Confessions of a paper pregnant mom

For those new to adoption lingo:  being in the process of adopting is often called a paper pregnancy.

I let my kids watch cartoons for way too long while I filled out reams of paperwork.

I think about fingerprints.  A lot.  And not fingerprints on the windows or doors...my fingerprints.  Will Homeland Security be able to get good ones?  I am now obsessed with hand lotion in hopes of having better prints.  Why do I always have to get fingerprinted in winter?

It doesn't seem strange to write checks for $1000, $2000 or even $4000.

I am obsessed with all things adoption (ummm...except for "adopt a highway").  Just like I read What To Expect When You're Expecting, I now read adoption books and blogs, anything I can get my hands on.  I love adoption education. 

I can't help comparing this paper pregnancy with my two physical pregnancies.

{My sincerest apologies to those of you on this road to adoption after dealing with infertility or pregnancy loss.  The thought of your grief stabs me to the heart and almost makes me not want to publish this post.  Please don't read further if it will cause you pain.}

Right now I feel like I am in my second trimester.  The really rough exhaustion and morning sickness of the first trimester is over...it came in the form of mountains of paperwork and preparing for my homestudy.  The really truly hard part of the pregnancy is still far ahead (in paper pregnancies it is the WAITING while you are powerless to do anything to help things along).  I am now in the happy part where I am starting to "show" (i.e. tell everyone), and I still have some stuff that I can do to make the process move a tiny bit faster.  There are still things that are in my control.  All of this will soon end and the waiting will begin.

I would estimate the first trimester of a paper pregnancy lasts about 3 months usually (for me this time it was only two months...trying to get it moving along), the second one maybe 2-3 months, it is the third one that is rough.  And it can last a LONG time.  Probably 6 months at the very least, but for some people it can literally be years.

One major bad thing about a paper pregnancy:  the undetermined amount of time.  Some people are paper pregnant for 3 or 4 years.  Uggh!  With Super-T it was 18 months...twice as long as a "regular" pregnancy.  With Baby Girl I am hoping for 12-14 months, but as I said most of it is out of my control.  

One good thing about paper pregnancy:  I will be able to bend over and tie my own shoes even up to the day they put Baby Girl in my arms.  When I was pregnant the old-fashioned way, the thing I looked forward to, second only to holding my baby in my arms, was being able to bend at the waist again.