My "waiting" rambling shall begin.

So as we are in this period of just waiting, I don't expect to have a whole lot to report. Thus I will be doing random thoughts while waiting.



We recieved our "While you Wait" packet from AWAA the other day. It had suggestions on things to be doing while you are waiting. One of them was to begin preparing you child's room. Wrong thing for them to tell me to do considering I have been buying stuff from the moment that we decided to adopt. I now have a sense of urgency in getting my nursery ready pronto, and hubby dear is having to reel me in a little! I know that it is jumping the gun a little but I am so not a last minute kind of gal. I like things done way in advance. So we have been looking and getting ideas for what we want to do, and I came across a chair that I wanted very bad for the nursery, but it was just a little too pricey for us right now. Benji said that we could go look at it to see if we like it and then we would just start saving for it. When we went to just look at it, there was a floor model (covered in plastic) that they told us we could get for 40% off. So the chair is now in our nursery just waiting on a little one to rock.

I do want to say that I am not one for waiting. Our paperwork was mailed to Russia just two weeks ago and I kid you not when I say that it feels like two years ago. I am the kid that tore the house up looking for my Christmas presents every year. My own husband refuses to give me the combination to his safes because he knows that come Christmas, anniversaries and birthdays, this girl is going to snoop! I do not like surprises! Let me re-word that, do not like surprises that I know are coming. So to know that we will soon be getting the most precious gift in the world, and to not be able to climb in a closet, look under a bed, or crack the code to the safe to see this precious gift isn't going to be easy for me....but I am most certainly up for the challenge:)

Fingers Crossed

Benji and I took off to Atlanta once again yesterday to get the last few corrected forms apostilled. So it is all in the mail to the adoptin agency, who will look over it and then forward it on to Russia for translation. We are hoping and praying that everything is good and it will be forwarded on this time. We both are beyond ready to move past the paperchase and move to the next season...paper pregnant/waiting for a referral!

With God we can weather these storms

The past week has been, once again, a crazy week. We were approached, once again with a domsestic adoption. It was of a baby girl to be born in December. We were hesitant at first because we are so far into our Russian adoption. But then the more that we thought about it, the more that we felt as though we should at least look into this option. From both, the paperwork to the finances, our Russian adoption has constantly hit roadblocks. So we began to think that maybe the Lord was allowing these road blocks because just maybe we were to explore another option. So we did just that and we sent a profile to the birth mother. I'd be lying if I said that we both didn't allow ourselves to become a little excited. Could this be the child that God is sending us? Financially it would be so much easier for us to go this route, plus it would be soon, very soon. We would have our baby by Christmas. We are at a point in our adoption to where we can get a good portion of our money back. Then yesterday, Johnna (our adoption coordinater) called to tell us that she was going to go on and mail our dossier for translation and we'd add the remaining forms later (one form I am having a super tough time getting from the state). This is the point that we have fought to get to for 15 months now. We had to ask her to hold off for just a little bit until we knew a little better what the Lord is calling us to do at this time.
So over the past week, I have tried really hard to seek the Lord. I have spent as much time in prayer and reading my Bible as I possibly could. I found an adoption devotional that I had forgot that I had. In my readings it said that sometimes it is easy to become "child" focused rather than "God" focused when you are adopting. This really ressonated with me because that is exactly what I have done. I have become so focused on getting our child that I have lost sight of seeking God in this.
This morning I recieved an email to inform us that the birthmother decided to go with another couple. I wont lie and say that I wasn't dissappointed, because I surely was. The thought of having our child by Christmas this year was scary yet sssooo exciting. However, I know that God has other plans for us. This was not the path that he wanted us to take. Therefore, he has a much better path out there for us. Could we sit here and get mad that it didn't work out, and could we be mad with the Lord allowing us to stop our focus and have to endure this terrible emotional stress that this situation brought on us? Absolutley! However, we choose to just say "God needed us to hold up for just a bit because the baby that he has for us is just not ready yet." We are willing to wait as long as it takes to get to the baby the the Lord is preparing for us. Someone once sent me something that states "there's always rain before a rainbow". Well we are definately in some rainy weather right now, but that just means that our rainbow is soon to follow!

