The Waiting Game

Ah yes.  The adoption process.  That painful, heart-wrenching, paper-cut-giving, may-everything-that-can-go-wrong-actually-go-wrong process.  They aren't kidding when they say adoption isn't for the faint of heart.  Who is "they" anyway?  I'd like to have a little chat with them.  Faint of heart is an understatement.

Really y'all.  Reflecting back on the last 18 months, it's no wonder we are this close to completion.  And that I'm still somewhat sane. We couldn't decide on an agency.  When we decided on an agency, we couldn't decide on a country.  We decided on a country and God said "that's what YOU think" and led us to a little girl.  A little girl in a country we had marked off the list.  With an agency we had never heard of.  Six months into the process and we only then knew the direction we were heading.  And that was just the beginning.

We rushed through the home study only to be held for WEEKS waiting on state clearances.  Then held up for more weeks waiting on DSS approval.  (Why must DSS approve an international home study anyway?)  Our dossier was FINALLY mailed off to Bulgaria and we got to wait some more.  We waited 9 weeks for a referral (the longest wait at that time) and then waited 7 weeks for a signature on our Article 5 (another long wait compared to most at the time).  We rushed and rushed and rushed to get all of our paperwork done.

We made 4 different trips to our doctors to get forms signed and tests run.
2 drives to Columbia for apostilled paperwork.
Countless trips to the FexEx store to overnight papers to our case worker.
Paper cuts from so much shuffling of documents.
Finger cramps and writers block from said documents.

We accumulated hours of time at the bank waiting to wire money and more hours at the county jail updating fingerprints.  (Side note - apparently constant crocheting wears down your fingerprints.  Who knew?!)  All this while putting on a brave face for most of the people around us who just didn't understand what was really going on.  No matter how hard you try, you can't understand until you live through it.

I've accumulated full days of crying.

Tears over not being in control.
Tears over the heartache our Maia was living through.
Tears over the delays.
Tears over the children who don't have families coming for them.
Tears over the children who passed before meeting their families.
Tears over more waiting.
Tears over anything and everything.

For most of this adoption journey my heart has been in emotional turmoil.  It very literally PAINED me to walk this path.  The waiting, the disappointments, the waiting some more.  And then I had to meet our daughter and leave her in her orphanage while we finished more paperwork.  More pain.  All this while knowing our process was pretty normal with no major issues.  Some families live through MUCH more pain than we did.

I'm writing this post not to scare those of you beginning the process (though I may have!) but to encourage you.  You will hurt.  You will wait.  You will cry.  But remember: THIS TOO WILL PASS.  The pain morphs.  It recedes.  It disappears altogether.  The waiting will take longer than you want, but you won't wait forever.

We are staring into the light at the end of the tunnel.  The paperwork is over.  The to-do list is almost checked off.  All that's left is to hop on a plane.  Did I ever think we would get here?  Not really.  I honestly thought we were going to be stuck waiting forever.  Irrational?  Of course.  But guess what? We didn't wait forever.  And the pain of waiting has already subsided.  Even better: it doesn't seem to have taken quite so long looking back on it now.

Take heart, my adopting friends.  This too will pass.  And the waiting will be MORE than worth it.

"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."  Ps 30:5