FIFTH fingerprinting

photo courtesy of http://awakenyoursoul.wordpress.com/

 

Today was our fifth fingerprinting experience.  Since it was our third time at the USCIS office we're starting to recognize the fingerprinters by face....

We were kind of hoping THE CALL would come the one time Zach wasn't allowed to have his phone with him but we didn't get that lucky! 

the neverending wait

I have hesitated to write a bitter post detailing how hopeless and frustrated and beaten I feel just because I tell myself surely, surely soon I'll be able to post the happiest post thus far in my life.  I don't want to taint that elation with bitterness posted just days or weeks before and I don't want people reading those posts back to back and thinking, "Oh, if only she had been a little more patient.  Look, just 4 days ago she was thinking this would never happen and now here's her referral post!"  But seriously, I've been feeling this way for a long time now and I don't honestly think that after 26 months on the waitlist anyone could think, 'if only she had been a little more patient.' 

It would be one thing if there just weren't any babies or children that needed adoptive parents.  If all of the children in Ethiopia already had a loving family that could provide for them and THAT'S why we're left waiting.  But that's not why we're waiting!  There are children that need us as badly as we need them!  But I can't do anything to make it go faster.  I'm stuck with my hands tied.  I don't really even have anyone to blame.  I want to blame my agency but I constantly remind myself that surely, they are doing everything as quickly as possible to match children with families.  But then I remember that we've been waiting over 2 years on the waitlist to be matched and can't manage to come up with a good explanation as to how it's possible for things to move so slowly.  

In the beginning I made a paper timeline to mark our progress and over the months and years I've had to add significantly to it.  I just realized the other day that at the end of next month I'm going to have to add to it again.  My timeline is going to be over a yard long.  ARG!!  How frustrating!  And knowing that we could receive our referral today but that we probably won't.  ARG!!!  Frustrating too!  And that no one can give me an answer to how much longer we'll be waiting?!  SUPER FRUSTRATING! 

So... that's how I'm feeling right now.  Perhaps by finally posting this I'll cause our referral to happen and forever people will read back to back ARG/Eeeeeeee!!!!  posts.  So be it.  I dare the universe to make me have to post those back to back and to make me wonder

if I'd just been a little more patient........  



2 years

Soon, soon, soon!  We're hoping it's going to be soon!

Happy 2012!

Ah! You know what just occurred to me? We're the top blog family on the unofficial FBI list! And we're letting everyone down by not posting! Sorry, waitlist blog stalkers!
I feel very, very, very, very confident that 2012 is our year but I still feel like it will be MONTHS before we get our referral. So I can't quite start posting daily because everyone will get bored with, "Still waiting today." Which is the same post we could have been posting for the past year and 7 months!
I try to not think about our adoption constantly because I'll go insane but I met someone this afternoon who is in the adoption process too (from Thailand) and so we got to talking. That got me to thinking and picturing our referral day for the gazillionth time and my heart started racing and I got all shaky and excited and now I'm left with this crazy nervous energy for the rest of the day. I feel like I could bust out of my office right now and go run a marathon- and maybe break a couple of records- with all of this pent up energy!

18 months

We're sorry that if you've checked our blog in the past 6 months, all you've heard was crickets.

It's just that there hasn't been anything to update and it's been easier to distance ourselves from the adoption world than to agonize over every minute, day, week, month, and year that goes by and we're still not parents.

The good news is that this insanely long wait has given us the chance to tackle a huge project that we knew we'd need to do someday. In July, around the time we decided to change our preference to two kids and knew we'd be waiting even longer for our referral, we started on our dream addition to our house. We're almost finished now and SO glad that we had the chance to do this project before we had kids running around! It will be so nice to bring our kids home to our finished house and their forever home!

I think Christmastime would be a very fun time to receive one's referral so maybe we'll be giving a fun update soon! If not, look for an update in another 6 months which will be 2 years on the waitlist. Surely we won't make it that long, right?