Continuing to Wait

Today as I watched my sweet E play with a group of little girls my heart ached for our Little A to be home with us.  The road ahead is still quite long as we continue to await our I-797 approval but this mama is ready to have our referral in hand and to see the precious face that will be joining our family.

We have been on the waiting family list for a little over 2 months.  Our agency says many families are on the list anywhere from 1-6 months with some families waiting a little longer.  So we do not know how much longer we will be on list.  Most days the wait is not too hard but there are times like this morning when I watch E play with friends or when I see a little girl who could look like our Little A or when we have a fun family adventure planned that I feel that empty place in my heart. 

E continues to talk about her sister everyday and continues to amaze me with her thoughtfulness and love towards a sister whom she does not know. 

Continuing to wait and enjoying the moments but we cannot wait to share them with Little A.

A Letter to My Girls on Mother's Day

Dear E and Little A,

Today as we celebrate Mother's Day, I wanted to stop and write you a letter.  I truly believe that being a mom is by far my greatest accomplishment in life.  I may not do it perfectly and there will be times that I will fail you as a mom but I will try my hardest to be the best mom I can be through God's strength and grace. 

My sweet E, you were the blessing that made me a mom.  I remember the Mother's Day I was pregnant with you and all of the emotions that came with that day.  I remember feeling you move in my womb and hiccup and just being in awe at the life that was growing inside of me.  I was overcome that God has chosen me to be your mom and I anxiously awaited your arrival.  I remember the day you were born and the realization that I was now responsible for this tiny little life.  I have made many mistakes in the past 4.5 years as your mom and I know there will be many more in the future but you always tell me "that's ok mama, I forgive you.  Do you forgive me?"  Thank you for showing me grace and for helping me become a better mom.  I promise to always love you my sweet little chicken noodle!  I love you and I am so blessed to be your mom!

Our dear Little A, my heart is missing you today as you are away from our family.  I hope that in some way you have experienced a mother's love today.  I think of your birth mom and dad and my heart hurts for them as well.  I pray that your birth mom feels loved and honored today.  They are making a sacrifice that will one day soon allow me to become your mom.  I cannot wait to see your face for the very first time and to know that you will be joining our family.  I long for the day when you will be placed in my arms and when I can whisper in your ear how much you are truly loved.  I promise to always love you my dear girl and cannot wait to watch you blossom.

E and Little A, it is my prayer that both of you would grow to know and love the Lord and to follow Him all the days of your lives.  I pray that you would know how very much your daddy and I love you and how very thankful I am that I get to be your mom.  I cannot wait to watch the two of you grow up and hope that one day I will have the privilege of seeing you become mothers as well.

I love you with all my heart,
Mama

An Unexplainable Love

Next week we will have been on the waiting family list for one month.  This month has passed quickly and without much excitement.  We are currently waiting for USCIS to send us our appointment for fingerprints.  We wait for documents to be certified and authenticated.  We wait for the greatly anticipated "this is your referral" call.  We continue to wait for the little girl God has for our family. 

While we wait we love.  Little A's name is never far from our lips and thoughts.  Numerous times a day E will say "when baby sister comes home" or something to that effect.  We constantly talk about life with little sister and pray for her daily.  E talks of baby sister so often that people frequently ask if we know when she is coming home. 

Each day I find myself wondering what our Little A will look like, how old she will be, what will she like and dislike, will she adjust and attach to our family well.  Each day my love for this little girl whom we have never met or even laid eyes on grows.  It is unexplainable and almost indescribable.  I feel a fierce love for a little girl thousands of miles away who may not even be born yet.  I feel the protectiveness of a mama as she longs for her little one to be well taken care of.  I feel a slight emptiness in my heart as I know our family is not yet complete.  As Mother's Day approaches I think of our Little A's birth mother.  I think of the loss she has or will experience in the days to come as she places her child for adoption.  I think of her as courageous and strong.  I am thankful for her.  Thankful that she is choosing life for her daughter.  She is choosing love.  It is an unexplainable love.  It is grand.  It is beyond comprehension.

We wait and we love.  We love with our whole hearts and cannot wait to embrace the precious child God has for us. 

Approval

Finally, after what seems like an eternity (only a few weeks in reality), we received our home study approval from Holt.  We will now wait for our case worker to send us notarized copies and then we will file our I-800A with USCIS.  Our dossier is almost complete and once we receive the home study we will make a trip to the Secretary of State's office and the consulate for certification and authentication. 

We are getting closer.  One step at a time, one day at a time.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,  to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.  

Our family was overwhelmingly blessed this past week by the goodness of God.  

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we ran into a little speed bump in the paperwork process a few weeks ago.  This speed bump could have possibly required our home study to be sent back to DCFS for another round of approval.  On Friday afternoon we found out that our home study will not need to be resent to DCFS.  Our original approval date will remain and our home study is now ready for approval by Holt (our placement agency).  Our home study agency is in the process of moving offices so it will most likely be next week before our case worker is able to send everything back to Holt but things are moving once again.

Daniel and I have gathered all of our dossier documentation and are ready to take it to the Secretary of State's office for certification and then on to the Consulate for authentication.  The only missing items for our dossier are the official home study, our 797 (documentation that comes from Immigration), and photos of our family and home.  There is a light at the end of this tunnel!

Friday evening we hosted a children's concert, dessert fellowship and silent auction.  We were SO blessed by everyone who helped and attended.  There were about 65 people in attendance and everyone had a great time.  Daniel and I had an opportunity to share our heart for adoption and a little bit of our adoption story.  Over 50 items were donated for our silent auction.  In fact, we had so many items a few of them were not bid on.  Thanks to several amazing ladies from our church we had an abundance of delicious desserts and our talented pastor's wife put on an amazing concert.  We could not have done this event without the support and encouragement of so many and we are just extremely grateful.  

Our God truly is able to abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.  To God be the Glory!

Never Once

After what was a shockingly quick endorsement by DCFS we hit a little bump in the road.  Because we are using two agencies, one for homestudy and one for placement, our homestudy needed to be approved by our placement agency after we received our endorsement from IL.  A week and a half ago we received word from our caseworker that our placement agency wanted some revisions to be made.  Most were minor wording revisions but one of the revisions may require our homestudy to go back to DCFS.  We were hoping to avoid this step but unfortunately here we are.  We have approved the requested changes and have taken care of things on our end and are hoping to find out next week where we stand.

Of course this bump in the road was a little discouraging and disheartening but it is a minor thing in comparison to some of the other difficulties we could have and can still encounter.  Even though I wish we had not hit this bump in the road it was a good reminder that God is fully in control of this process.  He will not allow our girl to come home one day or even one minute too late. 

Just days before we came upon this bump in the road I heard the song, Never Once by Matt Redman.  It has quickly become our theme song for this process and I have a feeling it will one day show up in our Gotcha Day video when we finally bring our Little A home.

I am so thankful that we have never once walked alone in our journey with secondary infertility, miscarriage, and now the adoption process.  I am also so thankful that our Little A, wherever she may be, will never once be alone.

Endorsement

We received the email today stating that we had received DCFS endorsement on our Home Study.  Now we wait for final approval from Holt and then we will mail our I-800A to USCIS Immigration Services.

I told Daniel that I feel like my water has just broken in this paper pregnancy!