Things are beginning to move on our adoption! Albeit slowly..like a heavy stone wheel that people are beginning to push out of a rut. I know at some point that wheel is going to start rolling faster and faster and before we know it we'll be bringing home our little girl!
The million dollar question that everyone asks us is when? When will you bring her home? Right now, to be honest, I'm more interested in WHO? Who is this little one we are so anxious to love? The when can wait for now.
The "when?" question though, always strikes me as an odd one. Mostly because an assumption of what the timing should be goes along with the question when it's asked. So many outside the adoption community assume adoption should be a quick, easy (and most of the time free) process. People are astounded to learn that the process takes time and requires lots of work and patience (and yes, money...unless you are adopting through US foster care). The first time we went through this process I was in a hurry too. But this time around, I'm ok with the time it is taking. Especially, if it's just a matter of "when?" and not "if". Maybe it's because I've had the advantage of seeing and working with so many families who have waited and I get to see that the right child is placed in the right family at the right time over and over and over again.
I have to believe that our far away daughter has things she is meant to experience yet in Pakistan. People who are meant to love and care for her, things she is meant to learn before she comes to us. And maybe, just maybe we are meant to learn and grow through this process too. Maybe our faith and patience are supposed to be stretched. Goodness knows there are lots of things I could work on in both of those arenas! Maybe I'm not yet prepared to be the parent our future daughter will need.
While giving birth and adopting are two completely seperate and equally miraculous ways of building family, there are comparisons. Perhaps, we are meant to labor for this baby emotionally as we did our youngest two children and as I did physically for our oldest three. Like we learned in our birthing class all those years ago, I am going to practice my breathing, relax, and try to go with the flow of the labor...the emotions as they rise and fall...to experience it all until the little one meant for our family comes home.
I record this here mostly for myself so that as that wheel hits bumps and crevices along the way or becomes stuck in muck or even possibly bounces off onto another path that I can look back and read this and take my own advice. She will arrive. Who? We do not know. When? At just the perfect time!
