A turn of events

So we've been going down this adoption road for more than a year now. We first put in our application to Great Wall on February 28, 2007. We have a China LID of December 28, 2007.

Last weekend I did some research on the internet and came across some data that punched me in the gut. Doing the math, it looks like we will be lucky to see our referral from China in less than three years. In fact, we are probably looking at five years or possibly more.

My Chinese daughter lives in my heart. I think of her every day. I have a blurry picture of her in my mind, waiting for definition. We will wait for her, and barring a total shutdown of the program by the Chinese government, we will bring her home.

But if we have to wait three-five years or more, C will be aging out of most programs and if we receive a referral for one child (instead of the possible twins) we will be limited in bringing home a brother or sister. We really do want at least two children. C's already aged out of some countries. We've spent the last five days or so researching and soul searching and trying to come to a conclusion about what we want to do. We are probably going to start the application this month for another child from another country. I'm forming that blurry picture more and more every day. More info to come on that once we finalize what we are doing.

In the meantime, I've been rather obsessed. I had to sit myself down at the scrapping table to force myself to finish a swap...which is probably going to be technically late since I mailed it late yesterday and it is due today and priority mail is fast, but not that fast. It took some serious effort to drag my mind away from family planning and into the swap I had started more than a month ago, but I managed to finally finish it:

Ladybugs. Imagine that.

I need to do some NIN paperwork, I need to clean the house, I need to go to the grocery store. I need to get dressed. It's hard, though...hard to concentrate on anything right now except building our family.