Wednesday, September 22, 2010

ok, so i'm at the hospital with R waiting for 12:15 p.m. to roll around, which is when he'll head to surgery. ryan headed out to the office for a bit this morning after staying the night here with R last night. it's quiet in the room. R's reading {only b/c he's grounded from tv, video games and all sorts of fun, AGAIN}, so i thought i'd blog a little bit. i still haven't uploaded any of our pictures from our weekend away but i'll hopefully do that soon.


anyways, it seems like when all is quiet, my mind always drifts away to ethiopia. i have been thinking all morning about our child, and wondering when our referral call will come. my dorky husband told our agency a few weeks ago that he was going to call every morning at 9:30 to check and see if that was the day we'd get THE CALL. thankfully, i don't think he's actually done that every day yet...but he did sneak my cell phone before heading to the office this morning and call. i pity our agency staff for having to deal with my crazy husband's nagging. i know he's probably learned from the best...ME :) {hey, i'm working on it though!}

today marks 3 months since our dossier arrived in ethiopia. we were told that the average wait time is 2 to 6 months so we've not been waiting an outrageous amount of time, especially compared to some of the larger agencies. BUT, i'm thinking that 3 months is long enough :) i don't know if you remember or not, but we actually waited 3.5 months before we accepted our first foster placement of R & P {and it was totally worth the wait!} so we're not rookies to this waiting game.

however, the longer we wait, the more fearful i am that we won't get to travel for our first trip this year. our prayer all along has been that we'd be able to make at least our first trip to ethiopia this year and then possibly travel to pick up our child in early 2011. we've been hoping and praying for this for a couple of reasons:

1} we just want our child HOME! we are ready to meet our child, get to know them and build our family. the thought of missing out on their developmental milestones and months of memories is hard.
2} on our first trip, we will attend court and, God willing, become our child's legal parents. we can't wait for this day and for the security of knowing that our child will finally be OUR child. i can't wait to monogram the snot out of everything remotely child-like that i own or buy :) i can't wait to proudly post pictures of our child on our blog! i can't wait to proudly declare to everyone i know that, yes i am officially a mom!!
3} passing court this year will make things a lot less complicated for our taxes. sounds stupid i know, but it's seriously a concern of ours. passing court this year means that our adoption expenses will not have to carry over for a 2 year period on our taxes, making things much less complicated for our simplistic minds.
4} have i mentioned that we just want to get our kiddo home?

so, why am i growing fearful about this not happening this year? do i have any actual facts or evidence to believe that we may have to take both trips next year? no, not really. i think i just read too many blogs and over-analyze things {is that a surprise to any of you who know me in "real" life?}... however, let me explain my perfectly unqualified opinion:

in case you're not familiar with ethiopian adoptions, ethiopian courts are closed for around 2 months every year during the rainy season. this year the court closure happened to fall from late july until september 27 {next monday!}. during the rainy season, no adoption cases are able to go in front of court so there is a build up of families waiting for court dates during late summer. also, agencies do not stop referring children during the rainy season so there are also newly matched families that need to be assigned court dates as well. hence, when court opens up again next monday, it seems like it will be an absolute free for all in order to get a court date assigned. with essentially only 3 months left in the year, i'm not sure if there are enough court dates to possibly accommodate every adoptive family that has been matched for a while or was recently matched...much less, those of us that have still yet to receive a referral.

ok, once again, let me just say that the above is completely my unqualified opinion. don't quote me on it : ) in fact, i'm praying sincerely that the above is absolutely untrue and there are plenty of court dates to go around for everyone, because i'm selfish nice like that. for now, we'll continue to wait, pray and trust in the Lords timing. a lot of things in my life are up in the air right now so i feel like God is definitely using this time to sanctify me and drawing me nearer to Himself. i don't know that i'm doing the best at taking His sanctification gracefully but i'm thankful that His mercies are new each morning, cause i need them!!

alright, R has turned his light off for a little nap so i'm going to take the opportunity to have a little nap myself! hope you have a wonderful day and get a chance for a nap yourself :)

2 comments:

Ginny said...

We missed you last night! Hope R is feeling okay and we're praying for the surgery. I love hearing your heart on your blog and I appreciate your email about helping us move... with ALL you have going on! I know you just can't wait to be a Mommy and you'll be SUCH a great one!!! Praying it happens in 2010.

Us4 Cats said...

very well written post. i understand your thoughts. hang in there. i 'get' just wanting to bring your child home. why does it have to be such a long process. . i know i know because of all the legalities form all the channels involved. but still !!! anyhow like i said hang in there.

come over and visit our blog sometime; i have a new template that actually has a comment section NOW. lol.