Finally!

In more ways that one.

Is that a collective sigh of relief you hear? Because I hear it. We're now the Mr. and Mrs. MTLs (MyTwoLines in case you're confused) which has a much, much nicer ring than the LCs, no? It certainly does to our hearts and ears.

Not to say this has all been roses. If I hear one more person say "You know you what'll happen next right?" and then look at me with a michieveous grin. "You'll get pregnant!"

Oh.

Thanks for that little piece of ridiculousness.

And this part of the waiting, can I just say it sucks with a capital S? When you finally cross over with the two lines from a pee stick you enter all new territory. Terrifying for so many people because of all the possible pitfalls. Suddenly they are exposed to all the new possible ways for things.to.go.wrong.

We've entered new territory, too.

Sometimes, it is too painful to think about the babies. Literally. They are not here. They are there. They are not in my arms. I am completely and utterly dependent on someone else (who cannot possibly love them as much as we do) to take care of them. To meet their needs.

Gulp.

Yes, yes, yes I knew this intellectually when we started down the road of international adoption. But that didn't mean I knew what I was in for, truly.Can you ever?

That's not to say we don't talk about them constantly. We do! We're debating names (oh boy, Mr. MTL has some seriously jacked ideas for baby boy names), we're talking work schedules, child care issues, feeding, we're reading, we're forum-posting, we're actively doing lots and lots of stuff. And it feels so good to be doing all of those things. But this waiting is hard. This lack of control is hard, especially for this control freak. What? You hadn't picked up on that?

For those of you who want to know the details, right now we are waiting for a court date in Ethiopia. We will be present at that court appointment. This is where it will be determined if the babies are truly available for adoption and if we are truly able to adopt them. Right now we're updating all of the required paperwork for that appointment. If some things had moved a little quicker we wouldn't need to be updating things but it's just the way it worked out. Let me say this: we have been fingerprinted more times than I could ever, ever imagine. Twice this week alone! I am anticipating the court date will be assigned in 5 months or so...yes, five.

After that court date we return home without the babies.

Talk about agonizing. I can't even go there yet.

Then we wait for a second travel assignment and Embassy date. We fly back to Ethiopia and do some more paperwork and then we are allowed to return home. As a full family. Time between the two trips? One month to three months.

Oh please let our paperwork move quickly, let the courts work quickly (they tend to shut down for things like: rain). Let our children be healthy. Right now we're trying to hire an outside doctor to go check on them but even that is difficult.

OK, I'm not going to think about the hard stuff. I'm just going to stare at our referral photos and smile. And smile and smile and smile.

And thank you, my wonderful wonderful blog buddies, for all your beautiful comments. I will treasure them forever and always.