Happy Birthday!

Dear Jesse,
Happy Birthday, my little boy! There is great joy in this day but I'm so sad that I'm not with you to help you celebrate, hug you tight, and feed you cake. Do you even know today is your birthday? Our lives are so different because of this day - the day your came into the world. I know your birthmother is probably thinking of you as well - same as me - wondering how you are and what you are doing? I know you will have a better day in Thailand because here at home it is cold and snowy. I'm sure you will get to play outside today. There is so much I'd like to say to your future self - about how I feel on this day. Although we have never met face to face, I love you with all my heart, you are my son, and on this day I will celebrate you and think about all the birthdays we will have together.
Love you,
Mommy

Buyer's remorse or....

Okay - not exactly buyer's remorse because I still love everything I bought over the weekend and have no desire to return any of it. However - some emotions that haunted me during treatment are back. It's hard to explain but one of those one step forward two steps back kinda things. Like because I was feeling good and happy and anticipating Jesse's arrival I shall now be punished and we won't travel until June, or something. Or worse - Brad and Angelina saw our son and fell in love and now they get to take him home instead of us. Because really who wouldn't want to be taken home by them? But anyway, it's like when going through treatments, getting your hopes up is like emotional suicide - thinking good thoughts and feeling positive only makes the bad news worse and then feelings of guilt ensue. Like "Oh, I was too optimistic, what gives me that right? Someone is sending me a message - reminder me I'm not in control" Look, I never said it was logical or rational - trust me I know one is not punished for thinking happy thoughts but when things go bad over and over again when you feel you've done nothing wrong....it's hard to swallow.

So, now I can't shake this feeling in the pit of my stomach saying "You've gotten too far ahead of yourself - now you will be punished." It means nothing - I know my buying a diaper bag has no influence on the members of a board in Bangkok who are reviewing my file. I'm pretty sure - they don't even know! :) Again - it goes back to all those feelings of things just aren't going to go my way. I really thought most of this baggage would go away after a while. It's been over 4 years since I was in treatment and really I won that prize, pregnancy. So what's wrong with me? I know I'm lucky - and that's worse because now I feel I know better, I should be able to shake these feelings. But they never seem to go away - is that normal?

Not that I've ever been normal. :)

Fun day of shopping

Today we decided to hit Babies R' Us. It was a just a need I woke up with this morning. We had a fun time browsing and shopping. We bought Jesse his new stroller (I think I figured out how to link). We bought Ian a new booster seat, I found a super cool diaper bag (I have a obsession with bags all of kinds and this was a great excuse to purchase another diaper bag - really the only excuse I have any more). I found great presents for some new babies I know and most importantly a wonderfully cute, super soft and squishy, perfect green frog. I wish I could find a link to show you but it's not on the website. I fell in love immediately and decided to buy him as a family froggy friend. I'm pretty sure Ian is currently snuggled up with him in bed. It was a nice happy day of expectant babydom. A good way to end the weekend and head forward into the busy week and weekend ahead leading into my birthday next Tuesday! I love birthdays - every one's birthday, not just mine, birthdays in general.

Have you ever just wanted to sit back and bask in the glow of a good day. I think that's what I'll do now.

Details

Because my friend posted a comment asking for more details, I'll just reply in a post for everyone. We've had over a year to think about the details and really the past few weeks to hammer down even more. Jesse's birthday is in a first weeks - he'll be a year old on the 24th. I hate that we're missing it and there is nothing we can do - although I heard you can negociate with bakeries in the area to deliver a cake but it sounds so complicated from half way around the world.

Anyway - details. Ian and Jesse will be sharing a room. We're going to sell the dressers we have and buy smaller ones from IKEA. (New curtains too to give the room a total make-over look) We'll pull the crib out of the garage and use the same hand-me-down one Ian slept in. The toy situation is going to be scaled down and unfortunatley we'll probably move Ian's trains into the living room to make room in the bedroom. I really wish I had a house with another room for toys but alas, I don't. We have a spare bedroom, but it's the only place we have for guests (and babysitters who sleep here) to stay. Both my sisters live out of town and need an area for when they visit. It's not huge but it's all we have. I think Jesse would be scared by himself anyway and will really like sharing a room - Ian likes the idea now! We'll see how he adjusts.

I'm going to take 4 additional weeks off work once we return from Thailand - not that I work a lot but I want to make sure Jesse is fully adjusted before leaving him in the nursey at the YMCA. We need to make sure he knows we are his parents and we are bonded to him for life. Ian will be going to preschool summer camp for a few weeks which will also give me time alone with Jesse.

Ian is excited about the idea of building an animal for his brother at Build-A-Bear. He gets to pick something out and make it special as his present for when his brother comes home. He likes having some control and being able to make some decisions.

I'm not sure what other details would be interesting to people. Email me if you have any specific questions :)

Immagration approval: check

Well, we just received our second round of approvals from USCIS (formerly known as INS). We orginally applied at the start of this process but it's only good for 18 months. It's not an easy process in terms of you can't ever talk to anyone about it - emails only. The person only deals with orphan/adoption approvals on Tues and Thurs and yes I do mean THE person. There is one orphan officer for all of Cook County (those of you not familiar Cook County is the one that includes Chicago and a lot of it's surrounding suburbs). We were hoping everything would move quickly but we must have hit the jackpot because out papers were submitted on January 9th and we already received our approval letter yesturday! Apparently January is the time to submit your I-600A paperwork (take note). It's a huge piece of the puzzle we'll need done and taken care of for travel - which is good to know I don't have to worry about it anymore. We've also beein in conversations with our placement agency and our local agency and the two are going to start communicating with each other (which is also nice because we're not entirely sure what steps we need to take and this way all the professionals in our lives will be on the same page.

I've been resisting the urge to run to Babies R' Us and purchase things. I have coupons and really would love to go and buy our new stroller and Ian's new booster seat but I'm resisting. I think my parents are going to take Ian away for the a weekend and then Sam and I are will cleaning/organizing/shopping fiends. I just don't want to jump the gun on things and then run into a snag or something. I've already purchased a few small items (toys, shirts, blanket) and that will have to hold me over for a while. :)