The Roller Coaster

Some days, it's easy.  Other days, I so badly want it all over with, I can't even think straight.  I don't think anyone could have prepared us for exactly what it would feel like to go through the adoption process. The things my adoptive momma friends have been telling me, like, you're in for the roller coaster ride of your life, or your patience will be tested like it's never been tested before...I get it now.  It's like the second you give birth to your first baby, it all becomes clear.  All the feelings and emotions and the overwhelming love that you hear about actually happens right before your eyes.  The way you fall in love with this tiny little squirmy thing you've never met is instantaneous.  You get it.  It clicks and you get it.  You can imagine how it will be like all you want, but until it happens, you don't truly understand it.  It's also how I feel about when we finally set eyes on this precious girl in person.  When we are able to actually hold her, hug her, and kiss her.  I just can't fully comprehend that moment right now, but when it happens, I know it will be more than what I could ever have imagined.

 Just the fact that we are 7,888 miles away from her (yep, I looked it up) is just enough to make my mommy heart want to break into a million pieces.  Along with the fact that we know she's our child and we love her more than words can say, yet she doesn't know a thing about us, and doesn't know how her world is about to change...it's just a feeling I can't describe.  I know she's taken care of.  I know she's fed and clothed and bathed and looked after.  It's just that I want to be the one doing all that. I'm her mom.  That's my job. To say that this is the hardest wait we've ever had for anything would be an understatement. A GIANT understatement.

We received an update yesterday.  New pictures and a video, answers to questions we had, and updated measurements were all wonderful.  (She's a tiny little princess...just 22 pounds and 31 inches tall.)  The video revealed that she's a little bit rough on toys and it looks like she's got a little bit (or a lot) of spunk!  She's going to fit right in!!  I told Mike that it almost makes the waiting even harder, being able to see her but not hold her.  I know in my heart that when this whole process is over and we have her in our arms, we will look back and think that the time we waited was all worth it.  The tears we shed over not being able to hold our baby and rock her to sleep will be gone and we will be shedding new tears of happiness and thankfulness that God placed this amazing little girl in our lives.

We have 3 months behind us and approximately 6 months ahead of us.  We are waiting for our I-797 approval (US immigration), which will hopefully be coming in the next few weeks.  We sent our I800a application in on April 9th, with a receipt date of April 14th.  Our fingerprint appointment was scheduled for May 1st, but we took a chance and went in early on April 24th.  They took us right in fingerprinted us, and we were out in about 10 minutes.  Now we wait to be assigned an officer to go over our all of our info, and eventually approve us.  Once that approval is in and we get it state certified and authenticated by the Chinese consulate, we can officially send our dossier to China!!! 

The wait from dossier to China (or DTC) to travel is approximately 4-6 months.  So we are still hopeful for a November family day.  It could possibly be in December, though.  So we wait.  We pray over her, we talk about her, we look at her pictures, and watch the videos of her.  November can't come soon enough!!