The process of international adoption is just that, a PROCESS. While it has profound and beautiful moments, it doesn't really come with a lot of frills and romance. It does come with a lot of paperwork, appointments, notarizations, and overnight mailings. It comes with a lot of unknowns and a lot of waiting. It is not for the impatient, faint of heart, or hopelessly emotional. It takes strength, trust, the ability to cling to hope, and an optimistic outlook.
We're at what I consider to be the hardest part of the adoption process. We're waiting. And waiting. And. Waiting. We don't know when our baby will come home and we don't know when we'll get more news about her. We know she's out there. We've seen her lovely face and toes and hands, and we know she is receiving good care from people who no doubt love her very much. We just don't know any more than that.
And that fact, the fact that we know no more, slowly eats away at me.
I am a list maker. I make all kinds of lists of things to do, things to read, things to see, and things to get. I love the first parts of adoption, where there is a clear goal and a list of tasks to take me from Point A to Point B. Fill out applications...check! Notarize documents...check! Send family photos...check! Accept referral of beautiful baby girl...check!
But now, when I most need it, there is no list. Nothing to do, nothing to check off. Nothing I can physically do to get her any closer to us. Everything we need to do is complete, and the remaining tasks are in the hands of impartial bureaucracies who have a million other things to do.
This is also the stage of the process when people start to ask more about news of Emma. And while we love that they ask, because it makes it clear to us that she holds a place in their thoughts and hearts, it also gets very hard to repeat for the hundredth time "No, no news. We probably won't have any until her travel call". I liken it to someone being lost at sea...the case is highly publicized and it would be all over the news if any changes had come to the case, but you still feel the need to ask the family "Have you heard anything?" So if you do see us and you ask us about Emma, don't feel badly if our faces fall just a little as we respond. It's not that we're sad, or that we've lost hope. It's just that this process that is adoption leaves us hanging just a little at this stage.
And suddenly in just months, we'll get a phone call that will put us into the fast-forward mode, and it will be all over the (figurative) news that our baby is on her way.
The waiting is the hardest part.
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