably the most important piece of furniture we'll ever own."

I don't know if it will be the most important piece of furniture that we'll ever own, but I love knowing it was given to us by one of the most important people in my life. Thanks, Mom!

We're Approved!!!!!!!

And we're online!!!!!!

https://www.beta.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/22364754/ourMessage.jsf

Any second, day, week, month, or year now.....

As I said to Zack, "It's like we're pregnant.....and we have no idea when we're due!"

Caseworker Meeting

On January 21, 2009 Carrie and I left work early to go visit with our caseworker. The purpose of the meeting was to make sure that everything was in order before we are approved. The meeting was very nice. Kate gave us a lot of suggestions on our birth parent letter, the "get to know us" section, and a couple other minor things we needed to fix. The only thing that would have made the meeting better would have been to have it like a month earlier, so we could have used the time to tweak our letter and such. All in all though it was good.
Since then we've changed nearly all of the things Kate suggested. Carrie practically rewrote the entire birth parent letter after we had a little mini-revelation about the format we wanted. It has been a week since we sent the revised letter to Kate, and we haven't heard back from her yet. She's probably trying to work up the courage to tell us that this letter won't do, either ;o). Actually, we're sure she is working on wrapping up all of the information and writing the final home study for us to be approved, which might even happen this week! We'll be sure to send you all a link to our profile when we are online. Then you'll all be able to see why it generally takes a year or two to adopt (because there are like 60 couples out there exactly like us!)
One last point I want to mention; Earlier I said that we had changed NEARLY all that Kate suggested. I could say the same about the changes suggested by a friend. They were all good suggestions However, Carrie and I have decided to leave some things in the letter that may not be what you'd expect an average letter to say, but that show our personalities...for better or for worse ;o) We just want to be ourselves in our letter, and we think our future birth mother would want it that way :o)