This Roller Coaster Ride

It has been a while since I gave an adoption update here. That is mostly because there is really nothing to report. People ask me all the time if I have heard anything on the adoption, and somehow they never seem to understand when I tell that that we won't hear anything until we get our match and that won't be for another couple of years. No matter how many times I explain that this daughter of ours, who has already been named and has already moved into our hearts, hasn't even been conceived yet, people still think we already have pictures of her and are going to get her really, really soon.

When Jerry and I first announced that we were adopting a baby girl from China, people who have walked before us told us that is was going to be a roller coaster ride with big, big ups, and big, big downs. "But," they assured us, "it is worth it in the end." The roller coaster analogy is so true. I cannot even begin to explain the highs we experienced as our dossier came together in ways that only God could have orchestrated. The dance I did when we received our immigration approval should be outlawed! The flood of emotion that I felt when our agency informed us that we officially had a log in date is indescribable. There truly aren't adequate words.

Right now, for me, is one of the low times. We are in that part of the process known only as "The Wait." I feel silly even admitting this, but each time I think about how much longer we have to wait to bring Hannah home I feel a sense of sadness at just how long the wait really is. I feel silly because we knew when we signed on that the wait would be long. We were told it would be 28 months, and that likely the wait would lengthen during the process. Our log in date was in October, so we are technically only 7 months into the wait. I know that there are people who are in month 34 of waiting for their baby girl from China, and they are still waiting, because right now the wait is about 38 months. And unlike me, many of those people don't have any children at home right now to help ease the ache of empty arms longing to be filled. Their arms are empty and their house is way too quiet. My arms are full and my house is never quiet, yet there is still this ache.

Somehow, as soon as we received word that our dossier was logged in, Hannah became a member of our family. I'm sure it happened more gradually than that, but our hearts already have a spot for her. I catch myself talking about all four of my children, and people must think I am totally crazy because they can clearly see that there are only three! But in my heart, she is already mine. This creates this hole that I cannot quite fill with the children I already have in my home. This hole is full of longing. I long to take that sweet baby in my arms and begin to show her what a "forever family" really is. I long to kiss the top of her head while she sleeps and hear her sigh contentedly once she realizes that we are not leaving her. I long to comb her straight, black hair and gaze into her brown eyes and marvel at their color. I long to drink in her scent and learn who she really is. I long to show her just how very much I love her.

I know the days will melt into weeks, which will somehow form into months and years and I'm sure that one day, when we get our match I will think about how the time flew, but for now it crawls. So I pray. I pray for the woman half a world away who will someday conceive the baby who will be my daughter. I pray that someday she would know the unmeasurable love that God has for her. I pray for God to keep her healthy. I pray that she will leave our baby in a safe place when she decides she cannot keep her and that this baby will be found quickly. I pray that she will be taken to a good orphanage, and that God would begin drawing her unto him from those very first tender days. Then I pray that God will make me patient through the wait, and make me into the mom each one of my children needs. And I thank him, because no matter how hard the wait is, I know that I would wait as long as I had to for each one of my precious boys, and it won't be any different with her.