May in Photos

I don't know about the rest of you but for us May is a very BUSY month! Here's our month in photos...

First a little (lot) of baseball.

Dance recital (actually dress rehearsal, the recital isn't until next weekend)

More baseball. Catcher this time.

More dance.

Mother's Day. I was honored to be in attendance at the "First Annual Mother's Day Band"...

Here's the band in their pajamas. And yes, the band played at approximately 8 AM.

Mother's Day Tea Party at preschool. Always a lovely time.

B's 8th Birthday. He got a new bat. Are you surprised his gift had something to do with baseball?

And a new family moved in under our deck and had five babies.

Aren't they cute?!

But not quite as cute as these three...

Happy almost JUNE everyone!

Always Guessing

As our fingerprints sit on someone's desk somewhere just WAITING. We wait. And we think. And we over-think. And we begin guessing. And we grab at straws. And we search the internet for clue. ANYTHING that will tell us SOMETHING about when we will meet our little girl.

Is it REALLY going to be 18-24 months (and just in case anyone is counting... now it's 16-22 months)? or is it going to be shorter? or (dare I type it) longer?

Our agency (CCAI) sends out a newsletter monthly. They report on how many families they have matched throughout the month. So far, since we submitted our medical conditions checklist (MCC) in March, they have matched about 100 children with their families. We were told by CCAI (in March) that there were approximately 250 families ahead of us. Does that mean there are now only 150 families ahead of us?

Then today, I happened across a blog, and it happened to be another CCAI family who received a referral of a beautiful little girl. She submitted her MCC in January. JANUARY! and she was matched last month! That's only four months! I don't know anything about this family. I don't know anything about the little girl (other than she is super cute), and there are MANY reasons why she might have been matched in just four months. BUT, I do know that back in January when she submitted her medical conditions checklist she was also told the wait would be 18-24 months.

Hmmm....

So, now that you guys are armed with as much as information as we have (pretty much none).... what's your guess?

(Of note: the Mom mentioned above had her dossier logged-in in China in 2007 and was waiting in the non-special needs program for three years before decided to switch to the waiting child program. I just didn't want her to read my blog and think that I totally misrepresented her story. The truth is she has waited a LONG time for her beautiful daughter. In this post, I was just referring to the wait since submission of the MCC.)

Census Workers Stall Paperwork?!

Apparently, because of the census, our home-study fingerprints are stuck in the que and haven't been processed yet. It's been over 60 days and they still aren't done.

Therefore, we can't submit our I-800 (immigration application). Therefore, our immigration approval won't arrive for quite a while. Therefore our dossier won't be ready to go for a LONG while (and our physicals will expire before then so we'll have to get those done again).

All because our country has to count people.

I know, I know... it's important, I get it.

But, right now, nothing seems more important than getting our fingerprint results.

Why? The answer.

I've seen the look in peoples' eyes, even people very close to me, as I talk about G. It's a look of confusion and fear. They are polite and they nod their head and say "wow... that's awesome" or "good for you". But, they really just don't get it.

I don't know how... but I'm going to try to explain.

This little girl who lives on the other side of the world is ALREADY our daughter.

No, we don't know her yet. But, we know she lives.

And as any mother's heart would, it aches for this little girl. I miss her....even though I've never met her.

And as any father would... S misses that he is not kissing his daughter good night tonight.

To many around us she is sort of an abstract idea, one that they can't quite wrap their minds around. To us...

She is VERY much real. She's like the unborn child in a mother's womb. You know she is there, and EVERY day, every hour, every minute... you think of her. You think of what she will look like and you wonder what will make her smile and what will make her cry.

Every time we look at the empty chair at the dinner table, we are reminded that someone is missing. And your heart aches just a bit more. And you wonder... what is she doing RIGHT NOW? Is she happy or sad? Is she healthy or weak? Is she walking? Talking? Sleeping? Eating? Playing? Does she love? and who?

Just for a moment, imagine that your child.... the one asleep in their bed right now... isn't actually in their bed. He or she is far away. You don't know what she did today. You don't know if she got a booboo that you weren't there to kiss, if she was fed a good healthy meal (probably not), or if she was held and snuggled. You didn't get to read her a book or play a silly game, you didn't give her a hug this morning or a kiss good night.

What would you do?

So, when people ask me "why"... I simply have trouble answering.

Because we have a daughter, her name is G, and we need bring her home.

Trust

I'm one of those people that wants and needs to be prepared. I want to be armed with information and knowledge. So, I've been reading blogs, books and talking to friends about adoption, about attachment, about special needs. But, doing all this preparation is REALLY scaring me.

Of what you asked? Pretty much EVERYTHING!

• that we won't know how to parent her
• that she will be MORE SCARED than us and what does scared look like in a 15-36 month old?
• that she won't love us. I know that sounds terribly selfish ... but the reality is she MAY NOT love us, definitely at first, but even later... and we need to be prepared for that.
• that our bio kids will have difficulty adjusting
• of leaving my bio kids for 14-16 days to travel to China!!!!!
• that she will have physical and emotional needs that we won't have the first clue how to help with.

...and the list goes on and on.

It's not like this is the first time I'm thinking about these things... it's just that sometimes I'm optimistic that I can deal with it all... and other times... well, not so much.

We aren't perfect parents. In fact, most of the time, we have no idea what we are doing.

But, we must trust that He will provide us with the skills necessary to deal with the needs, whatever they may be, of ALL of our children.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." ~ Proverbs 3:5,6