Lot's Going On

Hello Everyone. I have some free time for an entry since I am sitting in a hospital room in Baltimore waiting to be discharged. For those of you who have been following us you know my broken hip saga. The final outcome was that the screws began to "back-out" of the bone so the break separated; the specialist I was referred to in Baltimore removed those screws yesterday (all 3 of them, the picture to the left are the actual screws) and replaced them with something called a "Dynamic Hip Screw"(pictured above). So far the pain I was experiencing from the break appears to be gone and that the pain I am feeling is from the actual incision and the muscle the doctor manipulated.

We decided that we would get this done now since the months of February and March are going to be very busy for us; Valentine's Weekend will be Paige's Connecticut Shower hosted by both of our mother's, it is being held at the golf club in Bloomfield which is where we had our wedding pictures taken. Since we started a major chapter in our lives together here we feel it is very fitting to be having the shower there, opening the next chapter of our lives together. Next I have business trips to Scottsdale the week of the 16th and Seattle the week of the 22nd and then Paige's Virginia Shower is being held at River Creek Country Club in Leesburg on the 27th of February hosted by our friends Deb, Michelle, Steph, Jessica & Vickie.

Our I-600 approval and the paper work with the state of Virgina will lead to our travel call which could feasibly come at any time during late February. With all of that as a possibility we feel we are seriously behind the 8-Ball in getting Carter's room ready. Oh ya; did I mention we landed on "Carter Baine"? Yeah!! He has a name!!

Here are some thing we have already done in preparation of our son's arrival to his "Forever Home":

• Three weeks ago we registered at "Babies R Us" Paige really enjoyed this and has really enjoyed monitoring the registry on-line to see what has been purchased. Can you image her as a kid at Christmas peeking under the tree or in the back of closets?


• We did order the furniture 2 weeks ago; delivery in 6-8 weeks, hopefully it arrives before he does!! (picture above, we picked a dark walnut finish not the light finish in the picture)


• This past weekend I did breakdown one of the guestrooms to turn into Carter's room.


• We sent off a package of gifts for Carter & his Foster Family. We wrote them a short note thanking them for taking our son into their loving home until we are able to be together, Dan who works with Paige at Panalpina is from Korea was gracious enough to translated the note for us. We also sent Yankee Candles & a couple Washington Redskin T-Shirts and a small photo album with pictures of us, our home and family members.


• Paige ordered swatches from the company that make the bedding we registered for; the good news is that the current color of the room (lt. blue) matches!! Limited painting!! We think we are going to change only one wall to an accent color.

So I guess we got a little more accomplished than I thought. It's just being up against a deadline that makes me think there is more to do than there really; throw a surgery and few trips/events in between and my pulse picks up a little bit more.

Counting down the days until Carter comes home........ John

Names

Paige purchased one of those 100,000 name books a few weeks ago; between the book and Internet searches we think we have narrowed the names down to 2. I keep going back to Carter and the other name is Tyler or Ty for short. Regardless of which name we choose his middle will be Baine which was Paige's grandfathers name and the name he used to name Paige's mother, Bainie.

One of the other names we seriously considered was Jack but if we decide to adopt again and receive a girl I really want to name her Jaclyn after my mom's sister who past away a few years ago at a young age and really meant the world to me. I just couldn't see having Jack & Jackie - to cutsie.

Let us know what you think of Carter Baine or Tyler Baine; we're having a hard time deciding.

John

The "Legals"

Happy New Year everyone! We had a nice quiet holiday here at home with a visit from my parents and our two nephews. Jimmy is now 13 and Kyle 10; I really can't believe how big they have gotten since we last saw them in April when my grandmother passed away. We took them to Arlington Nation Cemetery, The Natural History Museum and the National Tree on the Ellipse. Today was back to the real world; the holidays are over, back to a 5 day work week.

Two weeks ago we submitted our "acceptance" paperwork to our agency; it was a week before Christmas so we really didn't expect it to move very quickly. Once our agency in North Carolina proof read it they sent it onto Connecticut before it was sent onto Korea. On a side note; the agency in Connecticut is the key to the whole process being the "right one" for us since we are both from Connecticut. Our Case Worker up there lives in Farmington which is right between my hometown and Paige's; therefore, it is only perfect that she be the "in between" person in this process. Usually once the acceptance paperwork is sent off to Korea it usually take 2-3 weeks for the "legals" to arrive. Well; go figure, the legals arrived the same day!

Basically the legals say that SWS approves of the adoption of our son thru FCA pending approval of our I-600 which approves us, by our government to adopt foreign orphan as our child.

So; paperwork is in full swing and once again we wait..........