It's official...

...We're expecting a baby!  Ok, not in the feeling nauseous, growing tummy, 9 months kinda way...but, in the adoption kinda way!  It might actually include a bit of feeling nauseous and possibly take 9 months, but there's no way to know yet.  We've just taken the very first baby step in meeting yesterday with a lawyer who has worked with two other ex-pat families and seems very competent/nice.  Her mom is a lawyer who actually exclusively does adoptions, so they will make a good team.  What she had to share wasn't very new, since we've asked a fair amount of questions already, but we were a bit disappointed to hear that getting an infant under 6 months of age is impossible.  Even getting one that young is rare.  From how she talked, it sounds like almost everything about your child is completely dependent on who is available at the time you turn in all your paperwork and who the judge thinks would be appropriate for your family.  You can request gender and give a preferred age range, but the rest is up for grabs.  So, we're slightly nervous about that, but also are praying that we can rest in our Father who already knows who this son of ours is, what kind of baggage he might come with and is already preparing us to know how to love him and help him.  So, first step- get our birth certificates translated and "legalized".  We left the lawyer's office feeling very vague about that process, but know of a couple people here who are going through or just finished their adoptions and so we will be bothering asking them lots of questions.  I'm ready to get things rolling, since I know paperwork can often lag in the most efficient of countries and we've been here long enough to know this is not one of those countries.  So, this has officially become an adoption blog in addition to big and fat- I hope it can one day be helpful to someone as so many other adoption blogs have been helpful to me.