A Phone Call

On Tuesday afternoon I was cleaning the kitchen. Tom was on a business call. My phone rang and the area code was for Birmingham, Alabama, where our agency is. It was our social worker! For some reason the service wasn't good and we kept getting disconnected. I went into Tom's office and tried to signal to him that it was the agency calling! We were getting a referral! Finally we got connected and after a few seconds of small talk, she let me know that she was sending me an email, but wanted to talk to me first. My heart was in my throat. Excitement was building! I thought "Yay! A referral!!!"

Have you ever experienced false labor? Yeah, this was the same thing.

What she wanted to talk about was that the wait times for referrals from China had lengthened significantly and the email would have more details, but that we could read through it and let her know what questions we had. My heart sank, not because of the news, but because I thought this was it! After I got my mind together I told her we were ok. I told her the waiting isn't easy, but we have been prepared from the beginning that this would come together with God's timing. Being pregnant and adopting at the same time, we knew God's hand was in our family and His timing is perfect. So I told her we are ok. We continue to wait. The good news is, the time frames she told us aren't really far off from what we were expecting. When we updated our home study in the fall the wait was "pushing six months" and now they said to be prepared to wait six months or more. Tomorrow will be five months since we were LID, so we'll get there.

People will ask us how things are going and I mention the wait time and they say how hard it must be. This is what I tell them. Pick one of your kids, for example, my niece Collins. If my sister and brother-in-law knew Collins before she was born and before she was a part of their family, knew how sweet and spunky she is, how she says the funniest things, how she fits perfectly in their family, then were told they could have a different kid right then, or would have to wait a year to have Collins, I know they would wait. They would do it gladly. It doesn't mean it would make the waiting easy, anticipating with excitement this perfect fit for their family, but it would be so worth it. That's our situation, we just don't know who she is yet. We know that God has planned her for us and us for her since forever.

Graham and Charlie are doing well. Graham and I are watching Kai-Lan's Trip to China as I write this. Graham turned 3 last Friday! We celebrated his birthday at The Little Gym and had such a great time! I can't believe he is already 3. Kindergarten will be here before we know it! Charlie will be six months old on Monday and started eating baby food this past week. These boys are growing so fast!!

Graham helped with feeding Charlie

 Graham is 3 years old!

Charlie liked avocado