Waiting....

A few times a week, someone asks me if we are still adopting and have we heard anything. Some say that they thought I said we would be traveling by now. Yes, when we started, back in June, I thought we would be going to get our child around now. That timeline changed as early as the Fall though, even though most didn't realize it. Yes, the process has taken longer than we had expected, but it is still a lot shorter than a lot of other people. China has a 4+ year wait for a referral. Korea is over a year, waiting for a referral. It we had signed with the other agency that we were considering, we would be have been looking at a 12-15 month (maybe longer now) wait for a referral. That is just the time you are logged in until a referral, not the time it took for be logged in. For us, it took us about 3 months to get our homestudy completed, 4 months total to be approved by the US Gov't to bring home an orphan, a little over 6 months from the day the decision was made until we were logged in. We have been waiting for our referral for 2.5 months, so far. Actually not so bad.

I am SO happy to know that there are people that are behind us with support and encouragement. People say when you are pregnant though, you know the final date and you can focus on it, as well as those around you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it is hard to have people ask how we are doing or where we are in the process. I am SO glad that they are paying attention...honestly! I think it is getting to my husband though a bit. Daily, he asks "Anyone else adopted today?". He said today that he fears that people will think that he was just making it all up! I don't think that he actually feels this way, but I do know that the one paper that he wants SO badly is an official letter from our agency that we are working with them. Our Executuve Director/former caseworker though feels we are best to wait for a referral. He says that he wants it for our leaves, but I think he wants PROOF. It is hard to say "We don't know when we will be matched" or "We don't know when we are going to Vietnam".

There are currently 5 families from our agency in VN picking up their children. Blogs on the right with a * before the title are people in VN right now. Even with all the backlog in the visa applications and all the scary things that are happening right now, things are working! We have to have faith that it will pick up a bit and smooth out though.

Adoption Mama has some great adoption related shirts that say it all! I was just telling my husband's pastor's wife about this one... Still Adopting. It says...

Yes, I am still Adopting
No, I haven't heard anything yet.
But each day brings me closer to my child.

Adoption has been something that has been placed in our hearts long ago. My husband had this idea YEARS before he even met me. We discussed this idea early on in our relationship. This has been something that we gave serious thought and some effort to back in 2000. This is something that we believe strongly in.

Like I was telling the pastor's wife also, if we think this wait is hard, I am sure it is nothing compared to the wait that we will experience when we will have pictures of our son and we are told we have to wait to go get him! The time when we know that our son is in an orphanage on the the other side of the world and WE CAN'T GO GET HIM!!

Boy ~ How I look forward to that day! For as hard as it will be, I will be nearing the finish line and I will have a goal that I can see. A picture of our 3rd child.