It was already one month ago...

Exactly one month ago today we saw her for the first time.

One month ago right this minute I was on the phone with Cindy poring over every detail of the referral paperwork.

It was just one tiny moment in life. That moment between "before" - when I was still agonizing and torturing myself through every minute and day of waiting and the moment I realized we were at "after." The peaceful sweet of knowing that the worst of the wait is over and life is about to be changed completely and irreversibly.

Four weeks of living in the after and I am really content. Anticipation has moved from painful to sweet. J and I are committed to fully enjoying our last days as just two. Just us. We're also coming to the end of our 10th year of marriage. On June 13th we will have been married 11 years. I like the idea of Baby D coming home in June. A neatly tied up 11 years of marriage as two.

Everything feels so...right. I didn't expect this. I didn't know that the sky would look bluer and songs would feel more true. That I would find flowers blooming to feel like small miracles or that scrubbing toilets to raise money for our travel would be easy. Pleasurable.

We have received several new photos every week. The photos show an absolutely sparkly baby girl who lives with laughter in the corners of her eyes and mouth. She has many different faces that we are getting to learn through pictures.

There is the scared baby owl of the early days (bottom lip sucked in and heart shaped upper lip looking like a tiny beak. Head tucked down.) There is the "I love the world and everything in it" face where her eyes snap and sparkle and she gazes into the distance with great anticipation.

There is her "head cocked to the side Baby Gap model smile designed to charm the pants off of anyone looking" face. And lately she has added the signature, "I can lay on my back and hold my bottle while raising BOTH legs up over my head" move. She has also added a "who the heck are you and why did you put me on tummy time without any toys in easy grasp?" disgruntled look.

And last but not least this week we received sleeping angel face and waking up from naptime with happy grin and reaching arms photos. Sometimes I actually have to remind myself that she is not looking at me in these photos.

Court group D was assigned..................April 8th!

We are next, court group E. Hopefully we will hear in the next week or two.

Thanks for humoring both my baby D adoration and my new court date obsession.

~A