Last night I had a dream...

and for the first time I saw the face of a little baby girl who in the dream was our daughter. We were at a pool and Diego and her were sitting on the first step and I was facing them. She had very little hair, but it looked kind of blond; her eyes were not blue, but I can't remember their color. Diego looked younger than his current age, which is kind of weird.

I have been thinking about her quite a bit lately, even though it has been a while since I have mentioned anything regarding her adoption process. Well, it's because there has been not too much to say! But there are few new things that I can share with you...

First, we were asked by our agency to move forward and get our medical forms and FBI clearance. Usually these docs are done closer to the first trip. That happened in September, when our agency was expecting things to pick up a bit. I was in Vancouver and got super excited, but few days later when I talked to my agency found out that few of the referrals they were expected from one region were adopted by Russian families and in general things were not moving any faster than before. However, we still were asked to proceed and get those documents ready and appostilled, but really don't expect anything until probably early next year. So the plan is to get them all ready this month and send them out in early November.

We also found out that now there is only one family adopting a baby girl in line ahead of us. When we applied for this adoption in March there were 5 or 6 families wanting to adopt girls (I don't remember well) ahead of us, so little by little these families received their referrals and most of them have completed their adoptions. So that really great to hear!

We have also been reading and learning more and more about the Region of Kaluga and are leaning towards that region. However we were advised by our agency not to lock ourselves into only one region, so we will see how things shape up in the next months and into 2010 if/when the foster care stipend is reduced or eliminated. Our agency still thinks that "they can place a girl with our family" by March of 2010. Uhm, "place" as of refer or as of complete the process? I asked C, and we decided to be cool and not to lock into any specific word...

From the beginning we knew that this adoption was going to take from 9 to 12 months, and we have only been waiting about 4 months, so we should be patience, right? For many months I have kept myself excited and busy with gathering clothes and stuff for her. Well, after visiting both my sisters and receiving things from friends we are all set with her clothes!! From 6 months to 2 years old, both for summer and winter seasons!! Great, hum? We are planning to have her crib in our room for at least the first months until we see how she sleeps and hopefully move her into Diego's room; so we are not going to work on any nursery or rearranging rooms until she is with us. So logistically, we are almost set (we need to buy her car seat), so now we have decided to focus on little projects here and there in our house.

I need to chill, be patience, and keep my mind busy. With the nicer weather here I know we will be doing more cool stuff with Diego and Mark's parents when they come for the winter. This may be our last winter/Christmas season as a family of 3 so we need to focus on our present, have fun with our little son and just wait until last night's dream comes true!