It's Okay

As of today, we’ve been waiting 316 day (10 months and 10 days) since we said “yes” to Little Bro’s referral.  In my heart, I think it will be at least another 30-45 days before we can start our lives together as a family of four.  In comparison, 10 months and 10 days after we said yes to Little Bug’s referral we were finalizing his adoption…as in we finalized his adoption exactly 10 months and 10 days after accepting his referral.

So, on that day 2 years ago, if you had told me that the application I was turning in the next day would be the beginning of a process that would have me waiting over a year just to start waiting 316+ additional days to bring home an almost 2 year old, I would have told you outright that we couldn’t do it.  I would have said that I wouldn’t “be able to survive” or that it would have been the “most excruciating thing I would ever go through.”  Trust me, whatever I would have said, it would have been dramatic, emphatic, and filled with fear.

When you look at the last 10 months and 10 days on paper, it does sound horrific.  I’m about a far from patient as they come, and waiting this long for a child, while that child continues to bond with a loving family, both unaware of just how painful their separation will be, is mental and emotional torture.  Someone this weekend at the adoption conference I attended, after hearing about our process, asked me if I would be able to look back on the last year with anything but bitterness and sadness.  She asked if this had been the hardest year of my life.

And you know what, the answer is unequivocally no.

And surprisingly, not only did I truthfully tell her that it had not, but I actually said that it hadn’t been bad at all.  When I look back at the last 316 days, the first emotions that bubbles to the surface are of feeling lucky and grateful.  For every set back we’ve encountered (the quota being announced 2 days after we verbally accepted, the 9 week DCFS fiasco that pushed out official ATK back by a season, the huge gaps of time without a developmental update and that fear that inspired, the wait, the wait, the wait), we’ve been blessed with things we never expected.  We’ve gotten pictures and video in untold amounts that have helped us start our processes of getting to know Big Star and feel comfortable with the family he calls home.  We’ve had numerous people meet our son and give us little glimpses into his personality as he has grown. We finally got a developmental update that made up for the 8 months of silence in spaded. We’ve been surprised and blessed by an early EP submittal.

When I type it out, I see 10 months and 10 days of a divine hand and karma stepping in just at the precise moments when we needed it most, although it’s so much easier to ignore these little blessings when they are cloaked in this dark cloud of the wait.  And that makes me feel grateful…..so, SO grateful, because I know most families waiting haven’t gotten what we have.  I’m going to do everything in my power to pay it forward and hope that my words of thanks to those in Korea will help other families experience what we have.

But I wanted to get this out, for Little Bro, before I ride the next big adoption news high (which will hopefully come soon).  Even in the darkest moments, even on days like today where I have stared in intense obsession at my phone willing it to ring, I can still truly say that wait for him has made the year better than it has made it worse.

The last 316 days have been hard, but it's okay.  It's all going to be okay.