Gobble Gobble Gobble

3 MONTHS DOWN! Today marks three months on the waitlist! We are inching our way up the unofficial list and my blog stalking is reaching new heights. I didn’t know that was possible and apparently it could get even worse. Yikes. These milestones are very exciting and the closer we get the more my excitement and anticipation grow. Annoyingly, the closer we get the more anxious I get too. Oh anxiety, why must you always tag along? Damon and a good family friend, who was over for dinner the other night, very professionally diagnosed me with anticipatory anxiety. Is there such a thing? I always build things up in my mind and imagine all sorts of scenarios and then when whatever it was I was anxious about actually happens I am totally fine. I have ALWAYS been like this so I don’t why I thought this adoption process would be any different. It is just like how I was back in my ice skating days. I would get all worked up right before a competition and wouldn’t be able to eat but the second I got to the rink and started warming up I would chill out. (If you are hoping this mention of my ice skating days means you will get to see a picture of me in a sparkly skating costume then you are mistaken. We will have to get to know each other a little better before I let you in on those pictures.)

I got a new book recently called “Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child” and I started reading it on Sunday and had to put it down because I got totally freaked about attachment. Don’t worry, I will push through and read it because I know I need to be educated about this stuff and prepare myself for situations that may arise. I will have to do it in small segments in order to control the anxiety. I love reading blog posts accounting the writers' travels to Ethiopia to meet their child/children but those posts always stir up anxiety about what it will be like to board that plane knowing that on the other end you FINALLY meet your child! Everything you have been dreaming, hoping and praying for is about to become reality. I mean, do people actually sleep on that flight or the weeks leading up to that flight? It appears they do but I don’t see how that is possible. Oh anxiety, I have told you that I don’t want to be friends but you persist. I know that traveling to Ethiopia is still a ways down the road for us but my anticipatory anxiety often gets the best of me. I think that is one of the many reasons why the wait is so hard. It is so easy to let the anticipation take over rather than just breathe and take each moment as it comes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Practice makes progress, right?