Hurry Up...and Wait

If there's any phrase that defines the adoption process, "hurry up and wait" does. For the first part of the process - "paperwork hell" as I've affectionately coined it - is the hurry up part. It's the time when you're building inches high amounts of paperwork from every known government agency proving you are who you say you are, that you'll be fit parents, that Brian and I actually really love each other. This is the fun part.

The not fun part is waiting. Waiting for people to approve all the said paperwork and matching you to a child. After we send our dossier to Ethiopia, the full-on waiting game begins. At that point it could be up to 6 months before we get our referral. And there's not much that we can do about that!

I'm a little snarky, but it's actually a great metaphor for life. At times there's much to do and it hardly feels like you see the end of the tunnel. At other times you're waiting on people, God, or circumstances to change. So it really should come as no surprise that the adoption process isn't any different.

I've actually come to a place where I'm enjoying the waiting. Perhaps because the past 2 years has been a waiting game, and I've been so deeply, profoundly changed by waiting. I had an epiphany a few weeks ago that Brian and I are in the final days of "just the two of us". So I'm really trying to enjoy these days. We are overwhelmingly excited to be parents, but our marriage will never be the same. I'm enjoying the green grass on this side of the fence for today!