Feelings all over the place

So, lately, I've been looking at Brandon and thinking "what would our biological child look like?"  
I've been feeling a little sad when I really think about never having a child with our genes mushed together. 
Perhaps it's because we've had some friends who have recently given birth or perhaps it's because I look at his kids all the time and see parts of Brandon, but none of myself.    His youngest looks so much like him, but his oldest only has little hints.   I wonder what would happen if we did have a baby.    Unfortunately, I will never get to see that unless perhaps we win the lottery!  I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before and here I am talking again.... 

 I feel at peace about our decision to forgo crazy medical interventions to get pregnant - not that they are CRAZY in general, but they would be much more involved than a we would want and we would have to spend a lot more money with little hope that it would work.   I have felt very good about our decision to adopt, because I know that I will LOVE the child that is placed with me with all of my heart.  I will fall in love with the baby the moment I see him or her.  Heck, I might even fall in love as soon as we are matched with the amazing birth parent that chooses us.    I am thrilled to have the opportunity to parent a child, no matter how that child comes to us.   

Because I know that I will FALL IN LOVE - I am so excited that our profile is DONE!!  I posted a link to it on the previous post and I am very proud of what I created for us.    This means that at any moment, we could be matched and I am just in awe of that!  

Now I feel like I want to buy everything that we could ever need for our baby.  I've been researching strollers and it is so overwhelming!  I'm hoping that Brandon and I can take a day to go to a few stores and try a bunch of strollers out.  It seems like such a big deal to pick out those big items!    If it were up to me, I'd fill our house with baby items immediately.  That's how excited I am!

Our Completed Profile

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What?! We're ready?!

So, apparently I was a little confused as to how things worked with our adoption home study.   After our last visit, I assumed that we could not be considered waiting until our home study was in it's final form and we received our foster license (needed for domestic adoptions in WI).     I was waiting (not so) patiently and emailed our social worker to see how she was doing on things and told her we were excited to be approved.

After a couple of emails, it turns out, there is no doubt that we are "approved" and that we can actually be considered by birth parents RIGHT NOW!  Because we have completed all background checks, interviews, paperwork, training (except for one next week), we are ready!   After the home study is written in it's final form, we'll receive a copy of the foster license and I believe the home study, but really, that doesn't need to be there in order for us to move forward.

We are waiting for our sample profile to be delivered to our house, because I want to make sure it looks great in print before I order a bunch of copies for the agency.   Once we have the copies delivered to the agency, I'm sure it will feel like we are officially WAITING.      For now, I'm working on creating some cards that we can hand out for networking purposes and I have set up an email address and a facebook page especially for our adoption contacts. 

At this point, I want to ask each and every one of you to cross your fingers,  your toes, your eyes - everything!  Hope that this will be a short wait for us and that we will be connected with our baby very soon, because I can't wait to really start this adventure of parenting!

A quick update

I haven't written in a while; mostly because not much has been going on as far as the adoption goes.

We are waiting for our home study to be finished and I am having a couple of people review our profile before printing a test copy.  I think about names a lot and have started to think about cloth diapering, which will be an adventure.    

 We're enjoying our van and love how spacious it feels even with the 4 of us in there.    The boys went back to school last week and weren't too happy about starting earlier than other schools in the area.  They are in 7th and 8th grade this year, which seems wild.   I'm excited to go to some football games, choir concerts, and band concerts.   
Brandon and I had a date night on Saturday night. We had a blast trying a new restaurant and going to a comedy club.  My mom reminded us that we need to do this now, because when we are the parents of an infant, it won't happen too often!    We also went to a State Fair on Sunday and ate fair food, fought through mobs of people, and enjoyed some time with our friends Amy & Laura. 

Overall, things are going well, but I am anxious about getting things going again....