What goes up must come down

Hang on! This post could be a bumpy ride. Hopefully it isn't too confusing. I posted already this week and that was a very positive, heart-warming post. This one, not so much. Again, I debated if I should share these things. Then I thought that only people that care are reading this blog, so I might as well let you see the true picture of the adoption world. My last post was filled with the excitement of switching bedrooms now that our new bedroom is completed. It has been a busy week, but I'm happy to report that we can now see all of our living room and can safely walk through it without getting hurt. With switching rooms and shampooing carpets, etc...the living room was a catch all of things. Jason finished the inside of our closet yesterday so today I'm switching things from one closet to another. It will be great to have plenty of room in our closet. Pretty good for a teacher. ;) Way to go, Jason!!!!

Even with all that is going on in our house, my heart is heavy. Last night I was looking at things and I wasn't reallly very happy with the reality that I found. First of all, there is an overall ho-hum with people from our agency. It has been quite some time since there have been some referrals. That is always so disheartening. Also, the people at the top of the unofficial list have been on there for 14 months and they still don't have a referral. We have been on the wait list for right at a year. So--we have a long time to wait yet. Awhile ago, our agency up-ed the wait list timeline to 12-18 months. 18 months for us would be the end of January so I was thinking that we should be getting our referral around Christmas.

Well, the disheartening news keeps pouring in. First of all, the courts in Ethiopia close for roughly 2 months. Today is their last day in session until October. :( During this closure, referrals can still go out and families can still go on their final trip to bring their babies home. (as long as they have passed court b/4 the courts closed)

In March, our world was rocked when MOWA said they were going to cut their case load by 90% and process 5 letters a day. Each family needs a letter from these people in order to pass court. The amount of letters being processed daily has increased!! Thank God!!!! Actually, our agency didn't see a huge slow down b/c they have such a good reputation. :) Now families can pass court and wait for the letters. As soon as the letters are there, then they can pass and an Embassy date can be issued.  Before, if the families went to court and the MOWA letter wasn't there, they would have to reschedule the whole court appointment.

There was a group of families that are currently in Ethiopia that didn't have their MOWA letters there. There is a group of orphanages in the southern part of Ethiopia that have been closed. This group of families THAT HAVE MET THEIR BABIES have to have some serious investigating done since they came from one of these orphanages that has closed. MOWA will work through next week and they too will quit until October. Heartbreaking!!!!

Also--with these orphanages closing in the southern part of Ethiopia, we can only speculate that the referrals will slow down that much more b/c Hannah's Hope will not be getting children from these orphanages.

I know some of this is very confusing especially when you don't deal with the adoption lingo like we do daily. I know that God is bigger than all of this. I know He can and does move mountains. I know that this is all part of the greater plan. I know in HIS TIMING, we will have our perfect little one. Even though I know this things, I feel different. I'm very sad, frustrated, disappointed. Some of you might think that this shouldn't consume me so much. That is easier said than done. For example, even in the midst of chaos in our house with switching of the bedrooms, etc...I still think about our little one a world away. It is hard not to think about. When will we get a referral? Will it be during school? Where will the kids go when we are gone? As I prepare my classroom for another year, I want to get all of my ducks in a row thinking we can be gone for a week or an extended period of time depending on what happens. So many things trigger the thoughts of what our future holds.

Last night even though I was a bit down in the dumps about the slow down of everything, I sat down with the girls' first and middle names seeing if I could come up with a create middle name for our baby combining their names. I didn't really come up with anything, but did come up with some cute middle names for the girl name we are thinking of. We will be using our child's given name as a middle name also, but I'm thinking we want to give him/her an American middle name as well. I find it strange that in the middle of all of this that I would randomly think of names. Crazy!!

So...the real picture of the adoption world is not pretty. It is not for the faint of heart. Your day can start out great and end on a pretty crappy note or vice versa. It takes a little piece of news from others from our agency to make or break the day. Even when you don't realize you are thinking about the journey, you still think about it. Our 3rd child is always on our mind and in our hearts. We hope that God reveals him/her to us sooner than later. We hope that He grants us strength and patience as we wait. Like my last post talked about God providing and His plan unfolding before us. It is easy to see that, but it is hard to believe and trust that everything will work out like it is supposed to.

PLEASE pray for everyone involved in the adoption of our newest child. Please pray for the courts, MOWA letters, people that are researching the cases and orphanages. Pray for the birth parents that make the hard decision to give us their children b/c they can't afford to care for them. Please pray for everyone in every stage of adoption. It is not an easy journey even though we know the end result will be great!

A few weeks ago, we were estatic to realize we were in the teens for a girl and in single digits for a boy. Reality had hit that this was really going to happen. Now all of this happens and I can't help, but to sit back and wonder if this will really happen. I guess we wait to see how things play out.