Back up for my 'Black Hole' Post

So the more I read, the more I'm starting to realize that I'm not the ONLY one experiencing these 'CRAZIES' during our process.

Read this post (shared by a fellow adoptive mom, waiting for their girl in China):  THE ADOPTION CRAZIES

I LOVE it....

As for the Black Hole of waiting....well, cooking this fall has apparently been a GREAT outlet for me in this waiting game!!!  Off to do some PUMPKIN baking now!!!

That's it, that's all!!!

The Black Hole...

of waiting for 'something' is driving me crazy.

Listen, I know we are not travelling until November and I'm so okay with this.

But.... (and there always is)

...we seem to be waiting and waiting for some news, paperwork, an update that is just not happening.


MAN....

...I wish I had some patience through out this.

SOMETHING....

ANYTHING....

....would suffice in the black hole of waiting.

The days of wondering aimlessly in Faith's room, folding and reorganizing her clothes, arranging and rearranging her toys, bedroom furniture, reading China travel blogs over and over, watching too many YouTube 'Gotcha Day' videos....have all passed.

NOW....
I search the internet frantically looking for something, but don't really know what.
I prepare and plan, but most days nothing really gets done. 
I meal plan, prepare and plan for her arrival, as though we will be feeding a family of 10, but we are only a family of 3 going on 4.
I want to purge and organize every closet in the house, but don't 'feel' like it.

What is happening to me?

I am generally in a happy mood, but admitting I WANT my girl.

So many (out of the kindness of their hearts) talk to me about patience, or lovingly tell me things like 'OH, you'll have her home for Christmas', or whatever they think will make me feel better (and don't get me wrong - I KNOW all these things and know they say it with ALL the love in the world....BUT, it's just downright HARD and STINKY and SUCKY.

OUR daughter is ALONE right now and my 'mommy heart' wants her HOME.

I love reading a great online/adoption friend's journey because I really respect and look up to her.  While feeling like this, I was stalking her blog about her China adoption process and stumbled across these posts.  Even though it doesn't take away this feeling, it DID make me feel somewhat normal in this process.

Read for yourself...maybe then you'll understand that I'm not the only CRAZY one in this adoption process (sorry Angel, I do mean 'CRAZY' with the utmost respect and love!!!)

Angels Posts that made me feel that I CAN do this without being institutionalized!!!
LOA Waiting
Help, I'm useless

All better...

After my last blog post, I (almost) immediately felt better - just getting it off my chest!

It's hard to believe how MUCH writing helps me release feelings!!!

LOVE that I have something so constructive to do for situations like this.

Life continues to be great....just got back from a mini vacation.  As we drove home, I couldn't help to feel so excited thinking that the next time I see many of the people (family & friends) we saw this weekend - we will have Faith home!!!  It's hard to imagine...but it's really NOT that far away!

Also, as I prepared for our school year last week....it re-confirmed that I am so thankful we are not travelling until November.  I'm not sure how I would have managed HAD we travelled in September (don't get me wrong, I would have GLADLY gone in September)!!!

Tomorrow marks the start of our school year and our 3rd year homeschooling our 11 year old (grade 6) son!  We are working with a different program this year, in anticipation of bringing Faith home...so in some ways I am really excited (there is much less work for me, administratively speaking) and in some other ways I am really nervous.

God will continue to provide all that we need....and LIFE couldn't be better!

I can't hide it....

...I'm really struggling these days with the wait :(  It's a daily struggle I've been carrying for a week or so now (since we found out there was no way that we would make it to the September group).

My head and my heart are in complete conflict and I have to continually fight it.  I don't share this with too many people, because I KNOW how silly I sound to complain that we are not going, when there are SO many other good things in life. 

• My head knows we are so lucky to have gotten a quick referral.
• My head knows how quickly we worked through our process.
• My head knows that November (in every way) is a much better travel time for our family (in terms of Jacques' work schedule, Noah's school schedule, financially, the weather in China....shall I go on?).
• My head knows that those going in September have done their wait time and are just as excited as we were about going. 
• My head knows and feels SO happy and excited for the September families to get their children. 

