six months minus six months equals ...

Jonathan got a call the other day from the woman who will be doing our homestudy for the adoption. And something really has been on my mind. The thing is, we are number twelve on the list now to get a referral. For those of you who may not know, a referral is the photo of our child and his basic medical/family history.

Let me back up a bit. What will typically go down is this: somewhere in Korea, a young woman has made the ultimate decision. She has received counseling and care throughout her pregnancy from the organization that handles our child's adoption. She will give birth to the perfect baby boy. After she relinquishes her rights--such a cold, clinical term for such a moment, reminds me of how the doctors called my miscarriage a "spontaneous abortion"--after she relinquishes her rights, the baby will go into a foster home where a foster mother will take care of him until his adoption.

In Korea, they are currently waiting six months before sending pictures to our agency here in Colorado to give the agency in Korea time to possibly place the babies with Korean families. They are trying to encourage domestic adoptions in Korea.

So what that means for us is that our son will be six months old when we see his photograph for the first time. It typically takes six more months for all of the paperwork to be finalized and for him to be flown here to us, so he will be about a year old when I finally have him in my arms. That is the average timeline.

Now, what has been on my mind is basic mathematics. If we are twelfth on the list at our agency to receive a referral, and our agency usually processes two referrals a month, that means we should get a photograph of our son in six months ... are you following this? And he will be about six months old in his photograph ... so ... that means he could be born right about ... now.

I cannot get this out of my head. That my son may be born already. That he may be born today. Or tomorrow. That my son's birth day will pass by and I will have no idea ... no idea that one of the most important days in my future life just slipped by me. A day that I will be cherishing, blowing up balloons, frosting Sesame Street cakes, hanging up pinatas and taking countless photographs of my son...

So my little plan is to try to blog something, anything, every day. Just so that I will have some sort of record of what I was doing on my son's birth day. Maybe. Unless he has already been born. Because I want to know. If I can. I mean, say he was born on March third. I have no idea what I was doing on that day! Was I grumpy? Was I happy? Was it raining or snowing? Did I blog on that day? Probably not; I am not very consistent! (And I just randomly picked that date, March third. What if that is really his birthday?)

So, little star, where ever you are, I am thinking of you all the time.