International vs. Domestic Adoption...so far very similar!

I remember the night of June 2, 2008 so well. We got the call on a Monday afternoon that we had been matched with a baby boy and needed to be in Russia on Saturday. The first hour or two after the call was so exciting as we spent the time calling family and friends and simply being ecstatic! However, as the early evening approached, the excitement turned to frenzy! We were given a list of a million things to do such as completing visa paperwork that needed to be delivered to FedEx by 8:00pm. I remember the drive there and telling Scott to go faster, usually it is the opposite when he is driving! We pulled in at 7:58pm and we raced in to get the documents out to the Russian Consulate in New York. Long story short, at the end of the night on June 2, 2008 Scott and I were beyond exhausted and we remember saying that this isn't how we pictured the night of the call to feel.
Well...the same thing happened to us again this week. On Tuesday afternoon, only four short weeks after completing all of our paperwork, we were asked to view a birth mother profile. We spent a good amount of time discussing it nd trying to decide if this match was a possibility for us. In the early evening we decided that we very much wanted to be considered by this birthmother. Ten minutes after telling our adoption attorney we were interested we were called back and told that the birthmother wanted to talk to us on the phone and was awaiting our call. With no real preparation or time to stress, we called her and had a wonderful 45 minute conversation. That night we went to bed with our heads spinning. We spent hours going over the conversation and the plans if this adoption worked out. Late Wednesday morning we got the call that she really liked us and that a match was made! We first felt very excited and called a few family members to share the good news. It was a little different this time as we didn't need to fly halfway around the world a few days later, but as with all adoptions, we needed to complete very important paperwork and get documents to Florida overnight. Wednesday night we also had a 2 hour phone conference with the adoption attorney to go over a million pieces of information. Needless to say when we went to bed that night it felt exactly the same, we were exhausted!
So here we are four days after the call, and instead of boarding a plane to Russia, we are beginning a very long seven month wait to see if it is God's plan for this baby to be ours. For the next seven months we will receive additional information about the birthparents, medical appointments, and possibly speak with the birthmother over the phone more as well. If all goes well we will board a plane to Florida in mid-March and be blessed with a second child! The words we will repeat over the next several months will be that we are "cautiously optimistic" about this adoption. Unlike international adoption where the children are already legally free when the match is made, we will have to wait until the birthmother officially terminates her parental rights. In the state of Florida it is 48 hours after the birth. Over the next several months I will update you briefly on how things are going. I will let everyone know how she is feeling and what sex the baby is when she finds out this fall. However, there won't be too much more that that. I will of course update you on our precious Nicholas as we wait to see if he will be a big brother shortly after his 3rd birthday!
This coming week I am officially back to work and will make every effort to update the website weekly throughout the fall and winter. Thank you to all of our friends and family members for your prayers and support as we "board the plane" of domestic adoption and continue to enjoy every minute with our amazing son who just happened to be born in a land faraway.