Appointments, Paperwork, and Delays

Time for another update. :) Since starting these in May, each month has gone by so quickly. Adoption related things add a lot of extra to any given day, but also the day-to-day keeps us plenty busy. September, however, didn't seem to go as fast. Each month has brought different hardships and joys, but September was a hard month emotionally. More delays we didn't foresee (can we ever foresee them?) and missing our little girl terribly. As always though, we come back to the same place, we have to trust Him.

We have to trust His timing (which can involve delays), we have to trust Him to love, keep, protect, watch over, and sustain our daughter, we have to trust that He knows far better then we do, that He can already see the end of this journey. And with each delay, frustration, tear, heart ache, victory, and joy He's weaving a beautiful tapestry out of this story of ours. Our trusting Him, our putting one foot in front of the other on days it'd be so much easier to stop or just plain give up, is part of how He is teaching us and creating a testimony to bring Him glory. Honestly, I believe that we won't even know the half of all the tiny details He is orchestrating and moving and sewing together until this particular journey is complete...but it's very possible we will never know all the how's and why's on this side of eternity...


Let's get this update started. :)

September 3rd- E and J2 go in for updated physicals for the home study. J2's form gets filled out and sent home. I send a new medical form in to be redone (China allows no mistakes on their forms).

September 5th- J3 goes in for his updated physical. My father-in-law has an appointment for an updated physical. Everything is time sensitive...everything. J3's medical form is filled out and comes home with us.
Oh, side note, the sickness I mentioned most of us having in August's update, yeah, find out it was most likely some form of pneumonia...good times. :)

September 6th- Our oldest celebrates his birthday in a low-key way. Thankfully he was back at school, but we were all still recovering. Special dinner and a movie at home it was. Truth be told, I was thankful for doing it low-key this year.

September 10th- E picks up his medical form (his and mine need to be notarized because our medical forms are part of the dossier).

September 11th- My father-in-law's completed medical form comes in the mail.

September 13th- Get a call from my doctor, the dates were signed wrong when she was having my medical form notarized. Can I send her a new form? I email her a link so she can print out a new medical form.

September 14th- My notarized medical form arrives in the mail.
Another side note. :) I am so thankful for our doctors!! They have been awesome! Filling out forms, re-filling out forms. No complaints, they've been great about everything, apologizing if things have to be re-done or if mistakes were made. I just can't express how wonderful they've been, it's been amazing!!

September 18th- Email from our social worker saying she's got a problem with our financial forms, some numbers weren't working out. Another delay... Also have a conference call with our case worker to discuss the financial forms (what does she need from us vs. what our social worker needs). All the financial forms/info. have to match between the home study, our dossier, and even letters. We need to get this right the first time.


September 19th- Conference call with our social worker to fill her in on what our case worker needs and how does that affect what she needs. Also during this call we find out our background checks will expire next May (Background checks expire? Who knew? We do now.) and she recommends just re-doing them now (that means making appointments for 4 people to be fingerprinted, it's not hard, it's just another thing we have to re-do, another delay, sigh). The rest of that day I was pretty discouraged. That was a day that I had to remind myself probably close to 100 times that, God is in control, I need to trust Him, He's not surprised by this...

September 24th- One of my bi-weekly calls with our case worker. I bring her up to date on everything and mention the new background checks. She stops me and tells me that if we can wait, if the background checks do not need to be done right now, that she recommends we wait. Wait until all our paperwork is done and we're waiting for a picture of a little girl to be sent to us. Wait until there are less pressing things to be done. Wait. As simple as that conversation was, it was exactly what I needed to hear, it encouraged me, and I so needed it!

September 26th- We email copies of our revamped financial form to our social worker. I also mention that if waiting on new background checks is ok with her, we are choosing to wait.

September 30th- Receive an email from our social worker with an attachment of a rough draft of our home study!!! Can we read through it make any corrections and send it back ASAP. We've been waiting for this for months! So exciting!! Finishing our home study, finishes a big chunk of our paperwork for our dossier.

As I'm writing this tonight, there's lots more paperwork to fill out, and get ready, but I feel "lighter" then I have in a while, I feel like there really is a light at the end of this dark tunnel, and even though the light is dim, it's there and I can see it! God is good!

Some Days Are Harder Then Others

Today is hard. The day is still new, but my heart is heavy.
Outside, the sky is clear and blue, the sun is shining. It's September but it feels like a mid-summer day...hot, humid, breezy. There are cicadas "chirping", I can hear lawnmowers going...looking out the windows, it's a beautiful day.

But...

My heart and mind are thousands of miles away.

My heart is aching for my (our) daughter/sister who's missing.

It's not just aching, like you miss a friend or family member who lives out-of-state. This is an ache that I'm not sure I can find words to accurately describe. It's an ache that makes it hard to breathe, an ache that makes me want to sit in a corner and cry..but it's more, my heart, hurts, deeply. It's the ache of a mother's heart who's missing her daughter.


It's a pain I've never experienced.

And, for now, there's no "quick fix", no real way to dull that pain or make it go away.

There's a part of me that wants to "run" from this pain, to distract myself, to find something that will lessen this ache, and I'm sure I could find something to distract me enough to "help" but I don't think that's what I'm supposed to do.

Sunday at church, I was thinking about our daughter (she's never, ever far from my thoughts) and praying for her, and missing her, and close to tears, but I stopped myself from crying (there were some other things I was thinking about related to her). As I was fighting the tears, at one point, God came with His gentle whisperings...

I believe He was telling me that I need to allow myself to feel this ache, this hurt, no matter how hard or deep it is, I need to experience this pain.

This ache and pain will be for a season.

Joy will come.

Joy overflowing!

Today is hard, very hard. Thankfully, everyday is not like this. I miss her daily, but there are days that come, like today where it's almost unbearable...

But even in this pain, this I-miss-her-so-much-it-hurts-to-breathe...I am thankful.

So thankful.

We still don't know her name, we still have no picture, yet my heart is wrecked in a beautiful way. And only God could have brought my heart to this place.

So for now, I wait, I pray, I cry, I miss, I ache, I seek comfort from the One who knows my daughter, I trust, and I allow myself to live through this pain, until my tears are turned into tears of joy; joy overflowing.