The Wait

My heart goes out to those adoptive families who are waiting for their daughters of China (and from other countries, for that matter). The process is still at a snail's pace and not expected to increase any time soon. I can tell you from personal experience, the wait truly feels like a suffering too difficult to bear at times. Yesterday at mass, the reading struck me, and I thought of all the adoptive families awaiting their hopes:

Beloved:If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God. 1 Peter 2:20

Those of you who are waiting, may God's Grace continue to sustain you. May patience be poured into you. You will have daughters...the perfect daughters; it's only a matter of time.

The Waiting

Advent reading for today...how very applicable to us waiting adoptive parents too ;)

"Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient." James 5:7-8

"The waiting of the Advent figures in the first chapters of Luke's Gospel is not a passive waiting. They are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. Right here is a secret for us about waiting. If we wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted and that something has already begun, it changes the way that we wait. Active waiting implies being fully present to the moment with the conviction that something is happening where we are and that we want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, believing that this moment is *the* moment. God, forgive us for frequently living in fear of the future or in regret about the past. Help us to open our hearts to you each moment." Advent Meditations from the writings of Henri Nouwen

Signs That the Wait is Getting Too Long and That You Are Becoming a Little Neurotic

1. You rock your cat or stuffed animal to sleep
2. You look in the backseat of the car and talk baby talk as if there were a kid there to respond
3. You borrow every neighbor's kid and try them out in your new baby carrier
4. You start thinking maybe you should change your child's name because you're getting bored with this imaginary (insert name) that wanders around in your life
5. You start eating baby food and drinking from a bottle (um, baby bottle that is)
6. You purchase a cd of lullabies to help your baby sleep...the baby who is still sleeping in a crib in China
7. You've hit every clothing sale every season since you started the process and you don't have any idea if they'll even fit
8. You've waited so long that you start dreaming that when you finally do meet your child in China she's 14 years old instead of 14 months
9. You've got a college fund started but no one to send to college
10. You've had way too many birthdays since you started the process
11. You compare yourself to an elephant, who though, despite having the longest gestation of any other animal, has already given birth to her baby (elephant gestation is 22 months, which is longer than any land animal...uh, guess they didn't include adoptive parents in that survey).
12. You flag down every UPS guy that drives in your neighborhood thinking that maybe, just maybe, your referral is just lost in his truck somehow.
13. You start telling your friends and family..."I swear I'm not lying about this whole adoption thing, honest!"

These signs are somewhat in jest, but some are true for many of us waiting parents. Are you waiting? Feel free to add your signs to the list!