Goodness! I don't even know how to begin. It's all good. God is good! He is more than good!
Yesterday at church there were so many things on my mind, and as often happens, the Lord spoke through His Word and through the sermon, right into my heart. Besides the many answered prayers, and even those unspoken prayers, God has made the way clear for us and has opened doors. My church family prayed for us, and shared our hearts for our children yet to come.
Last week Jay and I had a night out, and I very much enjoyed talking to him about the future with the possibility of having five children. We have a lot of friends with five children, so it's not an amazing, overwhelming, or intimidating thing to me. I know I'll have my work cut out for me, to say the least! But Jay is obviously in a very different position than I am. He's at the point in his life where he should be thinking about retiring, and here we are essentially in the early part of parenting! All he could really say was "I don't know how we're going to do it.". He didn't say it in a way that cast doubt on our ability to do it or the ability of God to provide for us, but more as in he is waiting to see how God is going to work it all out for us. We are both eager to see how we're going to do it!
Today we got the excellent news that the CCAA has approved the request to make our little girl's file available to us. I received her referral paperwork around noon, and got my first glimpse of her. Oh, she's precious! I did not expect such a beautiful little moon face!
She is ten months old and has had surgery, but seems to have some lower limb issues. With spina bifida, there is really no way to predict how well a child will do after surgery. She had her surgery very shortly after she entered the orphanage, and recovered as well as can be expected. The paperwork described her as "active" and "restless". Hmmmm...that would be two "restless" kids. I might be in for more than I bargained!
But I am very excited, very humbled, and I feel beyond blessed. Just ten years ago I was unsure we'd ever see the day we'd have children in our home, and today we're looking at our fifth referral! How can that be? God has always known all along what was best for us, what was best for our children, and when it was best to bring it all together. I could write a very long post on the multiple ways He has poured out his love on us; indeed, I think I could write a book.
But that will have to wait a few years. I am going to be pretty busy in the not-too-distant-future. And I'm loving the thought of it!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
In Two Places at Once
This is a new one for me, and probably a hint of things to come.
Two babies.
I have already seen the picture of Joshua, and have grown fond of him; I adore him. I've attached in that peculiar way that we adoptive parents often do when we "fall in love with a photo". Last week I held my friend's new toddler son, just home from China for about a month, and it made my arms ache to hold my newest son who still waits for us.
Two babies.
The other child I still do not know. Not a photo, a file, or a name. Only an imaginary image of what life with two more might possibly be like.
I'm at the "waiting for approval" while completing my dossier stage, and I'm at the "waiting for a referral" stage. So weird. I've been in both of these places before, three times in fact. But I've never been to both places at the same time. It's a strange place to be. How can I be "expecting two" but only have one? Are my expectations realistic?
I've never experienced having two young twins, and I've never really known any friends who had twins in toddlerhood, so I can only imagine what it's like. I wonder things like Do parents of twins end up attaching more to one child than the other? Exactly how exhausting is it two have to get up at night with two instead of just one grieving, scared toddler who has left all he or she knows and is now forced to live with strangers? Will one bond to each parent, or will one parent be feeling left out when both children bond with the other parent? When one starts crying and the other kicks in with it, too, exactly how crazy will that make me? Will they fight? Will I have time to give each of them enough attention to promote healthy attachment? And how difficult is it to go to the grocery store when you've got two kids under two years old, possibly even one who isn't walking yet? Will Merrilee have to shoulder more of the burden of helping to care for two children than is healthy for her at the age of 8? Or does it help family closeness to have all of us pitch in to care for two new little ones? So many questions and so much second-guessing myself!
I've done plenty of reading up on what is called virtual twins, or artificial twins, but have not experienced it in this way before. Merrilee and Jacob are considered virtual twins. In adoption lingo, it's defined as two children closer than 9 months apart in age, from two different biological parents, adopted by the same family (simultaneously). I put the last word in parentheses because most of us don't get to the last part; many families who have adopted from China have children closer than 9 months in age, but they were adopted years apart. In our case, Merrilee and Jacob are 8 months apart in age, but were adopted 16 months apart. One child was already an attached, familiar member of the family before the second one came along.
So where am I going with this?
