Life is amazingly quiet in our household right now. There is no frenzy over this letter or that clearance. There isn’t anticipation every time the phone rings that it might be The Call. It’s very weird…it’s like life has gone back to “normal” since we submitted our dossier. “Normal” being what it was over a year ago. Because back then, I was just trying to get pregnant, I wasn’t obsessing over the fact that I wasn’t pregnant yet. I wasn’t surfing message boards constantly gathering information. I wasn’t evaluating different countries to adopt from. I wasn’t trying to weed out which agencies were really evil trolls in disguise. I was simply a happily married woman who hated her job and had reasonable hope of having a child in the near future.

With the submission of my dossier, I have returned to that state. The adoption has renewed my hope of having a child in the near future but at this point is still hypothetical enough that I don’t feel particularly impatient (I’m sure that will last about a week). If I had a picture of my future daughter and knew she was growing older by the day as Guatemala’s process ground on? Then I would be a happily married mother who hates her job and is in constant angst over when her child will come home. But for now, I am quite pleased with this content place I am in. Do I want a referral tomorrow? You bet your ass. But I know it’s not coming for awhile so I feel free to relax and gear up for the next 6 months of angst. It’s like a part of me realizes that this is as worry free as I will ever get to be again. After I am finished worrying about getting her home, I’ll spend the rest of my life worrying that she is okay and happy and safe.