1 month and counting. . .

We've officially been waiting for placement a whole month already! It's so funny - everyone talks about how long the wait is for placement, but it seems like it's moving swiftly. There are times when I wish we had a baby already - and others when I am thankful to God that he has given us this time to prepare ourselves.

I think we're going to order the nursery furniture this weekend. I wanted to wait a little since we spent so much on the yard and some concrete work in June/July. Those projects came out really well - and are paid for - so I guess we'll go ahead!

I've started to stock up on little things here and there. So far, I've amassed some bedding (crib sheets, receiving blankets), a few nursery decor items, onesies, some Avent and Dr. Brown's bottles, a pkg. of pacifiers, baby wash, some Dreft, etc. I think if someone handed me a baby tomorrow we could manage, but I'd still like to get a few more things. We really want to give cloth diapering a try, but I'm hesitant to worry about it too much in the first few weeks at home. As a peace offering to Mother Earth, I'm gonna get some Seventh Generation diapers for the first couple weeks, then transition to the cloth. So, I need to buy some of those, too, I guess.

It still feels kind of like a sham when I look at baby stuff; even though I know this is going to happen, it's just not quite real yet. But I'm trying to push myself to get the room organized and ready for a baby - in case we get "the call." I'd really like to modify the closet to be more functional for a small child and I need to come up with some type of curtain or valance project for the windows, too. The pack-n-play arrived, as did the car seat and stroller, but they are still sitting in the boxes in the room. I really don't want to unpack them yet 'cause I think they'll just get dusty.

We are getting there. If nothing else, this whole process is an exercise in learning patience.

And now we wait. . .

Well, we got our homestudy completed last week. Now begins the 6 to 18 month wait for a placement. It was actually pretty anticlimactic, to tell the truth. We looked over the homestudy report that the social worker wrote about us to identify any misspellings or errors and that was it.

In celebration, I've spent almost $700 on baby gear in the past week. Hurray for shopping! I'm trying not to go crazy, but I wanted to round up the basics - pack-n-play, car seat and stroller system, some bottles and a simple layette of onesies and socks and stuff. My mom helped me shop at Babies R Us the other day - which was good because I pretty much had a panic attack in the bottles and feeding section of the store. I think it was just from the overwhelming number of choices and hopefully it doesn't signify a more deep-seated anxiety about the process moving forward. Here's the stroller and car seat we got:

It's a Chicco KeyFit 30 and Cortina stroller. I bought the matching pack-n-play they make, too:

I know that we will be parents in the sorta near future, but it all just feels so surreal and nebulous now. I hate feeling so out of control about such a major part of our lives. All I can do for now is scour the internet and ogle all the great stuff I get to buy that, hopefully, I'll actually get to use someday.