The adoption ticker at the top of our blog is a good guess...but we don't really know when Cady is coming home. The ticker is based on bringing her home December 15th. I figured that's a good guess. But we really don't know. We don't know so many important things that make a difference in preparing for her arrival.
I think the hardest part of our wait is the not knowing.
We don't know what age she'll be. We don't know if we should get a crib or a toddler bed. We don't know if we should get a high chair. We don't know what size clothes to get her. We don't know if she'll be in foster care or if she now has a special relationship with a nanny. We don't know the exact date that we'll get the referral call. We don't know if we'll be able to take the day off work when we'll be anxiously wanting to see our daughter's pictures at the agency on referral day. We don't know if it'll be love at first sight or if we're going to have to grow accustomed to her. We don't know if she'll have a bad-BAD haircut in the referral picture. We don't know if she'll have a good haircut in the referral picture and a bad-BAD haircut on Gotcha Day. We don't know when we'll travel to get our daughter-December or January. We don't know if she'll be teething when we get her. We don't know if she's going to be outgoing or reserved. We don't know if she's already going to have an aggressive or passive personality. We don't know if she's going to be clingy or independent. We don't know if she's going to be sick with a cold in the middle of winter when we go to China. We don't know if WE are going to be sick with a cold in the middle of winter when we go to China.
There's so much we don't know. But we
DO know why so many people say that the paper chasing and the bazillion things on the check list before sending documents to China, is easier than the 6-7 month wait afterwords. At least in the paper chase, you KNOW what to do and what to expect on a daily and weekly basis.
