Closure and Closer

In my head (where I do my best writing sometimes) I've been trying to sum up the past three years into one post. To just sort of put it to bed and be done with it. I'm just not sure if it's possible. I guess all the more than 225 posts about fertility treatment and wondering about adoption can't be summarized into one 250-word post, can it?

I am feeling myself move away from it. Little by little. I've managed to turn my attention towards getting the dossier completed and working on me. So far so good. I've made it to the gym twice this week (after being out of town for work on Monday and Tuesday) and have really kicked my ass with the workouts.

I'm keeping track, informally, of what I'm eating. I know that slowly I'll have less mouth hunger, only want to eat at meal time, will crave good-for-me foods. I'm giving myself until after my birthday trip to Baltimore to get it out of my system, and then will keep track in much more formal way.

The dossier is getting closer to being completed. There are so many annoyances though. I got a lot of the paperwork notarized, only to realize that the notary's commission expires in a month. It can't be expired when it goes to Ethiopia, so I had to print it all out again, fill out the forms and find another notary.

Luckily there are several on campus, and after a phone call found one who's commission doesn't expire until 2011. However, I also needed to get a medical clearance form signed by my doctor and notarized. And after I picked up that form this morning, I saw that the notary's commission expires in July. I'm not sure if that will work.

I also have a form that needs to be sent to Albany to be state certified. But first I needed to go to the County Clerk's office and have it county certified. Tomorrow I will call the local police department to get a letter stating that I am a "citizen in good standing." (All my friends who have adopted assured me that they will know what I'm talking about.)

Nothing too hard. Just annoying. I think the hardest part will be my two-page statement. I've worked on it -- and will show it to my local social worker tomorrow when we meet to see what she thinks. I will post the entire thing when it's finished, but this was the first thing I wrote and it's how I'm planning to end it:

I hope I can live up to the dreams the birth mother has for her child. I can't thank her enough for her unselfishness in allowing me to raise her child, to be the mother. Not only is she giving her child a better life, she is giving me a better life.