Patience is a virtue

Yesterday I received a phone call from the woman who will be doing our homestudy. I had been in email contact with her a couple of times before she was our "official" case worker so she is familiar with the start date of our paperchase process (we started February 2nd). She is absolutely amazed at the "lightning speed" way that we have moved through this process. I think that we have been blessed by living in a small community. We were able to walk in and get L's birth certificate, our marriage license and criminal clearance letters for me, L, W & D in less than a week. Our physician was able to get our bloodwork and physicals completed in 5 days and our tax return just happened to be finished on the same day that we were heading into the neighboring town where our accountant is located. So we have mailed our I-600A and are now waiting for the fingerprint invitation and have scheduled our homestudy visits through March. Our social worker thinks that she will be able to have our completed homestudy to us by the middle of April. In the middle of my enthusiasm upon hearing this good news I gushed-Great! We could be DTC by the end of April then couldn't we? My social worker immediately felt the need to find the biggest pin she had in her arsenal and pop my big ole happiness balloon by telling me that there was no way we could be DTC by April and will be lucky if we squeeze in by the end of May. I am choosing to continue to travel down my rosy path and still think we could be DTC by April. Kolaina is waiting for us. I can feel it in the deepest part of my soul. Our daughter has been born and is waiting for her Mommy and Daddy to come pick her up. The thought of not even being able to start the countdown process until the end of May makes my eyes well up with tears. Nope, we are going to be DTC in April, I have to remind myself over and over-patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue....

And so it begins...

When I first started investigating the possibility of adopting, I kind of figured that there would be some paperwork involved. Let me just say - Holy Cow!! I have made good progress in my opinion. So far I have applied for and been accepted by our adoption agency of choice, contacted the social worker to begin our homestudy, written my autobiography (L has not started his, promises to do it tomorrow) received my certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, applied for my passport (L already had his), gotten our notarized criminal clearance letters from our County Sheriff's Dept., will send in our I-600A application on Tuesday since mail won't go tomorrow, and L & I have gotten our blood drawn and have physical appts scheduled for Thursday. Hopefully we will be able to meet with our social worker for round 1 of 4 visits this upcoming week.

I really, really, really want to be DTC by May so I am hoping that the social worker can fit us in for our visits fairly quickly as well as hoping for a quick invitation to get fingerprinted.

If we are DTC by May, we could have Koli home for Christmas! What would be perfect would be if we could have her home for Thanksgiving but that is probably pushing it. With W heading off for boot camp in the fall, he will probably be graduating sometime in December. I am petrified that we will get our travel dates and that they will conflict with W's graduation! So I am pushing as hard and as fast as possible to get this stuff done to get a quick DTC date.

All of us would love to be able to allow W to meet his baby sister for the first time at his military graduation.

This is almost surreal, letting one of my babies go while trying my hardest to bring a new baby into this zany family.

How did we get here?

My husband L and I are in our early forties, have three boy/men already and were just about empty nesters. Our boy/men are J-20, W-18 and D-17. J lives on his own, W is a senior and will be heading to Marine Corps boot camp this fall and D is a junior.

We were sort of looking forward to spending time together once D was safely tucked away at college, being able to travel and having no forced agenda in our lives.

About 9 months ago I awoke from a sound sleep with heart palpitations and the knowledge implanted firmly in my brain that I was supposed to travel to China to pick up my daughter. Thinking that maybe I should not have eaten that last piece of sausage/pepperoni pizza because it gave me a wierd dream, I went back to sleep. The next morning the feeling was still there. I tried talking myself out of this feeling for 3 months, praying for the Lord to take this crazy desire out of my heart. Having pretty intense discussions with the big Guy with me asking questions of Him like-Who in their right mind adopts a baby when their existing children are almost grown? and Don't you realize how old we are? So I prayed, and I prayed and I prayed. The desire did not go away and only became stronger. After 3 months of this type of discussion with Him, I approached my husband. He thought I was having a mid-life crisis or had hit menopause early and also said that I was completely crazy. I agreed with him on the crazy part but explained my feelings and how I had spent alot of time in prayer over this. He agreed to pray as well. So for the next few months he would ask me every once in a while if the desire was gone-I would answer him honestly that no it was not. After about the 3rd month of this he asked me once more if the desire was gone, I told him no and he said "I have been praying for the Lord to take the desire out of your heart and instead he has put it in mine". So that's how we got here. Two middle aged parents of 3 boys beginning the journey of their lifetime to bring their daughter, the one that the Lord has intended for them all along, home.