570 days, but who's counting?!?

It's been 18 months and 22 days since our home study (which is what I consider "day one" of The Big Wait, in retrospect).  I won't lie -- sometimes it makes me want to scream.  Although we were told to expect to wait a while, I will admit that I didn't think we'd be waiting this long.  Because, you know, everyone has that little voice of hope (or irrationality or whatever you want to call it) inside of them that says, That might be the 'normal' wait, but we're going to beat the odds!  Or, as I like to call it, the Why be normal?!? theory.

When we were finalizing our home study, and our case worker was telling us that we'd have to renew our foster care license in two years, I remember thinking, "We won't have to renew in two years because we'll be in post-placement by then!"  Ha, ha, ha.  I still hold out hope that we will be in post-placement by then, but "then" is only six five months away.  Our case worker came back from maternity leave last month, and gave us the update that there had been no activity with our portfolio in the three months prior.  I was kind of devastated.  She softened the blow with something along the lines that we shouldn't be worried because it hasn't been "very long" and blah blah blah.  I'll be the first one to verbalize that this is all in God's timing and not ours, and that we know it's going to happen sometime but have no idea when, and all that.  But sometimes I just feel like I'm going to burst.  We've been waiting patiently for 81 weeks and counting; I'm ready for our break, already!

Yeah...I know it doesn't work that way.  I know it will happen when it's meant to happen and not a moment sooner.  I know that, when it is all said and done and we're actually in post-placement, this tortuous waiting time will be just another blink of the eye of the past.  But until then, I need to vent every so often or I'm gonna 'splode.

So I will try not to think about how I've now lost track of the number of people I know in real life who have become pregnant and given birth in the last 81 weeks, because that makes me feel jealous, and I don't like feeling jealous.  I will try not to question whether I should have tried to treat my uterine fibroids and severe endometriosis with something less drastic than a hysterectomy in the hopes that if I still had a uterus, maybe I still would've been able to get pregnant, because that makes me feel regretful, and I don't like feeling regretful.  I will try not to wonder if our portfolio was "too much" of something or "not enough" of something else and that is why people are looking at it but not choosing us, because I poured my heart and soul into those pages and I know in my heart of hearts that it says exactly what it needs to say to the right person.  Because I know this isn't about finding just any person, it's about finding the right person.

Often times, well-intentioned people ask us if we've considered routes other than open domestic adoption.  I know they mean well; I know they're just trying to help, because the idea of waiting 81 weeks and counting for something is hard to fathom.  I would do the same thing.  So to those people I reply, we have considered other options.  Before we went to our first informational meeting about open domestic adoption, we considered many other options (foster-to-adopt, international adoption, surrogacy, etc...).  We talked about them, prayed about them, discussed the pros and cons of alternate routes, and in the end we reached the same conclusion.  And here we are.  Had we gone another route, we might have another child by now...but, for our own very personal reasons, we chose this route on our journey -- and we stand firmly behind that decision.  It's hard to explain that our journey isn't about adding another child to our family as quickly as possible (although the fact that we didn't start this journey until our DS was 14 years old should be a glaring clue...).  It goes much deeper than that.  All that being said, I still love it when people ask if we've heard anything new lately, and I eagerly await the day when my answer will be something other than, "No, nothing yet."  :)

In other news... well, since the last time I wrote in here, DS celebrated his 16th birthday, completed behind-the-wheel training, and is now a licensed driver!  Scary?  You betcha!!  Not because of his driving; I did teach him a fair amount of what he knows, so I know that he's a good, level-headed, careful driver.  (Sometimes too careful -- he lost points on his exam for going too far under the speed limit!  Just like his Mom.  I was like that at first, too.  Heh.)  But scary because I know for a fact that it's not usually things under your control that cause accidents.  And scary because it's a definite step toward grown-upedness, which coincides with realizing we're old enough to have a child that's getting closer to being a grown-up.  There's this whole big paradigm shift when your child no longer needs you to chauffeur him around from place to place...it's like this whole block in your schedule opens up, and instead of getting out of bed to drive the kid to school in your pajamas on your day off, you get to stay in bed and wake up only enough to acknowledge him when he knocks on your door to tell you he's leaving.  It's strange.  For 16 years, one of my primary jobs has been making sure the child gets to where he needs to be when he needs to be there, and now, he can do that himself.  It's a milestone, for sure.

Anyway...I guess that's about all for now.  As always, I hope to have more interesting updates soon!  Until then, please keep our family, and all of the other waiting families out there, in your thoughts and prayers.  And also pray for the families of the ones who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant and not sure what to do about it... pray that they will realize that there are families like us "out there" who are waiting with every ounce of patience we can muster, to help them in their times of need.  Let them know they're not alone.  Let them know they just need to reach out, and He will lead them to us.

See ya next time!