Dear God, grant me patience -- but please hurry!

I got hit with what I'm quite sure is just my first of many "impatience attacks" yesterday.

Of course, at this point we're just waiting for that piece of paper in the mailbox (our foster home license) that signifies the official completion and approval of our home study and symbolizes the fact that our info is officially "out there" waiting to be discovered by our birthmom and her unborn baby.  After that, we'll be waiting for a phone call, and God only knows (literally) when or where we'll be when that happens.  Last week, I barely thought about it at all; this week, I've caught myself holding my breath while opening the mailbox and going through the mail to see if our license is there.  (Or maybe that "holding my breath" part has to do with the fields around here being fertilized and the wind blowing just so?  I'll let you decide.)

Most of the time, I think I've done a good job so far staying patient when thinking about the waiting that lies ahead.  I can easily convince myself that it'll be to our benefit if we don't get a phone call for a while, because we need to save some money (our next payment to the agency is due when we get matched, so it's a double-edged sword . . . we'd like to get matched right away, but we won't have the entire several-thousands-of-dollars saved up for a few more months) and continue making mental adjustments to the idea of having a new baby before it actually happens.  I haven't done a thing with the spare bedroom since before our home visit -- the crib still lies in pieces in the pole barn, my nursing books and model horses and various piles of outgrown items to either give away or sell next spring at the yard sale I'm contemplating having are still taking over the spare bedroom.  You wouldn't know it by looking at our house that we are anticipating the arrival of a new person "sometime", and for now, that's okay.

But yesterday, I don't know what happened, but I suddenly got very, very impatient.  I hope we get matched right away, I can't stand waiting any longer, I know our birthmom is out there somewhere and I hope that next Monday she is at the agency's office bright and early and finds our portfolio!!  Hey . . . it could happen.  I see people with new babies all the time and I'm a new kind of excited for them, because I know that soon we will be in the same boat.  I don't know what brought on yesterday's bought of extreme sudden impatience, but it was fierce and intense and the thought of having to maybe wait years before our match made me want to cry right then and there.  I can't wait that long!!  I'm almost 40, DS will be graduating high school in four more years and I want him to be here to experience as much of it as he can, time is short and babies are born every hour of every day so . . .

Le sigh.

I'm over it now -- I was "over it" last night, honestly, once I distracted my poor little mind with some other topic.  Or should I say, for now I'm over it.  I know it'll be back.  I guess this was probably my warning that I better have some coping mechanisms in place.

It's weird.  I feel somewhat like a tightly-wound spring that is ready to be called into action, but not yet.  I mean, once things start happening (i.e., we are matched) it sounds like a lot of things will be going on in a short amount of time.  If we get to meet the birthmom earlier in her pregnancy, we'll have that time to get to know each other and discuss our plans for keeping in touch and all that.  If it's later in the pregnancy, we'll have even less time to cover that same ground.  And if it's not until she's in the hospital and has delivered, well, a whole lotta things will be happening in a short amount of time!!

I wish I had a crystal ball.  I wish I could just get a sign from God about how long this is going to take.  Writing about it now is making me feel impatient again.

I have faith . . . I know God has a plan and that His plan is perfect.  His birth plan with DS couldn't have been more perfect if He'd asked me to write it myself -- I am NOT a patient person (as you may have gathered) and I was scared to death about being in labor (which, of course, = PAIN) for a long time.  I asked for an epidural in my 6th month of pregnancy.  I took Lamaze classes and everything, but I was all about getting as much pain medication as I could, as soon as I could.  I just knew I was going to be one of those moms who spent 24+ hours in labor and pushed for six hours . . . but He knew better.  I was actually only in labor for about two hours, and pushed for about fifteen minutes -- all WITHOUT any pain medication!!  All my worries were for nothing.  Everything went well, my perfect baby boy was born without any complications and with Apgar scores of 9 and 10, and he was showing off his strong lungs before he was even completely delivered.  The best writers in the world couldn't have scripted it better.

I know God has our script written for this journey, as well, and I know in my heart of hearts that it is also perfect and nothing I can do will change it.  I just pray that I will continue to find sources of redirection when the not-knowing gets to be too much for me to take.  I know that, for one thing, there are lots and lots of new crochet patterns I have pinned on Pinterest that I want to try, and it's getting cool enough now to start crocheting again . . .

And on that note, I will sign off.  For now.  :)