Paper work is arriving...

Good news, the first of our paperwork has arrived- our police background checks and child abuse clearance. Yesterday (Dec 3) we mailed the $250 deposit for our homestudy to begin that process. Still waiting on birth cert. from CA, that could take awhile. Yesterday my boss told me he wrote a "glowing recommendation" for us for adoption, but he still has to have it notarized. I'm blessed to have an employer who is so supportive, especially since it means I will be taking some maternity leave when the baby arrives, which is more work for him.
I stress constantly about whether or not to take Emilia along. I can't bear the thought of leaving her, but I'm equally freaked out to expose her to so many diseases her body would never have seen before. I also learned that 6 Us and europeans tourists have died from Yellow Fever since 1996. However, 7 people have died since 1996 of the Yellow fever vaccine. I would opt NOT to have the vaccine. But it's required for Rwanda. So my brain is spinning to find a way out of the vaccine. Yikes. I think I could get Emilia around the vaccine since she had a reaction to DPT vaccines (my good Dr. Kady may make the stretch for her) but *I* do not especially want to die of "multiple organ failure" from it either. Sigh.

In other news, my brother left for Iraq a few days ago (I don't know exactly when) so pray for his Safe return. And pray his brain gets adjusted and he realizes "kill thy neighbor" is NOT in the Bible. He is in intelligance unit so they are probably reading my blog so I'll just contain my opinions to that. And thank God my friend Wendy's lump in her breast turned out non cancerous.

So for now, it's hurry up, wait, and also figure out how to swap the yellow fever vaccine with saline... any suggestions or bribe-able health official tips would be appreciated.
As a final note, Emilia could be the most insanely cute organism on the face of the planet. She immites dozens of new words daily and knows "how many?" (but the answers is always "two") and know the words for turtle, fish, shark, dolphin, octopus, apple, banana, cheese, choclate, candy, hippo, cat, dog, duck, butterly, snake, caterpiller, bird, giraffe, elephant, zebra, house, shoe, key, lock (and where to put them!), forehead, chin, cheek, all the parts of the face, the letter "O" and so many other words I couldnt begin to list them all. We call her "Uber-Klug" our german word for smartest EVER baby. she will be such an awesome big sister. (oh, she says awesome and cool too :)