We have our meeting with our social worker on Monday evening for our 3rd home study update. Since we've been through this multiple times now, we know what to expect and our social worker is great so that's no biggie. She actually is an adoptive parent herself and has both a bio and internationally adopted child so her perspective on this process is pretty informed. She understands all about attachment, post-institutionalized behavior, delays, etc and will be a great help to us once we return from China.
Anyway...so we have this meeting and it has made me really think about all that has happened in our lives since the last meeting. So much has happened but really Jeff and I are the same parents in waiting that we were 2 years ago. I am almost finished with nursing school, Jeff is struggling with the stress of work and trying to take care of us while I am not working, we have had some bumpy times in the past 2 years and we have survived...hopefully stronger than before and more prepared to parent the child that we have loved and longed for for so long.
I have talked a little more about the adoption lately and it feels good. There are only a few people in my life who I open up to about this process because, at the core, it has been painful. I would be lying if I said that I enjoy having to have my life scrutinized with a magnifying glass, being afraid every time we go to the doctor that we will be diagnosed with something that will halt our adoption process, having a panic attack when we get a speeding ticket because it will go on our "record". This process doesn't make for happy and content parents-to-be. But it's not meant to go on for years like it has. Anyone can deal with a few months of this cautious anticipation...that is the reason that human pregnancies only last 9 months (although you don't have to prove health and virtue before you can conceive).
The point of this post is just really to touch base about the adoption, mark this next chapter as we meet with our social worker again and for me to talk myself down from the ledge a little bit. I want to believe that this is the final phase of our journey...the last update before we go to China. We have to have our biometric fingerprints updated in October/November for Homeland Security and then I am hoping with all that is in me that we can just sit back and wait for our referral. We have 92 LID days ahead of us and if there are 6 days referred per month then we have a little over 15 months left to wait.
I just really want to transition and make this about the sweet baby girl that will be our lives at the end of this process and not so much about the painful wait for her.
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