When doubt consumes us

I want to take a minute, not to complain, but to kinda open up to what has been going on with us lately. We have been overcome with doubt here lately. Not because we don't still want this more than anything in the world, but rather we are beginning to wonder if we were truly listening to the calling of the Lord or not. For the first time in a year (when we first started the process) I have really begun to question if we are following the Lord's plan for us. Not only is the paperwork never right when we send it in (as you can tell, our agency called and we still have to correct a few more things), but we have been slammed financially here in the past few months. Being able to afford this adoption has been a heavy burden on our hearts from day one, but we have always felt that if we are following the Lord's calling that the financial aspect will just fall into place. For the most part up to this point it has (one way or another) fallen into place. The concerning part for us is that the largest portions of the financial parts are coming up. In the past couple months: the transmission has went out in my car, we rear eneded a car and had to pay our deductible (which we do hope to get back because the accident wasn't our fault), this past week we realized that we had a major moisture problem in our house that had to be immediatly taken care of. Then last night, it would appear as though our air conditioner has decided that it is tired of servicing us. So for two months now our pocketbooks have been heavily hit, and on top of that we have sent dossier paperwork 3 times only to be told that it still isn't right. So I think that this would have any human scratching there head and reassessing their situation.
Our biggest fear is that we are not listening to the Lord and he is trying to tell us that we are traveling the wrong path. Yet on the same hand, what if we are on the right path and the devil is trying to stop us from what the Lord has for us? So the other night, we sat down to talk and we decided that we had to make a decision to either hold up on the adoption before we get any further in, or to proceed fighting tooth and nail until we succeed. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I am so close to throwing in the towel and giving up. But we both decided that we are going to push through this and fight as hard as we have to. We both come to the conclusion that if we weren't doing something right, then the devil wouldn't be trying so hard to stop us. So that's where we are right now, and this is what we have been dealing with for a few weeks now. Today my aunt sent me a message:
Hey Shanny, just wanted to share this with you today. In our service today, Bro. Billy was talking about being adopted by the Father and he mentioned a little girl that was adopted and she that adoption was "when you grew in your mommy's heart not her tummy". I thought of you and how special that you are to be ready to give your heart someone (ones) that really really need your love. God is working on this as we speak! I love you!
Shasha: You timing was impecable on this. It was what I needed and when I needed it. Thank you so much for sending that today. Love ya!

Back on Track

It has been a long, difficult and quite stressful summer. In the frustrations that this summer has brought on, I have allowed myelf to loose sight over who is in control. Thankfully, we were able to go on a family vacation this past week that has allowed me to take some days to rest, relax and unwind. Vacation could not have come at a more perfect time. We had hoped that we could mail off the second round of dossier documents prior to vacation, but it just didn't happen. The remaining documents that we needed were in the mail when we got home. So yesterday, Benji and I took off to Atlanta to get everything apostilled. It is in the mail as of an hour ago, and will be with AWAA tomorrow for a final review. So praise God we are back on track and hopefully moving forward.

Update

I know that it has been awhile since my last post. Life has been very chaotic the past several weeks. Right after we recieved notification that we had several documents that needed to be changed, we had Kids Camp at our church. I had to get through camp then I could refocus on the paperchase. I have found myself very exhausted with this adoption process and very discouraged lately. Thus one of the biggest reasons that I have not posted because I do not ever want to sound negative, and I don't want to complain. But this has been one of the most difficult couple of months that I have ever endured. We have had a very difficult time with a few documents (which we should finally have everything in the next couple of weeks to resend to our agency). In the middle of being at a very low point in this process, the transmission went out in my car. We are still dealing with that and hopefully we will have the car situation taken care of soon, as it is about to drive me insane in not having a car. I have stated several times lately that I know that God doesn't give you anymore than you can handle, but I am beginning to believe that he seriously overestimates me. HA! Then this past weekend, my mom had to have a little stay in the hospital for what we though was a heart issue (praise God it turned out to not be a heart issue). So for now, we are trying to deal with one issue at a time. I am in the words of my dear friend Ashley (and no she did not direct this comment at me, HA!) putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it.

Argh!

So we still are not ready to submit our dossier to Russia. There were a couple of documents that were not worded as they wanted (ie: they were missing my middle name), and a couple that had wrong dates, and our police clearances were not what they wanted. The police clearances have given us a fit. Russia wants clearances on state letterhead and we can't seem to find anyone that can do that for us. The GBI and the FBI both say they do not do police clearances. Our local police department did do them but they can only put it on county letterhead...not state. So until we figure out what to do from here we are stuck for the moment. I have concluded that until the day that you recieve a referral, it is best to leave your emotions at the door, otherwise the process can completely wear you out. I have decided that until my phone rings to tell me that there is a precious little one waiting for me, I will not get excited nor will I get angry or upset or sad. I will continue to keep my eyes focused on what I feel like God wants us to do, and no matter what obstacle the devil throws in our way, we will keep pushing forward!