When we started this adoption process, we requested to be approved to adopt two children. The CCAA has recently expanded it's policy to allow families to adopt two children using one dossier, as long as one of the children is listed as a special focus child. The two adoptions may happen simultaneously, or they may occur separately over the course of a year, one trip to China or two trips. My heart really prefers to adopt both children together--I've always wanted to experience having twins, or two young children at the same time; I enjoy having Merrilee and Jacob so close in age. And I long to have another very little girl. Joshua will be close to two years old when we bring him home. I know what that is like; I've done it twice. But I only got to experience a one-year old once. I so loved that and really miss it! But infants are not readily found on the shared list, and at our ages and already having three children, we're not likely to get "chosen" to parent really young ones. So we've just been waiting for the right "second child" to come along.
With all of our adoptions, I have always prayed that God would be the one to show us which child would be ours. And with all three of our present children, God has done just that; we've never found a referral listed, asked to review it, and then proceeded with the adoption. God has hand-picked each of our children and our agency has always presented us with the file of a child they felt was a good match. And even as scary as Katie Mei's file was (who would have ever imagined we'd go through what we experienced with her open heart surgery and difficult recovery?) we trusted that God had hand-picked her for us, and we can now see that He was absolutely right in his choice. She is perfect for us and we love her deeply.
I know of so many friends who have asked to look at referral files and, after getting a doctor's opinion, felt that a particular child just wasn't a good match for their family. It may not sound too tough if you haven't experienced it, but it is beyond comprehension how painful it can be to thoroughly examine a child's file, really get to know that child in your mind, and feel you have to make that decision to say "no". It hurts, almost as if one has miscarried a pregnancy. It hurts to have to say "no" and it hurts to know you'll always wonder if the child eventually found a family. I do not want to go through that. So I have prayed that God would choose our children for us, and knowing that God would always honor a prayer like that, I know that He would choose what is best for us and I'd never have to say "no".
But that still has not stopped me from looking. I have access to lists of information on the approximately 2016 children on China's Shared List. I also have access to our agency's list of waiting children. In the past two months, I have been drawn to four different little girls and asked to see their files. Why I've done this when I personally asked God to take care of it, I do not know. It's hard to just sit back and do nothing but wait. So I've looked and asked to see files. And in every case, we've been told "no" for one reason or another. The first time it was because the file was already being reviewed by another family. That family decided to adopt that child, but I later learned that the CCAA denied them pre-approval based on their ages (too young). However, the file still remains listed as "under review" and our agency did not call me and ask me if I would like to review it, even though we were next in line requesting to see the file. I believe that was God's intervention and I did not pursue it further. After that I found another sweet little girl and asked about her. I was again told "no" because she was not listed on the special focus list.
After that there was a file of a child on the shared list who was just days away from being listed as special focus. When we asked for her file we were told she was too close in age to Joshua, and our agency was not going to approve any family for artificial twinning. Needless to say, I was getting disgusted with all the rebuffs and took this newly-minted, previously unannounced "rule" as a personal affront. I was beginning to think our agency was trying to steer us away from a young child and more towards a child of elementary-school age. Not exactly what I was hoping, but then again, I wanted God to be in charge of our adoption and didn't want my longing for another baby girl to stand in His way, so I held on to hope. I sent a polite email to our family coordinator and told her I wanted more information on artificial twinning. I had done a good deal of reading up on it already, but wanted to know what the professionals knew that made this a bad idea. At least if I were educated about it, I wouldn't feel so bad about it affecting our adoption.
So just last week I saw a child listed on our agency's website and she was older than Joshua by at least a year. I contacted our family coordinator and requested a little more information on the child. I was told that we could not look at her file because she was the same age as Katie Mei, which was not true at all, and I immediately responded with an email saying as much.
The next morning I received a phone call from our coordinator to talk about the twinning issue and was hoping I'd be able to defend our case, since I was not a stranger to having virtual twins. What I heard next was an absolute shock to me.
Melissa told me that the director of the agency felt it was in our family's best interest not to adopt a child older than Joshua, but a child younger than he. I really wasn't sure I heard her clearly. They wanted us to consider a younger child? REALLY??? My heart just leapt! And even more amazing, they had just received an agency specific referral for a little girl, younger than Joshua, who is in the same orphanage he is in. If I hadn't asked God to be our own personal matchmaker, I would be floored by the coincidence of the whole situation. And to push the envelope even further, the agency director is waiving the no-artificial-twinning policy because this child is not more than 9 months younger than Joshua. REALLY???
