On it's way to Vietnam!

We have officially entered the last stage of the waiting process! Yesterday our agency called to tell us that they had recieved all of Juneau's translated paperwork in the mail, and they were ready for us to sign the I-600 and send it off to Vietnam!

This is HUGE! This means that as soon as vietnam recieves the packet we will start our 60 day wait for travel approval (which may actually be 60 business days, not calendar days, we're not sure). This is the very last and final step before hopping on the plane for Vietnam. We can't believe this is finally happening.

Next step: We recieve an email from the US Embassy in Vietnam stating they recieved our I600 and will process in 60 business days. Then, sometime in the next 2-3 months we will get an email stating we can come and get June-bug. We anticipate about 2 weeks notice before we travel.

Little Nova seems to be doing just fine. I've felt very occasional Braxton Hicks contractions, and she moves around a LOT, but she's been in a head down position since about 28 weeks, so she hasn't been doing any major flip-flops. One of the High Risk OB's at work was on call with me 2 nights ago, and wanted to play around with the new 4D u/s machine at Tripler, so I got a some nice little glimpses of her face. She was making all kinds of funny expressions on the ultrasound.

Next weekend we are heading for a short weekend trip to Kauai over my birthday (next saturday!)

And just to keep you from being too bored, here is a picture of cris skipping rocks on the black sand beach in Maui last May. Hang in there for a couple more months and we will be posting pictures of beautiful baby girls!

miss negativity

my attitude really sucks. Last night after a super super busy beginning of my shift, things kinda slowed down around 2:00 a.m., and i thought i might just try to lay down in one of the empty labor beds and take a little nap. I tossed and turned for 2 whole hours thinking about how much i hate my life right now (which obviously isn't really all that bad of a life!) and i nearly had myself in tears with terrible, negative thoughts. primarily about my job, which i really really don't like right now. Revision: i actually like my job, i hate all the stupid crap that goes along with being a resident. and also i was thinking all kinds of hateful thoughts about my agency. i spent about 45 minutes thinking of what i would say to my agency director, and my residency program director if i could say anything at all that i wanted without either feeling really bad about it later, or getting kicked out of residency.

Like, for instance. As a resident it is perfectly acceptable for a nurse to page you at 3:00 a.m. to ask you if a patient can go outside to smoke. I don't think that really qualifies as a 3:00 a.m. type of question, but hey, I'm the resident, and i am at the service of every single OB/GYN patient in this hospital. If you need to smoke at 3:00 a.m., I'm the girl to call. and if i don't promptly respond to said page, it is perfectly acceptable to write up said resident for not returning her pages promptly enough.

see, it's the bitterness. The black heart that now has taken the place of the regular heart that used to care about stuff. it's eating me alive! Maybe baby girls will cure the blackness, and i can go back to being a nice person instead of a nasty person who can't sleep because i'm too busy hating the world.

good things right now:
1. we're getting new carpet
2. we're going to kauai not this weekend, but next weekend
3. i don't have to be home to watch non-stop basketball during March Madness because i will be at work.
4. cris and i both have Saturday completely off and i SWEAR we are going to find something really fun to do, and forget all about everything else that sucks.

Maybe Maybe...

Today the Vietnam Coordinator called to let me know that the In Country Staff had Juneau's complete file! This is what we have been waiting for in order to file our I600 (the all-elusive LAST STEP before getting a travel date). The In Country Staff is translating the remainder of the documents and will then mail them to the Agency. The agency will then review everything and mail it all back to Vietnam. Once it is recieved in Vietnam the official clock starts ticking. They have 60 days (although recently they have ammended this to be 60 Business Days) to review and approve our dossier.

So my new best guess for our timeline:
March 21 - agency gets the paperwork, reviews, and mails to Vietnam
Apr 1 - Vietnam recieves the file
May 13 (or thereabout!) Nova makes her appearance
June 1 - We get our approval to travel
June 15 - Cris travels to Bring home our Baby girl!

all of that is of course COMPLETE speculation, but hopefully it is somewhat on the right track.

Nova baby is still doing GREAT! She of course loves to wake up and play just about the time I am trying to go to sleep after working all night. I will hit the 8 month mark on Tuesday. It still doesn't seem real that in a couple of months there will be a tiny baby as a part of our family, and shortly after that (or if there is some kind of miracle shortly before that) we will have the little June-bug that we have been dreaming about and waiting for.

still just waiting to file

so we got some possibly good news today. i really don't put a ton of stock in what the agency tells me, since we are now on our second referral, and 10 months since our first referral and still no baby (please refer to below timeline!). BUT there is a glimmer of hope that we may have an end in sight. I talked to the VN coordinator, and she says the in-country staff has june-bug's dossier in hand, and will be finishing the translation this weekend, and mailing to the agency next week, which means as soon as the agency gets the dossier we can file the stupid old I600. don't know if i should believe it 'til i see it, but at least it's something.

work has been going pretty good. I've been trying to keep a positive attitude, but there has been random minor drama here and there. Our Residency program director has decided that working 5 14 hour shifts/week isn't quite enough work, and that on Friday morning (after finishing our night shift) we have to stay another 4 hours to see clinic patients. Are you kidding? I truly do feel bad for the clinic patients i have to see on friday mornings, b/c i can hardly keep my eyeballs open. it just seems like such a terrible idea. But i'm really trying hard not to complain (although i just spent the last paragraph complaining).

