Tentative Travel Dates and Reality Sinking In

Yesterday, we found out that if our case is successful on Oct. 7 and the Ethiopian judge approves our adoption, we will travel at the end of October. We are totally psyched about the upcoming travel! The week that we will travel is a great week for me to miss work because I have a very light caseload and have had several of my colleagues say that they will help cover my cases or do whatever needs to be done that week - thank you so much, friends!

Late last night I sent an e-mail to our travel agent to get the ball rolling with determining flight schedules. It's funny, we received our TTDs a month before our court date, but last time, we never did receive any official dates for picking-up Ashure. I look back and I think that was God's way of helping to shield us from even more heartache. I am so excited and planning away for the trip but I never really got to do that with Ashure and she was officially our daughter - weird how God works things out sometimes, isn't it - anyway, I think her death would have been even harder to accept if I was already in full-swing travel planning mode and her bag had been packed.

This morning, I was driving down the interstate heading to Nashville and planes started flying over my head and I started crying. I laughed at myself because I have grown-up around airports (my Dad was an air traffic controller) and planes are my child's world, so there's nothing new about my being around airplanes but today was different. Reality sank in as I drove down I-24W...in 47 days, I hope to be holding my baby girl!!!! How amazing is that!?!

Last night, Jason and I started "discussing" who would be the first to hold her on that day. We went back and forth (playfully) and I ended the conversation this way, "Now look, when Ashton was born, you were the first one who got to hold him and even brought him to the hallway to meet our family while I was on the operating table getting stapled, so it is my turn to hold this baby first." He grinned and added, "Well, it's not my fault you were sound asleep, snoring and missed the majority of the delivery." I said, "It was not my fault I was drugged!  So, it's settled, she's in my arms first." Jason just grinned.

Now, I was on bedrest the last 1.5 months of my pregnancy and had an infection within my uterus when I was in labor and ultimately ended-up with a C-section. I was VERY GROGGY during the C-section because I had been given so much medicine - some of which made me loo loo. Oh well, I will be wide awake for Baby Girl's "delivery"! This "pregnancy" has been the longest ever for me - 3 years!!