STILL WAITING

STILL NO FINAL HOMESTUDY DRAFT.

It's sad

Currently there are 50,000 children in Chinese orphanages, while the number of abandoned children shows no sign of slowing." "Official figures show that fewer than 20,000 of China's orphans are now in any form of institutional care." Chinese official records fail to account for most of the country's abandoned infants and children, only a small proportion of whom are in any form of acknowledged state care. The most recent figure provided by the government for the country's orphan population, 100,000, seems implausibly low for a country with a total population of 1.2 billion. Even if it were accurate, however, the whereabouts of the great majority of China's orphans would still be a complete mystery, leaving crucial questions about the country's child welfare system unanswered and suggesting that the real scope of the catastrophe that has befallen China's unwanted children may be far larger than the evidence in this report documents.

NEW STUFF

I AM SO EXCITED!!! Today I bought a crib and some other things for the kid-to-be. I had so much fun buying things for her!!! It keeps the whole situation in focus for me: I will have a child to care for. More importantly, one to BUY STUFF FOR! I love to spend. Of course I do, I'm spending over 20K for the child alone... :) When I got home with the goods, Tim hadn't been awake very long and still looked sleepy. He hadn't finished even one cup of coffee yet either, so I was on dangerous ground but I was so excited. When he found out the source of my excitement, he just walked over to me and hugged me tight out of understanding. It was enough for me that he did not say a word about my spontaneous expenditure. We will start working on the nursery soon. We have many years to wait, true. However, it's comforting to know her room has been carefully planned out and worked on. It will be ready just for her!

100 Miles from Nowhere

It has been nearly a month since I have heard from our social worker. I composed an email to check our status just today. Hopefully it will not be too much longer and we can finally get this part of the process behind us. We are at a complete stand-still until we get our approved homestudy. I have contacted the Abba Fund for financial assistance, but again: stand- still with them until an approved homestudy is submitted to them. I think I am finding all this paperwork a huge challenge to cope with. We are not even on the list to get a child until all of this is turned in and submitted to China. Our homestudy is sent to GWCA, which takes several weeks for them to review for any errors. We still need to get fingerprinted and get our passports. Once GWCA finds no errors, it is then submitted to China. Once they approve it, then finally we are put on the waiting list, that is approximately 3 1/2 years long. That is a long time to wait.

It already seem surreal that we are even doing this. About 4 months has already passed and we haven't gotten very far. It's easy to forget that at the end of all this work and waiting, there will be a sweet little child. I can only imagine it will be even more blurry after several years of waiting has passed. Although, we have tried for our own for about 3 years and that has gone by very quickly. Hard to imagine.

Today was not a very good day. My sorrow has changed, somehow, as if it has matured. I have had some suspicious symptoms for the last 2 weeks. I had not had these symptoms before so I knew it could be one of two things: I was finally pregnant, or a cycle was taking forever. It ended up being the latter. I was disappointed, but shoved it away from my mind. However, as the hours went by, I could feel my spirits drooping like a flower without water. I was standing in the kitchen when Tim walked in and I hugged him. And I hugged him a little longer because my mind told him, "I'm sorry" and the tears blurred my eyes quickly. I did not let him see. It made me wonder why I was ashamed to let him see my disappointment? Did I really need to be strong for the both of us?
I left to get us food.
I was waiting in line at Sonic's drive-thru when the tears started to escape. No matter how quickly I wiped them away they just kept pouring! I was not crying out of disappointment or anguish, of wanting this so desperately, and I wasn't angry. It was different this time. My feelings were those of someone who was tired, had given up, was finished with it. It was the feeling of a callous that had already taken so much but could still bleed if bothered enough times.

The only thought echoing in my mind was "Why?" Why did I still want a child so very badly? I asked God to please make me stop wanting this if it was not going to happen. Why let me feel this way if it isn't meant to be? Why is this me? I feel like an observer of my own life, because this isn't really mine. But it is.. No answers came to me, still. Never an answer, just the same cycle over and over and over. Is there a lesson to be learned here, or is this just the way it is sometimes?

I pulled up into the driveway and let the car idle for a few moments longer. I looked up and saw the sage tree blossoming with pink flowers, and I said, "But I do have a wonderful husband, a decent life, a good job and a lovely home. For that I am grateful." As Jentezen Franklin said, it's all about willows and palms: grief and praise all at once.

I still have no answers. Never has God been so silent to me. I'm 100 miles from nowhere, but one thing is for certain: eventually I will end up somewhere.