When I first began blogging about our adoption story on this blog, I knew I was inviting a lot of people into our lives. This is a responsibility that I do not take lightly and, as such, there have been times it has weighed heavily on me. Giving an update is not always incredibly exciting or fun (whether due to our heartaches or a lack of news), but with so many people asking where we are I know I am well overdue to answer that question.
So where are we right now? Quite simply, we are waiting...and have been for awhile. We took a few months off the list of waiting parents this fall, but as of January, we have our names back in the pool. Our profile has been shown to birth moms a few times but we have not yet been chosen again.
How do you guys feel? In a word: tired. We are not physically tired, as the off-season has provided a good deal of rest, but emotionally we are pretty spent. We are cautiously optimistic that we will one day be able to grow our family, but we have come to terms with the fact that it may not happen.
What does that mean? It means that we have been obedient to God on this adoption journey. It means that when He called us to go on the adoption list, we said yes. It doesn't mean that we will necessarily end up with a baby, which is something we have slowly come to terms with over time. Maybe we will - and that would be wonderful - and maybe we won't. As much as I'd like to be, I'm not in the prediction business. I don't know what the end result of this will be. We were never promised a child when it all started, and though we are hoping and praying it still happens, we have confidence that if it doesn't, we have been faithful. For today, that is enough.
I'm just now catching up - what is the timeline for all this adoption stuff? Some of you know our whole story, and you are welcome to skip this question. But for those of you who don't, here is our adoption timeline history.
September 2014 - attended our first information meeting at Bethany Christian Services
November 2014 - completed all our paperwork (in record time, I may add)
February 2015 - completed our home study
April 2015 - attended the required training in Fredericksburg
May 2015 - officially went on the adoption list
December 2015 - got the call that we were chosen by a family
January 2016 - our son was a stillborn, and we grieved for a long time
March 2016 - we were chosen again!
April 2016 - another baby was lost, and we were heartbroken all over again
August 2016 - after returning from Africa, we were chosen to parent a son who was already born. We got pictures, names, and were prepared to bring him home when the birth mom decided to parent. Right afterward, we took our names off the adoption list.
January 2017 - we put our names back on the waiting list
How long is the process supposed to be? When we first went on the waiting list, our social worker told us we should expect to wait 1-3 years. Of course, we knew we would never have to wait longer than a year...and here we are, almost 2 years in. To be fair, we have gotten matched three times, but we have no real idea of how much longer the process could take.
For those of you who have followed from the beginning, thank you. For those who joined later or are just now discovering our story, thank you. We are truly grateful for your support, your prayers, and your encouragement. As I know many of you will reach out to us after this blog, I would simply ask that you pray for God's will to be done. If that means we get a baby, we will be overjoyed! If that means we learn to be content without anyone but the two of us, we will find joy in that as well. Either way, we have a faithful God and a promising future ahead.
