It's been awhile! There's a lot of things I want to write about, so I'll try my best to remember it all!

We had a nice time visiting my parents. My mom asked me a couple questions about adoption, and I talked with her and my sister about how we were keeping our adoption plans private for a while and how my sister-in-law wanted to know things. I told them how I tend to share my infertility with people who have gone through what I was experiencing. My mom she had once shared a little about me with a friend from church because she also has been unable to have children and Mom knew she would understand. My mom said that she didn't write about our adoption plans in our Christmas letter because she figured it was our news to share.

At my parent's church there were a couple new babies, but the highlight for me was the baptism of the pastor's son. This son is almost a year old, and his adoption had been finalized a month before. The baby was about three months old when placed in their home. I discovered from my mom that the birthmother had asked the pastor and his wife to parent her child as the baby's father is in jail and she couldn't care for him. The pastor and his wife really had to think it over since they weren't planning to adopt. They have three elementary-aged children by birth already. My mom said that the pastor's wife has had some miscarriages.

It was neat for me to see another family with a recently adopted infant. My husband and I talked to the pastor afterwards while he was holding his son and he was mentioning to us how since they normally don't baptize infants that old they had to decide exactly how to hold him and who should hold him. I noticed that they used a pacifier a couple times while they were standing up in front of the congregation with him.

Before we left my parents'I went through several boxes of toys in their garage and packed one large box of my old baby toys to take back with me. My mom also showed me some of my old baby outfits and said I could take what I wanted. By then I was running out of room, so I ended up just taking a couple of outfits from when I was in kindergarten. I figure if I have a girl before summer, Mom can always sent the clothes to me be mail.

While going through the clothes we ran into an old flat diaper from when my brother was a baby. I told my mom how I'm thinking of cloth diapering. She wondered if you could even find diaper flannel anymore and plastic pants. I said that you can find things online. I've also found diaper flannel and plastic pants and pins at a store in Indiana frequented by the Amish. Mom wondered if there was a diaper service in our city. She said she really liked it when she had it once after one of us kids was born. I told Mom some of the new diaper systems available today. She told me that I should talk to my cousin's daughter. Her baby is very sensitive and allergic, so she has been cloth diapering her baby. Mom gave me the old diaper and said I could use it as a pattern if I wanted.

Once we got home, my plans were to complete our profile book. I spent much of Thursday and Friday getting it done. I had hoped it would only take me a day, but it ended up taking two days. In order to crop my pictures straight and accurately, I used an X-acto knife along with my clear quilting ruler and cutting mat. I bought patterned and decorative paper at the craft store and stuck on the photos and my handwritten labels with taped mounting squares. I used double-sided tape to stick on the typed white pages(you could see the squares underneath the paper). I think it turned out really nice, and I am very proud of it.

It's 16 pages long, with 2 to 3 pictures on each page:
page 1 - Introduction
page 2 - Our Story
page 3-4 - Our Faith and Neighborhood
page 5-6 - About My Husband
page 7-8 -About Me
page 9-10 - My Family
page 11-12 - Hubby's Family
page 13-14 - Our Activities
page 15 - Work
page 16 - Closing Thoughts

Probably sometime this week I'll have color copies made and bring my three completed profiles to the adoption agency.

Before we left for vacation I sent my Christmas letter by email to an old junior high friend. I hadn't heard from her for a couple years. I was surprised when I came home to find a response from her. She and her husband adopted two Russian children and brought them home only a couple months ago. I wrote her back and she shared more of here experience with me.

Her experience adopting from Russia was not an easy one, and she now wishes she had looked more into domestic adoption. It was one more intance where our decision to adopt domestically was reaffirmed.

New Years Eve we were at a friend's house and two of the couples who filled out references for us were there. I was talking to one of my friends about adoption and another girl overheard, so I had no choice but to let her and the other woman at the party know that we're adopting. These people don't go to my church or send their kids to my school, so I figure I'm safe from them telling the people I'm trying to avoid telling. Maybe I'm paranoid about all this, but I really don't want certain people to know yet. I'm afraid of the attention. Telling two people at the party was bad enough.

Yesterday night while we were eating my husband mentioned that this month we should go shopping for a crib and car seat. He thinks it would be good to get a car seat that comes with a stroller (travel system, I think they call it). I thought it was kind of funny that he has an opinion on what kind of car seat to get. I guess he observes things like that more than I think. He wants to be prepared with these things just in case a baby comes along unexpectedly. I think he also wants to take some time to do it now while he isn't busy with spring-time work at the greenhouses.

I've started comparing travel systems on-line to get some ideas of what will work well, especially if we end up traveling by plane sometime to visit my parents. Right now I'm wondering if it is worth the extra cost to get the lightweight aluminum ones. Maybe I should look for a stroller where you can collapse it with one hand. There's so many things to think about: safety, convenience, cost. I'm sure we'll find something that will work.

As far as cribs go, I think I want a real crib, not one that can convert into a toddler bed. I really don't like how those look. I figure my child can go directly from a crib to a "big bed."

Saturday my husband picked up a carbon monoxide detector. Now all we need to do for foster care is post emergency numbers by the telephone and lower the temperature setting on our water heater.

Our adoption case worker called today and said that our local clearances came through. We'll need to pay $20 for the four of them. My husband had been wondering about that because the county didn't aked him to pay anything. Our case worker said she'd send information with the lady doing the foster care orientation tomorrow night. She didn't say anything about our case study, so it must not be finished yet. I hope it won't be too much longer.