Adoption update

It's been quite a while since we have said much about our hopes to adopt.  I guess it has seemed useless, maybe downright pathetic, to keep talking about something that is just not happening.

"Look at the poor nice people who want to adopt.  Too bad nobody wants them."

But many of you have been praying and have occasionally asked about where we are in the process.  I have vacillated between truly appreciating the love and concern, and wishing people would stop asking because it's so annoying to keep saying, "Well, no, we haven't heard anything in months and we have no idea when or if this might happen."

And now it's time to renew our home study.  Again.

Renewing is not as arduous or as expensive as the initial home study, but it does involve updating paperwork (like getting fingerprinted again, just in case our fingerprints have changed?!) and just today we found out that we are required to do six hours of "education."  I'm all for education and we certainly have more we can learn about adoption, but after all this time, it feels like another obstacle, another road block, and another evidence that we're not good enough/smart enough to adopt a child.

I know.  I know.  That's not what it means.  But that's how it feels.

And like we've just wasted three years and hundreds of dollars for...what?

And yet, we can't give up the idea that we are supposed to adopt; that God is calling us to do this.  And, I suppose, if God calls you to do it, you do it, no matter how long the wait or how discouraging the journey.

Currently, our earthly hopes are bound up in a new agency, Faithful Adoption Consultants.  They deal exclusively with adoptive families and facilitate the adoption.  The longest wait they have had so far is nine months.

Nine months would have been lovely.

We're still not sure when or if this adoption will happen, but we continue to wait and hope and trust the Lord for His plan and His timing.

We appreciate your prayers very much.  And you are welcome to ask about it any time!

And our baby is going to know that we prayed and hoped and waited a long time, just for her.