The wait

Life gets busy and time flashes by......except when you are in the middle of an adoption.  We are approaching another Christmas season with joyous hearts in celebration of our savior, but also with pits of sadness.  We will celebrate the season one child short of our hopes.  We applied to our first adoption agency in Sept of 2011 with the intentions that we would have a completed adoption around this time.  However our road has been a bit bumpy.  We are not only on our second agency, but now our third...

We received a four day notice that our second agency out of California would be closing its doors and they had made arrangements to transfer our file and money to another agency in California.  Obviously this was a shock, and concerning....but it also didn't rock me to my core like the first change.  It was one of those moments again that I had to battle with my maker and question if we had really heard him correctly, we he whispered the dreams of building our family through international adoption.  We just let this resignate in our souls for a few days...okay weeks...4 to be exact.  I felt a sense of peace but the skeptic in me couldn't help but not be okay with this transition.   Mostly because I am not in control of this process and that is hard to manage when you are someone who usually has life all together and a plan in place for almost everything!  Graciously we have super friends that have prayed us along in our journey and gave us a reminder that there is a plan and a purpose for our delays/transitions.

We were told that there would be no delays and not really affect our case, literately because we are just sitting on a waiting list and we are not really in the middle of anything but a big long wait!  We received a call the week of Thanksgiving that reassured us that God is ultimately in charge our plan.  We were notified that we are at the top of the waiting list and should be one of the next families that receives a referral from our region.  So that being said, it could be 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months, or 5 years before we actually get our child, but at least we have the reminder in our soul that we have not been forgotten and the Lord is patiently knitting our family together oceans apart.  Our child has most likely been born and is waiting eagerly to really feel loved for the very first time.  This has opened a whole new set of emotions, mostly in my prayer life....literately like a pregnancy..when you spend hours worrying that they are healthy and praying that God has built this incredible person inside you.  Now we pray for the health and safety of our child.  I pray that they are warm and safe in an orphanage somewhere in eastern Siberia.  Who prays for their child to be in an orphanage?  I guess me!  I pray that for several reasons.  First, this means they are most likely registered on the Russian adoption database and that they will be open for international adoption soon.  Second this means they have the basic necessities that they need, mostly a warm place to lay their sweet head at night.  Third, it means there is some sort of social interaction taking place allowing my child's mind to grow, allows them to hear other voices, play with a few broken toys or maybe be blessed by a Russian orthodox priest that visits them.  Maybe, just maybe they can hear the Lords voice singing them the lullabies in their heart that we pray for.

We are getting anxious, we are getting nervous, we are getting ready....if you can ever be ready?  Each day when our phone rings, I think to myself could this be the one?  Then I have to remind myself to answer the phone because we still live in the days of a landline but rarely answer it.  Our little C is starting to take an interest in babies and if asked if he wants a brother of sister...he always replys with Sidney!  which in his two year old language that means a sister.  Sidney is another two year old he has went to daycare with since he was 4 months old.  We shall see what is in store for us.
Jeremy is feeling a boy, I am feeling a girl...............only God knows who will join the Hatfield family.