September is something of a milestone month in our calendar year, generally speaking. First of all, there's the fact that my birthday, DH's birthday and our wedding anniversary all happen within the first three days of the month. (The third day, to be exact.) That's a lot to handle in one fell swoop, but just so DS isn't left out, school usually starts for him around that time as well. This year, we celebrated our 40th birthdays and 18th anniversary with a much-needed trip to Las Vegas. I'll spare the details here, because I plastered them all over Facebook, but a good time was had by all. DS started his junior year of high school while we were gone...I'm having a harder time wrapping my little head around that, to be honest. Seems like just yesterday the kid was in preschool, and now he's 6'3" and has facial hair and is driving around in a vehicle five years newer than my daily driver! But, I digress. September is also the month I started working at the hospital (first as a CNA and now as an RN), and this is year #5, which I'm also having a hard time believing. I'm not exactly sure why, though; sometimes it feels like I've been there forever, and sometimes it feels like I just started.
September hasn't been all fun and games, though. There's September 11, 2001, for example. And a few years later on that same date, DH's dear, sweet grandmother left our earthly presence (in what we refer to at work as a "celestial transfer"). On September 4th five years ago, the day after our 35th birthdays, we lost one of the best dogs in the world ever. And an occasion that I'm pretty sure I've never really made "public" is that we had a miscarriage on our 21st birthdays, exactly one year before we married each other. But I don't want this post to be all sad, so I'm moving on now...
As you may have already surmised, somewhere in the middle of this is the commemoration of our "Big Wait" anniversary. According to the records, our 2-year Big Wait Anniversary was technically on September 6th. I wouldn't exactly call it "fun and games", but it hasn't exactly been horrible, either. If I had to label it, I'd put it in the "good" category, for sure. I mean, it is a good thing to celebrate, even though I wish we weren't still waiting! It means that someday, some child out there is going to have a chance that it might not have otherwise had. Someday, a life is going to change for the better because of the decisions we've made -- actually, I take that back; many lives are going to be changed for the better, ideally -- the child; the parents who have decided that, for whatever reason, they are not ready to be parents yet; their extended families; and, of course, our family. So, even though I get impatient and have the occasional "bad day" where I don't think I can possibly wait another minute, inside I'm truly happy to say that we're still waiting. It's better than not waiting anymore, right? Plus, the fact that we're still waiting just means that we're not ready yet, or the expectant mom isn't ready yet, or both. There's literally nothing more we can do except keep the faith, keep praying, and fill out the occasional stack of paperwork that gets sent our way in order to keep our credentials active. As Lita Ford once said, "It ain't no big thing."
I originally thought that our 2-year renewal would involve another home visit, which I was both dreading and looking forward to (as a reason to declutter the house from stem to stern), but that turned out not to be the case. (As a side note, I got to deep clean and declutter the house anyway because my parents stayed here with DS while DH and I were in Vegas! hee hee hee) We did have to have updated background checks, medical reports, provide updated insurance information, and fill out umpteenish various consents and the like in order to have our foster home license renewed for another two years. As it turns out, we also have to have our fingerprints redone, because there was a mix-up in when our actual "expiration" date was, and so our licensure lapsed for about ten days. But no worries, because it is active again and it really ain't no big thing. We found out after the fact, and it doesn't affect our portfolio exposure in any way.
Speaking of things I originally thought...I could have sworn that, when we were going through our adoption education classes, I was told or heard that the average waiting time in our program was 6-9 months, although our worker was always hesitant to give a time frame because every situation is different, etc., etc. On the other hand, DH -- who spent the same number of hours in the same classes as I did, sitting right next to me in fact -- says that he remembers hearing the average waiting time was two years. (It was a fun discussion. If you've never had the privilege of hearing two emotional Virgo perfectionists who don't like to be wrong and have the tendency to remember odd details have such a debate, I'd highly recommend it. Or not.) I will admit that I have since read, on highly-unscientific adoption-related support groups on Facebook, that the average waiting time right now is two years.
Either way, whether DH misinterpreted the information we were given or not (ha! ha!!), we're now obviously past both of those "averages". Which makes us...wait for it!...
ABOVE AVERAGE!!
*cheeky grin*
Seriously. Please continue to pray for families like ours who are waiting to make a difference...and pray for the families we will one day be matched with...and pray for the overworked social workers who are dealing with all of us...and pray for patience and guidance for everyone involved.
And pray that we don't get too far "above average"...
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