But here's the rub. She is not listed as a special focus child. However, since she's in Joshua's orphanage, and our agency has a significant relationship with this orphanage, we were told at the start that there might be a possibility of changing the child's status from regular referral to special focus due to extenuating circumstances, namely that we're already adopting a child from that orphanage, the children have the same special need, and it would be in the best interest of all parties involved to be able to adopt both children from the same province at the same time.
So once again, we wait.
We are not allowed to see her file, nor to even see a photo of her. All we know is that she also has spina bifida and has had surgery already. She may have a more serious condition than Joshua, and that is where my mind begins to wander. Would her condition be so serious that we would not want to accept her file? Would I fail to attach to her as quickly as I would Joshua because she would require more medical care? The list goes on and on.
And that takes me back to where I started: I've never had two babies. Am I being too hasty? Is this going to be a disaster because in my impatience I wanted another very young child and I wanted them both at the same time? Maybe her special need will be too hard for us to handle...what if she cannot walk?
Reminder to self: Whom did you ask to choose your child for you? Why did you not want to be the one to make the big decision yourself? Because you KNEW you could not possibly know what is best for your family. Praise God, he is in control!
After my Bible study time this morning, God reminded me once again that He knows best. Abram had no idea where he was to go, but God showed him the land He had chosen for Abram. Abram had to trust God, leave behind what he was accustomed to, and step out in faith into what was probably very intimidating. After all, Lot took the most attractive land. And look what happened to Lot.
So for the past couple of days we have been waiting to hear whether the CCAA has approved our agency's request to list this child's file as a special focus referral. We have been waiting to hear since Tuesday. The wait has been torture for me, but in the past 48 hours God has reminded me in so many ways of what this is all about. That's why this post is so long. I want to be able to go back and see the Hand of God all over this adoption.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!
Two babies.
I have already seen the picture of Joshua, and have grown fond of him; I adore him. I've attached in that peculiar way that we adoptive parents often do when we "fall in love with a photo". Last week I held my friend's new toddler son, just home from China for about a month, and it made my arms ache to hold my newest son who still waits for us.
Two babies.
The other child I still do not know. Not a photo, a file, or a name. Only an imaginary image of what life with two more might possibly be like.
I'm at the "waiting for approval" while completing my dossier stage, and I'm at the "waiting for a referral" stage. So weird. I've been in both of these places before, three times in fact. But I've never been to both places at the same time. It's a strange place to be. How can I be "expecting two" but only have one? Are my expectations realistic?
I've never experienced having two young twins, and I've never really known any friends who had twins in toddlerhood, so I can only imagine what it's like. I wonder things like Do parents of twins end up attaching more to one child than the other? Exactly how exhausting is it two have to get up at night with two instead of just one grieving, scared toddler who has left all he or she knows and is now forced to live with strangers? Will one bond to each parent, or will one parent be feeling left out when both children bond with the other parent? When one starts crying and the other kicks in with it, too, exactly how crazy will that make me? Will they fight? Will I have time to give each of them enough attention to promote healthy attachment? And how difficult is it to go to the grocery store when you've got two kids under two years old, possibly even one who isn't walking yet? Will Merrilee have to shoulder more of the burden of helping to care for two children than is healthy for her at the age of 8? Or does it help family closeness to have all of us pitch in to care for two new little ones? So many questions and so much second-guessing myself!
I've done plenty of reading up on what is called virtual twins, or artificial twins, but have not experienced it in this way before. Merrilee and Jacob are considered virtual twins. In adoption lingo, it's defined as two children closer than 9 months apart in age, from two different biological parents, adopted by the same family (simultaneously). I put the last word in parentheses because most of us don't get to the last part; many families who have adopted from China have children closer than 9 months in age, but they were adopted years apart. In our case, Merrilee and Jacob are 8 months apart in age, but were adopted 16 months apart. One child was already an attached, familiar member of the family before the second one came along.
So where am I going with this?
When we started this adoption process, we requested to be approved to adopt two children. The CCAA has recently expanded it's policy to allow families to adopt two children using one dossier, as long as one of the children is listed as a special focus child. The two adoptions may happen simultaneously, or they may occur separately over the course of a year, one trip to China or two trips. My heart really prefers to adopt both children together--I've always wanted to experience having twins, or two young children at the same time; I enjoy having Merrilee and Jacob so close in age. And I long to have another very little girl. Joshua will be close to two years old when we bring him home. I know what that is like; I've done it twice. But I only got to experience a one-year old once. I so loved that and really miss it! But infants are not readily found on the shared list, and at our ages and already having three children, we're not likely to get "chosen" to parent really young ones. So we've just been waiting for the right "second child" to come along.
