Adoption Meeting

This past Saturday Scott and I had the opportunity to attend an adoption informational meeting. They broke us up into groups based on whether you were interested in being a foster family, or if you planned to adopt domestically or internationally. There were only about 5 other couples in our group, and we had two other women who did most of the talking. They along with their families had already gone through the process and already have their children home with them. One of the women who spoke started their paperwork over 5 years ago, and they just got back from India with their little boy and girl 9 month ago...WHOA, that's a long time to be waiting.
Anyway, it was so cool to hear their stories and get some tips from them about what to expect during the process. We had so many questions, not questions about whether or not we wanted to adopt. That actually has been such a blessing to both of us. It's been very clear that we should adopt, and even where we want to adopt from has been very clear to both of us. We just had questions about the process. Like for example, right now we live in an apartment, and will be living there for the next year. Can you still adopt when you live in an apartment? We found out that YES you can. Basically when you have your homestudy done, they just want to make sure that the child will have his or her own space when you bring them home. One thing we didn't realize though is that should we move out of our apartment while we're in the process of adopting...which we hope to in a year, we would need to have our homestudy done again, which obviously would be more fees. So anyway, just lots of things we didn't know, that we do now and can be more informed when we start calling agencies and asking questions.
We were able to stay and talk with one of the girls a little more after the meeting. She and her family already have a little girl from Guatamala, and are in the process of adopting again from Ethiopia. So, she found out that we wanted to adopt from Uganda, and guess what?????? She knows all about Katie and Amazima, and all of the wonderful things she's doing in Uganda. She checks her blog the first thing every morning, just like I do.
I think Scott and I both walked away from the meeting with a renewed excitement about our upcoming journey. We know that this is God's plan for us, and we don't care how long it takes. One day we'll go to Uganda to pick up our son or daughter, and I am so excited. I constantly find myself wondering what it will be like, what does our child look like, will it be a boy or girl, what does Uganda look like, what will that day be like when we get to meet him or her for the first time????
I think we're going to get started in the next few weeks with all of our paperwork.