BUT....

• My heart ACHES. 
• Jealousy, envy keep creeping into my heart and my head has to talk my heart out of it's frenzy :(

I'm a part of a Facebook group called DTC Spring 2012 (DTC, meaning Dossier to China).  Most of the people on this group, have travelled, are in China, are about to travel and received their LOA's (obviously, considering our DTC was at the very end of spring - it makes sense for us to be in the tail end of people to get through the entire process).  NOW...please don't get this wrong, I am BEYOND excited for those families who are working their way through THEIR process BUT, again we continue to sit and wait for 60 days with NO news.  So this is hard too, at times I want to not go on the fb group in fear people might read through me.

I HATE feeling like this.  The only thing I can come up with is 'the heart wants, what the heart wants'!!!




Presently we are waiting on 2 updates on our girl (one from an outside company in China called Red Thread China and one 'official' one through our agency) which should include updated photos and hopefully some more information about her.

Hopefully....with the start of school on Tuesday,  a little family vacation from Thursday to Monday ALONG WITH some updated information and photos of our girl , my head and heart can stop contradicting each other.

On that note, below are photos of the care package we sent our girl through Ann at Red Thread China.

As of today (Tuesday), the package has been sent but not delivered yet to her orphanage.  My best guess is that we have another few weeks before we could see more photos.  Let me count the days (these days are shorter than to when we travel) - a little something to look forward to!!!

 

 

How do you??

....parent a child that is on the other side of the world for 4 months before you can actually hold them in your arms???

CARE PACKAGES!

We are getting ready to send another care package (our 2nd one) through this organization in China called Red Thread China.  Ann, at Red Thread is amazing, so sweet and helpful.  We may even send one through our agency when they travel in September (can we say 'spoiled'!!!).  This way, our girl has gotten a little love from us for each month we are apart!  I hope she can fell our love from the other side of her world!

 

Now that we've found out we are not travelling in September, I WANT and NEED more photos of my girl.  I need to let her know how much we miss her and love her and can't wait for her to be home!

This is the package that Ann suggested.

NOW....this pkg comes with a photo album for the child.  You email the photos to Ann, she prints them out and makes the photo album.  When I went to find photos, I realized I have not taken very many photos this summer :( and that I didn't even have ONE shot of me.

So before church this morning, we had a very quick, mini photo shoot!

Looking forward to receiving updated photos of our girl!

The photo on the top right are Moon Cakes. 

 Ann suggested this package because the Mid-Autum Festival is coming and the other name for this is the Moon Festival or the Mooncake Festival. 

She said the staff will 'really' appreciate this package!  And we'll get some more photos of our girl on a disposable camera (that we pick up when we get to China)!

We are going to replace the Panda (because in her first care package through Ann, Faith already received one from us) with this little catterpillar with the letters of the alphabet and numbers on the other side!

Here are the highlights from our photoshoot!

Giant Tiger Fundraiser SUCCESS

What a great day (well, aside from the 3 kids fighting over what jobs they got to do)!

The weather was perfect, we got lots of visitors and to me, it was a great success!

Thank you SO much Byram family for donating your day to help our cause and thank you SO much to Giant Tiger for donating or arranging the donations of the hotdogs, buns and pop.

In total we raised:

$109.50 from the BBQ

and sold 23 wristbands or

$69.00 from the wristbands

For a GRAND TOTAL of:  $178.50

Happy After All

Well I 'think' today was the day that we found out we won't travel in September. 

I received an email from our agency that said, 'you probably won't make it in the September group'. 

THIS MEANS, that now we can't go until November. 

I think I'm ok, but 'think' is the operative word here.

I don't think I'll need that day of 'wollowing in self pitty' after all....life is still good, we STILL have our little girl and we STILL get to go to China to get her (just a few months later)!!!

AND....we've requested for an update of our sweet girl, so we have THIS to look forward to!