With all of our adoptions, I have always prayed that God would be the one to show us which child would be ours. And with all three of our present children, God has done just that; we've never found a referral listed, asked to review it, and then proceeded with the adoption. God has hand-picked each of our children and our agency has always presented us with the file of a child they felt was a good match. And even as scary as Katie Mei's file was (who would have ever imagined we'd go through what we experienced with her open heart surgery and difficult recovery?) we trusted that God had hand-picked her for us, and we can now see that He was absolutely right in his choice. She is perfect for us and we love her deeply.
I know of so many friends who have asked to look at referral files and, after getting a doctor's opinion, felt that a particular child just wasn't a good match for their family. It may not sound too tough if you haven't experienced it, but it is beyond comprehension how painful it can be to thoroughly examine a child's file, really get to know that child in your mind, and feel you have to make that decision to say "no". It hurts, almost as if one has miscarried a pregnancy. It hurts to have to say "no" and it hurts to know you'll always wonder if the child eventually found a family. I do not want to go through that. So I have prayed that God would choose our children for us, and knowing that God would always honor a prayer like that, I know that He would choose what is best for us and I'd never have to say "no".
But that still has not stopped me from looking. I have access to lists of information on the approximately 2016 children on China's Shared List. I also have access to our agency's list of waiting children. In the past two months, I have been drawn to four different little girls and asked to see their files. Why I've done this when I personally asked God to take care of it, I do not know. It's hard to just sit back and do nothing but wait. So I've looked and asked to see files. And in every case, we've been told "no" for one reason or another. The first time it was because the file was already being reviewed by another family. That family decided to adopt that child, but I later learned that the CCAA denied them pre-approval based on their ages (too young). However, the file still remains listed as "under review" and our agency did not call me and ask me if I would like to review it, even though we were next in line requesting to see the file. I believe that was God's intervention and I did not pursue it further. After that I found another sweet little girl and asked about her. I was again told "no" because she was not listed on the special focus list.
After that there was a file of a child on the shared list who was just days away from being listed as special focus. When we asked for her file we were told she was too close in age to Joshua, and our agency was not going to approve any family for artificial twinning. Needless to say, I was getting disgusted with all the rebuffs and took this newly-minted, previously unannounced "rule" as a personal affront. I was beginning to think our agency was trying to steer us away from a young child and more towards a child of elementary-school age. Not exactly what I was hoping, but then again, I wanted God to be in charge of our adoption and didn't want my longing for another baby girl to stand in His way, so I held on to hope. I sent a polite email to our family coordinator and told her I wanted more information on artificial twinning. I had done a good deal of reading up on it already, but wanted to know what the professionals knew that made this a bad idea. At least if I were educated about it, I wouldn't feel so bad about it affecting our adoption.
So just last week I saw a child listed on our agency's website and she was older than Joshua by at least a year. I contacted our family coordinator and requested a little more information on the child. I was told that we could not look at her file because she was the same age as Katie Mei, which was not true at all, and I immediately responded with an email saying as much.
The next morning I received a phone call from our coordinator to talk about the twinning issue and was hoping I'd be able to defend our case, since I was not a stranger to having virtual twins. What I heard next was an absolute shock to me.
Melissa told me that the director of the agency felt it was in our family's best interest not to adopt a child older than Joshua, but a child younger than he. I really wasn't sure I heard her clearly. They wanted us to consider a younger child? REALLY??? My heart just leapt! And even more amazing, they had just received an agency specific referral for a little girl, younger than Joshua, who is in the same orphanage he is in. If I hadn't asked God to be our own personal matchmaker, I would be floored by the coincidence of the whole situation. And to push the envelope even further, the agency director is waiving the no-artificial-twinning policy because this child is not more than 9 months younger than Joshua. REALLY???
But here's the rub. She is not listed as a special focus child. However, since she's in Joshua's orphanage, and our agency has a significant relationship with this orphanage, we were told at the start that there might be a possibility of changing the child's status from regular referral to special focus due to extenuating circumstances, namely that we're already adopting a child from that orphanage, the children have the same special need, and it would be in the best interest of all parties involved to be able to adopt both children from the same province at the same time.
