We’ve spent the better part of the last month making copies of our birth certificates, getting physicals, being interviewed by social workers, and installing more smoke alarms. We’ve filled out questionnaires about parenting, watched hours of training on trans-racial adoption, read books on attachment, given over our 3 years of tax forms, and prayed a lot. Finally, after many trips to the notary and the post office, I’m happy to report we have finally mailed off all our official adoption documents.

People keep asking me what our timeline is, when our son will be home. It’s absolutely maddening that I have to answer truthfully, “I don’t know.” The process is out of our hands and in the hands of 2 government bureaucracies. Every day when the mail truck arrives (at precisely 3:22pm) I bolt outside to get it, hoping there will be some receipt or communication that will advance us to the next step.  

I have liked being busy with the paperwork. I like tasks. Collecting documents and checking things off made me feel like I had some degree of control over the speed of the process. This waiting part feels just the opposite. I feel out of control and restless. It’s like being forced to take an intermission right in the middle of the most suspenseful part of a movie. It’s like someone just hit the pause button on our life.

Now that I’m not busy with details of the process, I’m free to feel all these things I’ve shoved to the side in the name of efficiency and expedience. I’m afraid I won’t be the right kind of mother, the kind he needs. I’m grieving for the losses he has already sustained in his young life. I’m worried about our family’s transition and about his health. I’m worried about attachment and all the unique things that come with trans-racial adoption. I’m even worried about whether he will like the dog.

The benefit of feeling all these heavy things is that I know how to pray. Waiting is teaching me to pray and allow God to minister to my insecurities. The praying is supplying peace. Sometimes.

I’m still going to run out to greet the mail truck in 47 minutes.