Holy Crap!  42 Days!  That’s how long until I become a mom.  You see, I have all of these pictures of this beautiful baby girl in Guatemala but I’m not her mom yet.  I am still able to feel sane and slightly detached about things pertaining to her because she is just a beautiful picture.  When I see her in December I believe that will all change.  Once I hold her in my arms, she will become my daughter in my heart.  Then this lovely sanity and peaceful feeling I’ve been exhibiting since we got our referral?  Poof.  Gone.

I’m really nervous about our visit trip.  (Did I mention we leave in 42 days?)  What are these people thinking?  They are really just going to bring her to me and leave?  I don’t know what I am doing!  I don’t know how to be a mom!  Are they nuts?  What if she hates us (meaning me)?  What if she won’t stop crying?  What if I won’t stop crying?  What if she gets all creeped out because I just sit and stare at her all week and then she files a restraining order to keep the crazy weeping mama lady away from her?  And leaving? Oh, I’ll be a train wreck from that day forward until she is home.  Seriously, don’t expect anything coherent from my blog from then on.  I’ll just whine daily about how she isn’t home yet and how I am missing everything.  You’ve been warned so don’t be rolling your eyes at me come February.

But the other (less neurotic) reason I am nervous about this trip?  My life will never be the same again.  I will be a mom.  I will have a daughter.  There will be another person whose needs and wants trump mine.  I will never stop worrying.  She will be completely dependent on us.  We will be completely responsible for molding her into a decent human being.  I’ll have to learn that kissing the forehead to check for a fever thing.  And starting the day we meet her, I’ll begin worrying about her growing up and leaving us.  That all starts the first time they place her in my arms.  Wow.  That’s an awful lot for a woman who has to get up at 4am to get on a plane destined for Guatemala to absorb on a random Wednesday in December.