So once again, we wait.
We are not allowed to see her file, nor to even see a photo of her. All we know is that she also has spina bifida and has had surgery already. She may have a more serious condition than Joshua, and that is where my mind begins to wander. Would her condition be so serious that we would not want to accept her file? Would I fail to attach to her as quickly as I would Joshua because she would require more medical care? The list goes on and on.
And that takes me back to where I started: I've never had two babies. Am I being too hasty? Is this going to be a disaster because in my impatience I wanted another very young child and I wanted them both at the same time? Maybe her special need will be too hard for us to handle...what if she cannot walk?
Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2
After my Bible study time this morning, God reminded me once again that He knows best. Abram had no idea where he was to go, but God showed him the land He had chosen for Abram. Abram had to trust God, leave behind what he was accustomed to, and step out in faith into what was probably very intimidating. After all, Lot took the most attractive land. And look what happened to Lot.
So for the past couple of days we have been waiting to hear whether the CCAA has approved our agency's request to list this child's file as a special focus referral. We have been waiting to hear since Tuesday. The wait has been torture for me, but in the past 48 hours God has reminded me in so many ways of what this is all about. That's why this post is so long. I want to be able to go back and see the Hand of God all over this adoption.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Finally, another significant milestone!
We got our completed homestudy in our fat little hands last Friday, Janaury 21. What a wonderful thing to have that part of the journey done! Of course, I had hoped to receive it prior to Friday so I could get it sent out for certification in Atlanta last week, but I was still happy to get it when I did.
So this week has been about pushing the paperwork a little farther. I sent all of our Georgia documents to Atlanta for state certification on Monday, and hope to get those back maybe late next week. And yesterday I sent in our I-800A application to the USCIS lockbox in Dallas. This is a big step in getting us closer to sending our dossier to China. Now we wait for a fingerprint appointment in Jacksonville, FL and hope our application gets approved as soon as possible. I still doubt we'll be DTC by February 26th, our deadline for our approval to adopt Joshua, but we can get a short extension if we need to.
Now I have nothing to do but wait. In the meantime, we are hoping to get another referral from AWAA. It's a longish story, and another example of God's hand at work, but I'll save that for another post.
Hope to hear from the USCIS soon....
So this week has been about pushing the paperwork a little farther. I sent all of our Georgia documents to Atlanta for state certification on Monday, and hope to get those back maybe late next week. And yesterday I sent in our I-800A application to the USCIS lockbox in Dallas. This is a big step in getting us closer to sending our dossier to China. Now we wait for a fingerprint appointment in Jacksonville, FL and hope our application gets approved as soon as possible. I still doubt we'll be DTC by February 26th, our deadline for our approval to adopt Joshua, but we can get a short extension if we need to.
Now I have nothing to do but wait. In the meantime, we are hoping to get another referral from AWAA. It's a longish story, and another example of God's hand at work, but I'll save that for another post.
Hope to hear from the USCIS soon....
Friday, January 14, 2011
And the results are in...
Frustrating. Maddening. AAAARGH!!!
Those were my first thoughts when Emily told me what happened. God took care of it all, but someone really messed up somewhere along the line! What a reminder that we are all so fallible. I need to pray more and more for my expectations to line up with what God wants, and not with how I want other people to behave....
Emily called me back regarding her phone conversation with the GBI this morning. Let's just say it was good news, but it was maddening. Apparently, Jay's original electronic prints, done back in October, were cleared on October 5th. Yes, October 5th! But somehow the GBI sent the results to the Lee County Sheriff's department rather than to the adoption agency, so when the agency went to check on the clearances, they were not available, so we were told they were rejected. Jay had a second set of prints done and they were rejected, and then he had to get the manual prints done and they were lost!
I'm not sure where to point fingers on this, so I'm just going to have to let it go. I'm disgusted, but can't do anything about it now, so I just need to press on.
Emily is finalizing and notarizing the homestudy now. I should get it in the middle of next week and be able to take it to the courthouse for certification and then mail it on to Atlanta. I was going to send all our other documents to Atlanta early next week, but I may as well save some FedEx postage and just mail all the documents together.
