My Last Chance

Here it is. My last chance to say something profound and meaningful before we receive the details on our baby tomorrow. It’s not the first time I have tried to do this, but every time I sit down and begin to type, it becomes a narcissistic monologue on how hard this wait has been. That isn’t the story I want to tell. This isn’t supposed to be about us, and what we need from this baby, and how we need the wait to end so we can be a family of 5 and get on with life. But now, on the last night before we see her/his face, as I peruse the blogs of the others who have walked this journey alongside me, known to me or not….their stories mirror ours, and they are beautiful. Of course, as I read their stories, it takes me down memory lane… Daddy Kong and I decided early in our marriage that adoption was something we would be interested in pursuing. After our 2 boys were born and it was time to consider a third child, we decided to pursue adoption. We completed our application to our agency in August of 2005 (prior to Hurricane Katrina.) We were approved in September, and began the “paperchase”. At the time, based on current timelines, we anticipated being home with our baby between July and December 2006. We actually held our application several months in order to time the arrival of the baby between a family vacation and Christmas (of 2006). I find that really funny now. We had several weeks of interruption due to Hurricane Wilma, and at the time we thought a few weeks was an insignificant setback. (We now know that people who were matched several weeks before us have been home with their babies for six months already…) Our finalized paperwork was logged into China on March 29, 2006. During this time, we have watched the SARS scare, the crazy winter storms, the earthquakes, the Olympics, Swine Flu, and numerous typhoons, all while wondering if our child or adoption would be affected. Of course we now know that for the bulk of those incidents our baby would not have even been born yet. Then, there have been the adoption related setbacks, skipped months, and being on the cusp of “next” since August. While I ramble, the point is, we made it. We trusted God’s timing, and prayed for patience. We learned first hand what it means to not be in control. It may be a lifetime before we ever truly understand why willing parents wait while orphans sleep alone, but after 4+ years, we are prepared. Our hearts have been opened, and our arms are ready… now if only we could figure out where we will be going, what size clothes we need, what age toys to purchase, and what color paint we need…