It has been 7 long months since we first found our little girl and we are still waiting. Adoption is definitely not for the faint of heart, let me tell you. It is completely emotionally exhausting. It is especially difficult on people like me who have to plan out everything. I do not have the most patience, so all this waiting is driving me crazy. First we had to wait 2 months to find out that the Philippines would put Annabelle on hold for us. That was 2 months of waking up every morning with the hope "today is going to be the day we finally find out if this precious little one is going to be joining our family" and going to bed every night with the disappointment and discouragement that we still did not have an answer. Then we had 2 months of paperwork and appointments, which at the time seemed hard, but was nothing in comparison to all the waiting we have had to do. At least most of that was in our hands and we had complete control on how fast it got done. Then we had to wait for our I-800a paperwork to be approved, which we had some delays with but finally got approved as you read in my last post.
Now we are currently waiting for the Philippines to approve our match and send us our official placement proposal for Annabelle. The first couple months of this part of the wait were easy because I was not expecting to hear anything, but the last couple weeks have been agonizing. It has now been over 3 months and still nothing. It wouldn't be so bad if I at least had a clue of when we would be hearing something, but there is just no telling. I know someone who requested their match the month before us and are still waiting and then someone else who turned their paperwork in a week after us who got their match a couple weeks ago. I know it should be happening soon, so every week I begin the week thinking "this is going to be our week" and then Friday comes along (I am really beginning to hate Fridays) and I end the day in disappointment knowing that I will have another week to get through. Then I have days like today where I find out that ICAB has hired a whole new board of directors and will be out of the office all week for training. Now I can't even hope to find out this week. I know we and Annabelle are in the Lord's hands, but some weeks are definitely harder than others. Mother's Day was especially rough - having a little one on the other side of the world who doesn't even know she has a mommy yet. I got through it though, just like I know I'll get through this week and the next and the next, one week at a time.
They say that when you are pregnant you go through a nesting phase where you all of a sudden get a burst of energy for days and organize and clean a bunch of things. Well, I think the nesting phase happens with adoption also but is even worse because we have to find things to do to keep our minds off of all the waiting or we would go crazy. The busier you are, the faster the time goes by. I know I am driving Jason and the kids crazy with all of my organizing and decluttering. I have organized and gotten rid of so many things that if we don't get our match soon there is going to be nothing left in our house. At least the girls will be out of school soon for the summer, so I'm sure we'll be able to find lots to do to keep busy.
My biggest wish was to get Annabelle home before her 2nd birthday, which is the middle of September, but that does not look like it will be possible now. That makes me sad, but I realize that she is still young enough that she is not going to know the difference if we celebrate it whenever it is we end up bringing her home. I am learning more and more throughout this process, just like with Joshua's, to just turn everything over to God. That's not an easy thing to do. It means letting go of all my hopes and expectations and fully trusting in His perfect timing. He has His reasons for making us wait and as difficult as it seems now, I know that one day we will look back on all of this and it will seem like nothing. Our sweet little one will be here with us soon and we will love her that much more because of all of this waiting.