Then I also have to send in our I-800 application along with a copy of the homestudy to the USCIS. Hopefully that will get us a fingerprint date in Jacksonville, FL before the end of January. I could use a little beach vacation down that way pretty soon, anyway! Would have been nice to do it while Jacob was out of school. Oh well.
So back to the waiting game. Hopefully we'll make some good progress by the end of next week, and who knows? By the grace of God, I might actually get the dossier to Houston by the beginning of February.
Those were my first thoughts when Emily told me what happened. God took care of it all, but someone really messed up somewhere along the line! What a reminder that we are all so fallible. I need to pray more and more for my expectations to line up with what God wants, and not with how I want other people to behave....
Emily called me back regarding her phone conversation with the GBI this morning. Let's just say it was good news, but it was maddening. Apparently, Jay's original electronic prints, done back in October, were cleared on October 5th. Yes, October 5th! But somehow the GBI sent the results to the Lee County Sheriff's department rather than to the adoption agency, so when the agency went to check on the clearances, they were not available, so we were told they were rejected. Jay had a second set of prints done and they were rejected, and then he had to get the manual prints done and they were lost!
I'm not sure where to point fingers on this, so I'm just going to have to let it go. I'm disgusted, but can't do anything about it now, so I just need to press on.
Emily is finalizing and notarizing the homestudy now. I should get it in the middle of next week and be able to take it to the courthouse for certification and then mail it on to Atlanta. I was going to send all our other documents to Atlanta early next week, but I may as well save some FedEx postage and just mail all the documents together.
Then I also have to send in our I-800 application along with a copy of the homestudy to the USCIS. Hopefully that will get us a fingerprint date in Jacksonville, FL before the end of January. I could use a little beach vacation down that way pretty soon, anyway! Would have been nice to do it while Jacob was out of school. Oh well.
So back to the waiting game. Hopefully we'll make some good progress by the end of next week, and who knows? By the grace of God, I might actually get the dossier to Houston by the beginning of February.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Praying for that Peace
Banging my head today over the frustrations of this paperwork! We STILL have not gotten Jay's GBI prints cleared. He failed the electronic prints yet again, and on December 9th we sent manually inked prints to our homestudy agency so the GBI could run a background name search. I've been trying to check on the status of those prints all week, including phone calls and emails, and today I finally got through to someone. I was told that they don't talk to families, only to the agencies, because "You are not our client, the agency is." When I pried for enough information to at least know if they have the prints, the woman I spoke to essentially said the electronic prints failed and we needed to send in manually inked cards. Well...that's what I was calling about and it answered my question in that I now know they don't have the manually inked cards in the system, otherwise she would have seen that.
So I had our social worker call the agency as ask "the lady at the front desk" (remember how much I like her?) exactly what day she sent those cards in to the GBI. Turns out she does have a record of sending the cards in, but it wasn't until 11 days after I sent them to her. So she sent them on December 20th, which means they got there right before Christmas. And we all know the prints didn't get checked during Christmas. So where are the prints? No one knows, and she cannot call the GBI to check until tomorrow, because she didn't get back from lunch until after 2 pm, and the GBI doesn't take phone calls after 2 pm. Nice.
So I am really trying not to be a butt head about all this. I am trying not to pass blame or get angry, but it's hard. Here's the crux of it: I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW God is in control. I trust him and I trust his timing. But it's still so hard when frustrating things like this happen ~things that should be so straightforward get so messed up! I feel like banging my head on the wall and stomping my feet. A grown-up temper tantrum, if you will.
But when I feel like this over the adoption paperwork, it always brings me back to the fact that adoption, in and of itself, is a painful, awful, frustrating part of life in this fallen world. As much as I want to have a tantrum over my frustration of not knowing the status of Jay's clearances, I can only imagine the frustration of our own children who will go through the rest of their lives never knowing their own biological status. As much as I am irritated by not being able to have control over our own paperwork, how irritated might my children be about how it seems everyone but themselves had control over their futures? They didn't get to choose their adoptive parents, their adoptive cultures, or even the foreign country of which they were to become citizens. They had the least control over their adoptions out of everyone involved. And when I feel like I could just scream because everything is taking so long... I remember that for myself, this paperwork will eventually come to an end. For my children, it will not end. In their lifetimes that ache of not knowing will never, ever go away. They will always wonder at the unanswered questions. They will search other Chinese faces looking for a hint of familiarity. They will question themselves and secretly long for even the tiniest shred of information. And it will never come.
