For those of you who have been following our adoption story over the last two-and-a-half years, you know there have been QUITE a few hills and valleys throughout the process. There was that time when we found out one of our adoption agencies forgot a giant part of our home study and we had to beg the U.S. government to grant us more time. And then there was the time I had to drag a two-year-old to the Tennessee state house to get 5 lbs of documents Apostilled, only to find out later that we didn’t need them. Oh my gosh, AND that time… nope, you know what? I’m gonna stop.

Because there was also that one time when I met another mom at the zoo, who was looking for her son, CJ (who was also hearing impaired) and we helped her find him at the top of the tallest slide. And then there was that day I got to talk to another mom who’d been to CJ’s orphanage recently to pick up her own daughter and while she was there she held CJ in her lap and played with him. And best of all, there was that time last week, right after Brian and I stepped off the plane on our way home from Costa Rica and my phone rang and it was our adoption agency calling to say we got our placement proposal and they would be telling CJ that we are his family and I am his mom and he would be coming to live with us and that it wouldn’t be long now.

That was the best so far.

We’re still not sure when exactly we will travel to go pick him up, but we’re so close to the finish line it’s finally starting to feel like he’s really our son and this is really something we’re doing and we’re not just some crazy people trying to manifest a third Bandas boy into being. I feel safe enough to put CJ’s picture up on the refrigerator in between Archie’s sponge painting of a Jack-o-Lantern and Oliver’s school lunch calendar. And as we all know, coveted refrigerator real estate is reserved for kin only.

But let’s get down to brass tacks, I know a lot of you might be wondering “What is a placement proposal anyway?” and “Why does it matter?” Because to read this, it kinds of sounds like your son is still halfway around the world, living in an orphanage and I’ll be the first to point out that, yes that does seem less than ideal. The placement proposal is essentially the government in the Philippines saying to us one last time, “We’ve reviewed every last shred of evidence about you guys and we still think you seem nice and normal enough. Are you sure you’re game to adopt CJ?” and we answer that by signing some papers in front of our notary and saying, “We appreciate you thinking that we’re nice and normal! YES, we are still VERY game.”

Now was wait for the formal acceptance of that paperwork, file one more document with the U.S. government and wait to travel.

And according to my undercover sources, it’s possible that we could be ringing in 2019 as a family… and I think that’s what they call a freaking mic drop.