The Calm Before the Baby
Before we start, here is a picture of Guatemala City for you. The Pratts will refer to it as "GC".
Last night, as we were hanging out in the house, getting everything ready for the trip, we realized that it was going to be the last night we spent in the house sans baby, because Saturday we were driving to the Cities to get ready for our flight. That was a pretty amazing realization. What did we do? We packed everything we could and then watched "Annie Hall," the famous Woody Allen movie. The movie is about Woody and his trials and tribulations finding meaningful long-term relationships in the quintessentially urban setting of New York City. Quite a fitting movie for our last night as just a couple!
Duluth on Saturday dawned sunny, but windy and bitterly cold. GC, with its temps in the 70's and tropical climate, but more importantly for a certain baby in that climate, beckons. We packed everything up and tried to calm our hysterical Rosita, who was positive that we were leaving without her. She risked rupturing her sutures from her surgery when she leaped into our car and into her dog bed. The drive to the Cities was very surreal, kind of like a dream landscape, because the very reason for our drive was so amazing. In times past, we were going down to a wedding, or to visit family, or for a holiday. Now we were going down to officially become parents, and the next time we make the drive north we will have another person in the car. If you could think about that for a second, you can probably understand why it is all just so surreal.
A couple friends asked me today what my emotions were at this time. Frankly, I really don't have any emotions. I am just trying to get from Point A to Point B. The devil is in the details: we will leave the house at mid-morning, will check our bags using our confirmation code, which I've procured because I've already checked in for the flight, then we will scout out locations for our family to meet us at the airport next Friday, etc. Pretty wild stuff, eh?
We have heard that we will be meeting Henry, our attorney, and the foster mother on Monday at our hotel. We don't even know what time they will be coming! We are trying not to idealize the first meeting; Henry might be tired, or hungry, or upset, who knows. We do know that he will be ours. Actually, he is ours. His birth mother has signed the final adoption decree and the Guatemalan and U.S. governments have signed off on the adoption, so we are officially and legally his parents. Can you imagine being a parent to someone you have never even met?
How many times over the past year have we explained the Guatemalan adoption process to people? Probably too many to count. Also, I remember that we attended an introductory meeting with our adoption agency in Duluth in late October, 2005. We began filling out beaucoup de forms for the various background checks around Thanksgiving 2005. So the entire process has taken a little over a year. I told a couple friends today that a political analogy is somewhat appropriate here: it is like a candidate for a major office, who works so hard on the campaign, spends so much time on it, constantly thinks about it, and on Election Day it all comes to a head. Well, it will all culminate for us in less than 48 hours! But, whereas the candidate doesn't know if he/she will "win" on Election Day, we know that the victory is already ours.
Everyone, thanks so much for your support and thoughts and prayers. We'll probably update you on the "gameday" feeling tomorrow morning, then it's off to Houston and GC. Please keep checking the blog over the next week, as we think we can post some pictures using our hotel's main computer. Also, go Northfield Raiders!!
Last night, as we were hanging out in the house, getting everything ready for the trip, we realized that it was going to be the last night we spent in the house sans baby, because Saturday we were driving to the Cities to get ready for our flight. That was a pretty amazing realization. What did we do? We packed everything we could and then watched "Annie Hall," the famous Woody Allen movie. The movie is about Woody and his trials and tribulations finding meaningful long-term relationships in the quintessentially urban setting of New York City. Quite a fitting movie for our last night as just a couple!
Duluth on Saturday dawned sunny, but windy and bitterly cold. GC, with its temps in the 70's and tropical climate, but more importantly for a certain baby in that climate, beckons. We packed everything up and tried to calm our hysterical Rosita, who was positive that we were leaving without her. She risked rupturing her sutures from her surgery when she leaped into our car and into her dog bed. The drive to the Cities was very surreal, kind of like a dream landscape, because the very reason for our drive was so amazing. In times past, we were going down to a wedding, or to visit family, or for a holiday. Now we were going down to officially become parents, and the next time we make the drive north we will have another person in the car. If you could think about that for a second, you can probably understand why it is all just so surreal.
A couple friends asked me today what my emotions were at this time. Frankly, I really don't have any emotions. I am just trying to get from Point A to Point B. The devil is in the details: we will leave the house at mid-morning, will check our bags using our confirmation code, which I've procured because I've already checked in for the flight, then we will scout out locations for our family to meet us at the airport next Friday, etc. Pretty wild stuff, eh?
We have heard that we will be meeting Henry, our attorney, and the foster mother on Monday at our hotel. We don't even know what time they will be coming! We are trying not to idealize the first meeting; Henry might be tired, or hungry, or upset, who knows. We do know that he will be ours. Actually, he is ours. His birth mother has signed the final adoption decree and the Guatemalan and U.S. governments have signed off on the adoption, so we are officially and legally his parents. Can you imagine being a parent to someone you have never even met?
How many times over the past year have we explained the Guatemalan adoption process to people? Probably too many to count. Also, I remember that we attended an introductory meeting with our adoption agency in Duluth in late October, 2005. We began filling out beaucoup de forms for the various background checks around Thanksgiving 2005. So the entire process has taken a little over a year. I told a couple friends today that a political analogy is somewhat appropriate here: it is like a candidate for a major office, who works so hard on the campaign, spends so much time on it, constantly thinks about it, and on Election Day it all comes to a head. Well, it will all culminate for us in less than 48 hours! But, whereas the candidate doesn't know if he/she will "win" on Election Day, we know that the victory is already ours.
Everyone, thanks so much for your support and thoughts and prayers. We'll probably update you on the "gameday" feeling tomorrow morning, then it's off to Houston and GC. Please keep checking the blog over the next week, as we think we can post some pictures using our hotel's main computer. Also, go Northfield Raiders!!
posted by A. Pratt @ 9:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home