So as I try to reason my way through being ticked off at "the lady at the front desk" for not mailing in the cards in a timely manner; at the GBI for not giving me more information regarding our clearances; at the Hague process for making our paperwork that much more complicated; and at anyone else who pretty much doesn't do his or her job exactly the way it should be done, I have to remember that there is no such thing as a "smooth" or "easy" adoption. Even if every part of our paperwork moved along perfectly and without a snag, our children's adoptions would still be shrouded in pain. The pain of a mother and father abandoning their infant in hopes of providing him or her with a better life; the pain of a child crying out for a parent whose comforting embrace will never be felt again; the pain of hunger, not only for food but also for affection, in a place where both are scarce; and the pain of the scars that will forever be tender to the touch--scars on the heart and mind. My paperwork woes are the least of the pain. It goes so much deeper, to the very heart of why we adopt. Babies and children are in orphanages. They have no one who calls them "mine". And even when they are adopted, they will still carry that pain of not knowing the circumstances of their births. Thus is life in our fallen world.
I thank God that He is in control, that He promises to place the fatherless in families, and that He is the Father to the fatherless. And I thank Him that he continues to remind me of that when I start to whine about my own circumstances. I've got to keep my eyes on the goal.
So I had our social worker call the agency as ask "the lady at the front desk" (remember how much I like her?) exactly what day she sent those cards in to the GBI. Turns out she does have a record of sending the cards in, but it wasn't until 11 days after I sent them to her. So she sent them on December 20th, which means they got there right before Christmas. And we all know the prints didn't get checked during Christmas. So where are the prints? No one knows, and she cannot call the GBI to check until tomorrow, because she didn't get back from lunch until after 2 pm, and the GBI doesn't take phone calls after 2 pm. Nice.
So I am really trying not to be a butt head about all this. I am trying not to pass blame or get angry, but it's hard. Here's the crux of it: I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW God is in control. I trust him and I trust his timing. But it's still so hard when frustrating things like this happen ~things that should be so straightforward get so messed up! I feel like banging my head on the wall and stomping my feet. A grown-up temper tantrum, if you will.
But when I feel like this over the adoption paperwork, it always brings me back to the fact that adoption, in and of itself, is a painful, awful, frustrating part of life in this fallen world. As much as I want to have a tantrum over my frustration of not knowing the status of Jay's clearances, I can only imagine the frustration of our own children who will go through the rest of their lives never knowing their own biological status. As much as I am irritated by not being able to have control over our own paperwork, how irritated might my children be about how it seems everyone but themselves had control over their futures? They didn't get to choose their adoptive parents, their adoptive cultures, or even the foreign country of which they were to become citizens. They had the least control over their adoptions out of everyone involved. And when I feel like I could just scream because everything is taking so long... I remember that for myself, this paperwork will eventually come to an end. For my children, it will not end. In their lifetimes that ache of not knowing will never, ever go away. They will always wonder at the unanswered questions. They will search other Chinese faces looking for a hint of familiarity. They will question themselves and secretly long for even the tiniest shred of information. And it will never come.
So as I try to reason my way through being ticked off at "the lady at the front desk" for not mailing in the cards in a timely manner; at the GBI for not giving me more information regarding our clearances; at the Hague process for making our paperwork that much more complicated; and at anyone else who pretty much doesn't do his or her job exactly the way it should be done, I have to remember that there is no such thing as a "smooth" or "easy" adoption. Even if every part of our paperwork moved along perfectly and without a snag, our children's adoptions would still be shrouded in pain. The pain of a mother and father abandoning their infant in hopes of providing him or her with a better life; the pain of a child crying out for a parent whose comforting embrace will never be felt again; the pain of hunger, not only for food but also for affection, in a place where both are scarce; and the pain of the scars that will forever be tender to the touch--scars on the heart and mind. My paperwork woes are the least of the pain. It goes so much deeper, to the very heart of why we adopt. Babies and children are in orphanages. They have no one who calls them "mine". And even when they are adopted, they will still carry that pain of not knowing the circumstances of their births. Thus is life in our fallen world.
I thank God that He is in control, that He promises to place the fatherless in families, and that He is the Father to the fatherless. And I thank Him that he continues to remind me of that when I start to whine about my own circumstances. I've got to keep my eyes on the goal.
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