It takes a village.

One of my favorite friends who was newly-pregnant told me "It's so awesome, you're automatically a member of this great club!" I distinctly remember it because I was excited and happy for her, and at the same time sad for us, since I thought I may never be a member of the "pregnant club". But I gotta tell ya - this club we're in is pretty awesome! We have an amazing network of people from Colorado, Texas, Italy - all over the world - who are experiencing this with us, and helping however they can as they adopt their babies from other countries. Plus I'm much less likely to get stretch marks or morning sickness.

So that's the village; this global community of good, kind and generous people. Our families, our friends, friends of our friends, new online friends, my boss, Terry's boss, my brother's neighbor, the people from whom we bought our house, our current coworkers, our former coworkers, you name it - they have offered to help, have suggested we talk to a friend, or neighbor, or relative who adopted; they have done research, or they just asked that we keep them updated with our progress and have promised to keep us in their thoughts. (A special thank you to Laura, whose twitter let me know Nepal would be officially opening for adoptions again in 2009 and kicked this whole thing off.)

On the logistical side, a few forms down, many to go! We have to finish a big ole stack of paperwork to begin our home study, which is the first step. I think it's best to focus on that for now because I could get easily overwhelmed with this process. Good thing Terry's a "details" person. Namaste until next time.