15 months & some rambling

Today our little girl is 15 months old.  When I first laid eyes on her she was only 6 months.  She's growing up so fast it hurts. The good Lord has worked long and hard in our lives since then and now here we are, 9 months later, anxiously waiting to bring her home to our family forever.  In some ways it seems like just yesterday when Hope came flooding into our lives and in other ways it seems like years. I have faith that God's timing is perfect, but its easy to get caught up in the "why's" when I start to dwell on all the 1st we're missing in her life.  I have to be very intentional about trusting Him on this one because I want her home and I want her home NOW, but I know there is a reason much greater than just the nonsense of bureaucratic red tape holding up the timing of things.

For instance, we know that God's hand carefully chose our adoption timeline to coincide with the conclusion of Sully's surgeries.  He knows that we emotionally and financially could not meet the needs of our family as a whole while having two children going through this process simultaneously, on top of a Lincoln's needs and attention...oh, and our marriage :)  It is also looking very promising that we will be traveling during the summer when I am off from work.  That is ALL God.  I have very little leave time available as a teacher and so when it comes to surgeries and babies and all that good stuff we work very hard to "plan" around the summer months.  If it works out to bring Hope home in June or early July, we can be certain that is a special blessing from God...no detail is too small or too big for him.

Today also marks day 51 of our wait for the USCIS (Homeland Security) to approve our family to adopt from China, in other words, approve us to bring an immigrant into the country.  This really should not take this long.  Its ridiculous.  Its one thing to wait on China for approvals, but its a whole different ball game waiting for your own government...especially when we've already been "checked out" by the FBI, our state government, our home study agency, six references and who knows who else.  Its frustrating, but necessary...I guess.  I've called a number of times and even though our paperwork has been in their hands since November 9th we still have not been assigned an officer.  This is your tax payer dollars at work friends.  Did I mention that this approval costs a ridiculous amount of money...to the tune of 800 dollars!?!?

So we wait some more.  If the averages prove correct, we are looking at another 10-14 day wait for our approval.  Once that comes there will be a fury of activity on our end and then some big, exciting news with letters like DTC, LID, LOI, PA that will all happen in a matter of a few short weeks.  I'll explain all about those things as they come around.  For now, say our prayer for our little 15 month old and for our 797.  We want our hands on both of those things...like YESTERDAY!!