DTC, now what?

I almost don't know what to do with myself.  I have free time and no longer obsessing over documents and deadlines, waking up in the middle of the night with the thought one little detail I need to take care of, etc.  It's a strange, yet welcomed feeling.

Now we wait patiently for LID and LOA, the next two big hurdles.  All the while doing nothing on our part but starting to actually prepare for Macey to come home.

It's funny, and I hate to admit this, but I may have seen some pictures of Macey today.  A woman from one of the yahoo groups I belong to posted some pictures on her blog from her daughter's birthday celebration at the orphanage.  There's a service that will send gifts and a cake and as confirmation that the gifts and cake were received and enjoyed by the recipient, the owner of the service asks for pictures.  So this woman posted pictures of her little girl's birthday "party."  I looked and looked at those pictures, studying the beautiful faces carefully and I hate to say it but I have no idea if one of them was Macey.  I told Parker about them and we just sat together moments ago, holding up the photos on my phone to compare to some of the faces and he was stumped too. She certainly could have been there as this group of children is right around her age, and they're at the same orphanage, but who knows!  We have to kind of laugh about it. It is funny to think we can't even recognize her.  It's hard to get a visual imprint from 2 baby photos and a 2 more that are probably 4-5 months old by now.  The flip side is that the photos also show a room in the orphanage other than the one that's in the photos we have and it looks surprisingly nice.  Clean and new and spotless.  The kids all look happy and don't seem to notice their dingy dungarees!  The nannies in the photo are all cute and young, not the old, wrinkled and gray cranky pants we pictured.  So all in all, they were great photos and made our day. I'm so thankful for all of the other families blogging away and sharing their journey with us.  And for maybe sharing a picture of our daughter.  Not that we would know it.

I mentioned above about the service that will send gifts to the orphanages.  Well, I just placed my first order.  We ordered Macey a "summer package." This is what she'll get:

1. One soft album (10 family pictures)/Silk album (20 family pictures) for nannies to prepare your child`s adoption

2. One 27 Kodak exp. disposable camera with your child name as Tag !!

3. One set of summer clothes and One cute summer dress for girl package !!

4.One soft musical bear/deer/bunny for age less than 4 A doll or panda will be for age is older than 4

5.One pair of summer shoes

6. 4 pairs of hair clippers which match clothes/dress

7.Candies for orphanage staff

8. One Free letter translation service up to 400 words

Please feel free to "add on" as much as you like from our website or let us know of any special 

For the soft album, Ann, the owner, will print pictures I send, label them and place them in the photo album so that the nannies can start working with her on who we are.  I'll send photos of all of us, our cats, our house, our backyard, our plasma cars, and anything else I can fit in.  It's exciting to know she'll soon be introduced to us!  What a wild ride that will be for her. I hope she embraces us.

The other items are pretty self explanatory but I'll tell you about the disposable camera.  The nannies will take pictures of the orphanage, of Macey with her friends or her favorite toys, of her bed or maybe even of themselves with her so that she'll have a keepsake of her time there and so that we will see a little more of her life before becoming a Colvin.  I hope that those pictures will help her through her transition to our family and home.  What an amazing journey she will go through.  I wish there was more we could do to prepare her but at least this is something!

I also ordered a bunch of donation items for the orphanage.  Shoes, socks, underwear, pajamas, formula, bucket of lollipops.  Hopefully it makes a difference and some of the other kids get some enjoyment out of it.  I would feel bad if Macey is strutting around with all her new stuff while all of the other kids, who haven't yet been placed with their forever families, watch with sadness or jealousy in their hearts.  I have no idea how many kids are in the orphanage but we made a sizable donation. We'll see what kind of feedback Ann gives us and if we need to do more, we will.  It's tough to just sit here and not want to send the world to those kids, especially after seeing so many of their adorable faces in real time in the birthday party photos.

We're still waiting on the photos that were promised weeks ago. Mark my words, my new friend Ann will probably come through with new photos of Macey before the BLAS photos come in!

I'm also putting together ideas for Macey's room.  So many ideas!  I've picked out fabric for curtains and throw pillows. I hope to purchase bedding tomorrow. Not that I need it yet, obviously, but I need the bedding in order to match the backing on the curtains and get them ordered. They'll take at least 8 weeks once the fabric comes in so the clock's a tickin!  I also found the bed I think I want to get for her.  I mentioned it to Parker as his eyes instantly glazed over.  He's a dude.  Through and through. So I'm just running with it.  He'll help me paint and set things up but thankfully could care less about room decor or furniture and trusts me not to go too crazy on the spending.