dusting off the keys (and chiseling away the rust)...

Wow, you know you've been away from your blog for a long time when the blogger format looks completely foreign.  Let's hope this works...

I have always hated when people disappear for what seems like f.o.r.e.v.e.r in blogland only to later turn up in a completely different place than when they left.  Not that I don't want to see them in a different place (assuming different means better), but the nosy detail oriented freak in me wants to know ALL the specifics.  You were going from A to B and now you're at Q?  What happened during that big gap?  Surely it was something.  There has to be more to it.  Yadda.  Yadda.

Yet, here I am.  The very kind of blogger that I hate*.  I needed to not be here for a bunch of selfish asshole reasons that seem even more assholish now that my head is in a different space.  I never planned to stay away so long.  Of course, then the snowball effect took hold until the thought of trying to catch up not only here but also with everyone else's blogs pretty much overwhelmed me to the point of no return.  So return, I didn't.

What has happened around here since May 2011?

• We completed our home study in September 2011
• We finally **FINALLY** finished and turned in our profile booklet mid-December 2011
• This is when our official adoption wait began
• We were chosen by an expectant mom on February 27, 2012 to parent her child 
• Her due date was in exactly 3 weeks - March 19, 2012
• We were officially considered a match on February 29, 2012
• We frantically researched, bought, washed, sterilized, organized, and packed baby gear, let our employers in on our little secret and did our best to finish/hand off our projects, figured out all the work leave BS, packed our own stuff, worked on the nursery, lined up dog sitters to be on call and got all the dog stuff ready to go, researched airline flight locations and times, hotel accommodations, rental cars, started discussing names - one would think we could have done this one at some point in the last 6.5 years.  Anyway, so we were pretty panicked and busy.  And did I mention that my never-gets-sick husband got really sick too?
• We got a call from our caseworker who told us to get on the next available flight just 9 days later on March 9, 2012 (which we did, of course)
• It was a false alarm, but her labor was close
• Her water broke around 10:30PM on March 11, 2012.  We beat her to the hospital.
• Our daughter was born on March 12, 2012 at 1:38PM, perfect in every way
• There are used to be a few pictures at the end of this post, but I took them down
• We lived in a hotel in her birth state until she was 9 days old and we could make the cross country flight back home
• Note:  Airline travel with a 9-day old baby on a flight full of coughing and hacking passengers (MJ included) during flu season after staying up all night (we bought airline tickets at 8PM, packed, and left for the airport at 2AM) is NOT recommended for first time parents.  The parenting handbook missed this one. 

Yes, so there is our past year.

Six years, seven months, and twelve days after we began trying to add a child to our little family of 2, we found ourselves on the lucky side of statistics for a change.  An eternity to some.  A blip on the radar to others.  An at-least-your-ending-has-a-baby to so many more.

I am at a loss as what to even say now.  I don't know where to go from here.  At all.  I don't know if anyone is even around to read this.  I don't know the first thing about mommy blogging.  I pretty much sucked as an infertility blogger once our cycling days were done.  And let's face it, I REALLY sucked as a pre-adoptive parent blogger.  I may just try to catch up around the blogosphere for now and see where that leads...or if anyone has a question/topic they'd like to hear more about please shout it out.  I am about as rusty as they come right now.  As much as I needed to be away from here, I have missed y'all a whole lot.


*And by hate, I really mean love.  I hate that they have disappeared because I have loved reading their story.