Sleepless Mami

This mami is getting very excited/nervous/anxious to meet her sons!  I am starting to have a harder time sleeping, as I seem to wake up with my mind racing through hundreds of thoughts.  I am making mental lists, thinking about all of the adoption/parenting books that I wish I would have had time to read, trying to remember all of the advice from the ones I did read, thinking about what I need to pack (haven't started yet...maybe I should and then I'd feel better?).  Many times, I lay there trying to think of the Spanish word or phrase for something, or lay there conjugating verbs (what a geek, right?).  I just can't seem to turn my brain off! 

Throughout our adoption journey, I have sort of ebbed and flowed through cycles like this.  Right before we submitted our dossier to Colombia, I was having recurring stress dreams:  I had to take a P-Chem test that I hadn't studied for (here I am, 14 years out from Dr. Roskos's P-Chem class, and I still stress about it!), I was hosting a party but I didn't have enough food and wasn't prepared.  I think I see a pattern here:  there's a "task", and in my mind, I'm not sufficiently prepared...if only I had studied more, cooked more...fill in the blank, you get the picture.

OK, so I admit that letting go of the details and trusting that everything is going to be ok can sometimes be a challenge for me.  I'm a pragmatist, a scientist, an ISFJ through and through, what can I say?  At times like this though, when I feel the most scattered and stressed, I also need to have the most faith that God is with us on this journey, that I can stop worrying about the minutiae and put my trust in Him.  Who better to trust?  Now if only I could remember all of those soon-to-be important phrases while I lie awake in bed..."Don't hit your brother!"..."No biting!"..."Wash your hands!"  :)

On a different note, as we expected, we have heard nothing this week about our travel dates.  This is not a huge surprise, but what it does mean is that the time right before we leave for Colombia has the potential to become extremely hectic.  There are a few more "process" things that need to happen before we go:

1.  Get our approved travel dates
2.  Book Jason and my airline tickets
3.  Get our Colombian Special Visitor Visas (SVV's), in-person at the Consulate in Chicago

As we have found out, we have to do these final steps in this order.  We were hoping that we could do steps 2 and 3 before step 1.  The Consulate won't issue the SVV's unless you have a purchased return ticket to the US, so we called several travel agents, wondering if we could book airline tickets that were open-ended on both ends of our trip...nope.  The price penalties for doing so are quite high, so it's a no-go.  So instead of going to Chicago last week or this week, it looks like we will probably end up having to go to Chicago right before we travel to Colombia.  A trip right before "the trip"...ugh.  Oh well, we will hope for the best, prepare for anything, and count down the days until we are approved to go!