adoption update

We are getting closer and closer to being on the actual waiting list! Of course when we are on the waiting list we will have nothing but time on our hands for 7-8 months, but being on that list seems so official. It has been hard during this process to know when and how to tell people we are adopting. It is such a long process, with big chunks of time where NOTHING happens, plus there is the nerve-wracking "unknown" and the expectation that things will probably go wrong at some point. All of that together makes me feel like sometimes this is all a dream, and there is really no progress being made. BUT, when we are on the waiting list, it somehow becomes real. We will actually be waiting for an actual child, not filling out, notarizing, mailing, or waiting on mounds of paperwork. Our side of things will be done, at least for awhile.
We had our last fingerprinting appointment for immigration a couple of days before Christmas and are waiting for those results to come back. Once we get those, we notarize them and send them to our dossier agency at which point our dossier will be complete! Then our dossier will be sent to Ethiopia, and the next stage of waiting begins.
I think about our child ALL the time. Every day, all throughout the day. When the boys and I are going through our normal routine throughout the day, I think about what it will be like to have her here with us. When we are all eating dinner together around our table, I imagine her little face completing our circle. When I am driving in the car and look in my rear view mirror at the boys, I imagine another carseat back there with her sitting in it. She is on my mind, and in my heart, and this sounds so weird, but even though I don't know her, I love her.