Officially in the 2nd Trimester!!

We are offically in the 2nd "Trimester" of our "paper pregnancy"!!!! Our dossier went to China on Friday. I imagine it arrived there today. The next step is waiting for the notification that our dossier is logged in to China's database. The calculated wait time from that point is 12-18 mo. however we are praying for a Christmas Miracle and that our referral will arrive in 6-7mo. There is nothing we can do at this point but wait and pray. I am not good at waiting, so this is truly the hardest part of the journey for me. I am now forced to "let go and let God". Not easy for me by no means. Anyway, we went to dinner on Friday to celebrate. We had a gift certificate for a favorite place called ORSO Restorante. We really splurged and spent twice the amount of the g.c.. K had 3/4lb of shrimp for an appetizer while I had a Caprese all to myself. YUM!! The waiter told me that I might have to help K eat his shrimp and I laughed and told him if he wanted to take me to ER, I'd be happy too. He laughed. Anyway, Keith didn't eat all the shrimp and made an omlette on Sunday morning with the leftovers. One of the special entrees was Fresh Caught SOUTHEAST Alaska KING Salmon. YUM!!! I haven't had SE King in almost 8 years!! It was heaven!! K's dad swears there is no difference in the King he catches in Prince William Sound and the kings caught in Southeast. I beg to differ on that. Keith had a wonderful steak. Then we each splurged on dessert. We had a grand time. I really wasn't thrilled about going by the time I got off work b/c I was hurting so bad, but Keith was really looking forward to it, so I sucked it up and went. I'm so glad I did. We talked and talked and dreamed about the future. We realized at dinner that we are finally back to the point we were before we m/c'd. By our calculations, our daughter is definately conceived at this point. We just don't know what her birthdate is or will be. She could be just conceived, almost ready to be born, or just been born. We won't know for several months now. But either way, we are GOING to have a baby w/n the next year. We are now reeling with the thoughts of "are we truly ready for this?" and "there's no turning back now". I went out and bought some ladybug barrettes and a bib that says "Dad and I are buddies" to celebrate. We are so excited!! Since we don't have any outward signs of a pregnancy (i.e. no growing belly or u/s scans to show off), I bought myself some "maternity" wear. www.cafepress.com has some great stuff and they have a shirt that says "Baby" with an arrow pointing down to a map of China. I plan to wear that on Casual Fridays. I also ordered a t-shirt for Keith's nephew that says "I can't wait to meet my new cousin". When it arrives, I'm gonna buy a book on adoption and give them to him to help prepare him for the coming cousin. It's all different for him b/c all the other cousins have arrived after a big belly and my belly isn't growing. So his 4yo mind is having a little bit of work to wrap around the idea of adoption. Now I need to make a decision on what theme/colors I want for the nursery. I'm definately decided on a ducky theme for the bathroom. I wanted gender neutral since Keith will be using that bathroom as well. Anyway, I'm still with the colors white, red, and sage green. Still undecided with book theme or garden theme. We have other house projects that we need to to do, so we are going to tackle those first this summer and start on the nursery in the fall. That way I'm not sitting in an empty nursery for a year. I can't wait until everything is all together. I told Keith this weekend that pretty soon we'll have sippy cups strewn all over the house and finding them in places we never though possible. LOL!! I can't believe that we're actually going to be parents soon!!! Woohoo!!