I am at the very beginning of this journey. We made the decision about 1 week ago that we were going to adopt from Columbia. Why Columbia? It's okay you can ask. That is where my child(ren) is/are. I don't know why Columbia, we just know that is where we will meet up with the rest of our family. I requested the paper work about a week ago now, I it has yet to arrive. I have checked our mailbox every day, and if you know me you then know how much I hate mail and getting from our box. I usually check it so infrequently that sometimes it gets so full that the post man will take it back to the post office and I have then will have to go to pick it up and get a lecture about how I need to check the box more often. My postman even commented this week when he left a package at our door how empty the mailbox is and that I was doing a good job. Any how I want my PAPERWORK! I am ready let's get started. I feel like it took so long to know what I needed to do and where to go that now I am ready.

When in the day I find a peaceful time that my mind can drift I find myself wondering about the child(ren) who are waiting for me. In Columbia, you are able to adopt sibling groups and we have decided if it is meant to be we would adopt siblings that were younger than Katy Rose. We would like the birth order to continue the way it is in our family. We know we will have who is meant to join our family. MG was particularly excited about this possibility, it made perfect sense to him that as long as we are down there might as well bring home as many siblings as they will let us. At night as I drift off which is hard to do I find myself thinking about them and wondering if they have been born yet. Katy Rose doesn't have a full understanding about the journey we are embarking on but she would like a sister who looks like Dora. Malcolm is the more practical one he is the one getting the financing together, he tells me he will be more excited the closer we get. He also made me promise that I would try and sleep, because I tend to be grouchy with not enough sleep and he doesn't want to live that way for the next year and a half.

Here is the time frame we are looking at:

• My goal is to have all our paperwork into LaVida to be sent off to Columbia by Easter. That means I will need to be very diligent on getting everything done and organized. But this is a very realistic goal.
• Then, the paperwork sent to Columbia is called a Dossier, after that is received and reviewed it can take up to about 15 months for us to be assigned a child(ren). Now sibling groups can be referred as soon as 2 months.
• After getting our referral, then we will travel 2-3 weeks later. And stay in Columbia 3-4 weeks.

We are planning to travel as a family, if MG is in school then we will take him and all his school work with us.

I just want my paper work and my child(ren) to know, Mommy is coming.