waiting

With the impending court closures in Ethiopia, our agency has made the decision to stop issuing referrals for families whose cases would not be processed by the courts prior to the closure. Their rationale is that it's too hard on families to have a referral in hand, but not be able to travel and meet their children for 3-4 months. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this policy change. Although it doesn't directly affect us (since we've requested not to recieve our referral until after October 1), I am wondering whether this will push everything back, as we will have made no progress on the waiting list either. I imagine there will be a mad flurry of referral activity once the courts reopen in September. I believe that we're 3rd on the "known" list of families requesting twins or siblings, but that could totally change depending on the age / medical history / sex of the children who come into care. There's really no telling how long it will actually take.

It has recently occurred to me that one day in the relatively near future, we will recieve a phone call that will change our lives forever. I know many adoptive families become consumed with the wait, and I can certainly understand why. It's kind of strange for us, though. These will be our first children, so while we THINK we have a grasp on the basics of how our lives will change, it's still very abstract. Furthermore, we're relatively young, and we have not had to contend with the roller coaster of infertility. Also, by pushing off the referral until at least October (by then we will have already waited ~4 months) we've cut down on our "active" waiting period as well. We're thankful that our process has been fairly painless thus far.

Even though we've gone through the classes, finished our homestudy, gathered piles of paperwork, and jumped through all the requisite hoops, it still seems sort of surreal that this is actually happening. I don't know that it will really begin to set in until we actually see their little faces. I can't wait!!!