There's really nothing new to report right now. I've just got adoption on my mind, so I have to write about it.

Our application form should be at the agency by now. I hoped to hear from them on Friday, but that didn't happen. I'm sure it didn't help that our answering machine somehow got unplugged Wednesday or Thursday, so no one could even leave a message. I think I may have knocked the wires loose when I deleted all the political canidates' messages the other day.

Yesterday my husband got the answering machine up and running again and ready for any calls we may get from the agency while we are at work.

We originally thought the answering machine wasn't running because it needed a new battery. It has the same kind of battery as the fire detector downstairs. I asked my husband if he had ever changed the battery on the one upstairs. He said he hadn't, but that he thought it was wired to the house's power. He got up on a chair and checked it out and soon had it beeping. He found out that it is hooked up to the power. That's one thing we don't have to worry about when we have our home study.

I asked my brother today if he would be willing to take some pictures for our profile. He said to call when we wanted him and he'd come over. I have lots of pictures of my husband, but not many of me. Guess who's the photographer in our family? My brother has the same digital camera as me, so he knows how to use it.

Besides pictures of me, I'd also like to get a new picture of us as a couple. One of my goals for our Christmas letter this year was to send a new photo of us. It's been five years since our last professional photograph, so I think it's about time. Every Christmas I send a card and letter and hope that the next year I'll have a cute baby photo to send. Now saying, "maybe next year" seems like a more realistic possibility.

I started writing an introduction to our Dear Birthmother letter today. I had a lot of words running around in my head, so I decided it would be best to just write them down. I got some things written down, but they don't flow too well. It's going to need a lot of work!

I don't know if I've ever said this, but adoption has always been an option for my husband and I. When we had premarital counseling with my minister, almost 6 years ago, he asked us what we thought about having children. We both agreed that we wanted children, and if we couldn't have any biologically, we would adopt.

Knowing this, I started wondering when I began mentioning adoption in my diary. I did a little search. This is what I found out: The first time I mentioned adoption was in my April 2, 2003, entry when I refered to my own "biological or adopted" children. Even then, when I had just found out about our male factor infertility, I knew I could be an adoptive parent.

A month later, in May, I made an entry guessing when we might end infertility treatment and start looking into adoption. At that time I guessed it would take about 1 1/2 years. One and a half years from then will be November, next month. In reality, we ended treatment in July. I was only a few months off:)