On the Belly Baby front, things are good. I haven't posted a belly pic in a while, but it's becoming a pretty respectably sized belly. I still have a hard time grasping the concept that either this pregnancy or the adoption will actually end with a baby. It's been such an incredibly long road that i still can't comprehend that in a few months we will have 1 baby for sure, and hopefully 2. It's so strange, because i'm around pregnant and laboring women literally all day long, and yet i haven't even really thought about my own delivery. For my prenatal "visits" i pretty much just corner one of the other residents in the hallway and make them listen to the baby and measure my belly about once a month. I have no idea what to expect for my own labor. I'm definately going for the epidural (while all the while giving much respect to the all-natural mama's out there). That's pretty much the only thing i've decided about. I still don't even know who is going to deliver Baby Nova. Guess i'd better get to work on figuring this stuff out!

I'm really really really hopeful that next week i will be letting you all know that my I600 is on it's way to HCMC. That would be AMAZING.

waiting sucks

It's been 1 year and 5 months since we turned in our Adoption Application

1 year and 1 Day since we were DTV

9 1/2 months since we recieved our first referral

4 months since we lost our first referral

1 1/2 months since we got our new referral

We still have not been instructed to submit our i600.

Whirlind Week

My first week back has been a whirlwind. Working nights has been going well so far. We haven't had any really crazy busy nights all week, so it has been a good transition. This schedule really causes the days to fly by, though. After my 14 hour shift i go straight home to bed, then wake up just in time to head back to work, and before i realize it, the whole week is over and I can enjoy my Saturday off.

I'm trying to find fun things to do every weekend until the baby comes. I know our lives are going to change drastically in about 2 months, and I want to squeeze in all the running around i can into the next couple months. So far i have planned a nice weekend trip to Kauai at the end of the month. I'm really excited about visiting the "garden isle". it is supposed to be very green and beautiful and peaceful. We are staying 2 nights at a lovely oceanfront resort, and i think it will be a great time.

Yesterday we went to the Fingerprinting office to renew our fingerprints. I still don't totally comprehend the idea that fingerprints expire, but whatever. Anyway, it was uneventful. The immigrations officer we had was about the nicest government worker i have ever seen. She was so excited for us, and specifically requested we send her a christmas card of Juneau after she comes home.

I am still feeling great with the pregnancy. No aches or pains yet. And fortunately, I have NEVER had a problem sleeping anytime or anywhere. I'm trying to stay healthy and energetic, and have been out walking several times this week. Nova's movements have changed a lot. She has been in a head down position for the last 6 weeks or so, and now i get random baby parts poking out. Mostly her bottom and knees i think. She's also been getting the hiccups, which is a little strange.

I'm enjoying Laurie's posts (over at pho for four, or is it pho for five, or are we up to 6 or seven by now?) about her upcoming delivery quite a bit. I do plan on posting some about my thoughts about deliveries, and hospitals, and doula's and midwives and interventions. Probably won't be too terribly popular of a post, coming from the oh so dreaded Ob/GYN doctor with a mission to go around sticking scalp electrodes on innocent babies heads and popping amniotic sacs with a crochet hook. It's just a very very different perspective that you get after working in Labor and Delivery day after day. I've delivered about 600 or 700 babies by now i think. About 450 vaginally and 150 by cesarean. I've seen some horribly terrifying and sad things happen in those hundreds of deliveries, and even though it is really uncommon to have a poor outcome it impacts you in a way that is hard to explain. and it certainly has changed how i think about things, and how i always believed i would practice obstetrics. i will say i can count on 1 hand the # of episiotomies i've cut, and i avoid the vacuum and forceps like the plague (but i'm not afraid to use them when i need them!) but that post is for another, more ambitious day. Posting on controversial topics usually leaves me feeling really vulnerable, so i'll wait for a day i have lots of energy.

whirlwind week

My first week back has been a whirlwind. Working nights has been going well so far. We haven't had any really crazy busy nights all week, so it has been a good transition. This schedule really causes the days to fly by, though. After my 14 hour shift i go straight home to bed, then wake up just in time to head back to work, and before i realize it, the whole week is over and I can enjoy my Saturday off.

I'm trying to find fun things to do every weekend until the baby comes. I know our lives are going to change drastically in about 2 months, and I want to squeeze in all the running around i can into the next couple months. So far i have planned a nice weekend trip to Kauai at the end of the month. I'm really excited about visiting the "garden isle". it is supposed to be very green and beautiful and peaceful. We are staying 2 nights at a lovely oceanfront resort, and i think it will be a great time.

Yesterday we went to the Fingerprinting office to renew our fingerprints. Apparently fingerprints expire! Who knew? I thought your fingerprints pretty much stayed the same for life, but i guess the U.S. government has found a reason to require Fingerprinting every 15 months for adoptive parents. Anyway, it was uneventful. The immigrations officer we had was about the nicest government worker i have ever seen. She was so excited for us, and specifically requested we send her a christmas card of Juneau after she comes home.

I am still feeling great with the pregnancy. No aches or pains yet. And fortunately, I have NEVER had a problem sleeping anytime or anywhere. I'm trying to stay healthy and energetic, and have been out walking several times this week. Nova's movements have changed a lot. She has been in a head down position for the last 6 weeks or so, and now i get random baby parts poking out. Mostly her bottom and knees i think. She's also been getting the hiccups, which is a little strange.

anyway, we are excited as can be, and incredibly anxious for these girls to FINALLY arrive. Thanks for continuing to keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we wait for Juneau's final paperwork to be ready!