Looking back, looking ahead

We're starting out 2013 with what seems like our very own indoor tornado.  At 18 months, Audrey is on the go and into every sort of mischief she can find.  I'm trying to teach her how to pick up after herself, but this lesson isn't sinking in so much.  She's starting to use a few words.  Papa.  Mama.  Meow.  No.  Some of her favorite things to do are feeding and harassing the cat, trying to ride the dog, climbing everything, and making her arm magically disappear.

Taking stock of our current adoption progress, we've come a long way since a year ago.  2012 brought us to the completion of one adoption and the beginning of a second.  We see God's goodness and mercy woven through every step.  Here's a quick look at where we've been.

January:  Finalization of Audrey's adoption.  We got accepted into Lutheran Social Services 2012 domestic adoption program by the skin of our teeth.

March and April:  Weekly education and training sessions for 5 weeks with our training group of 4 other couples...we couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with!  This was the highlight of our LSS experience so far.

May and June:  Paperwork and the monster scrapbook project.  By the end of June we were approved.  Our resume letter went into the binder of waiting families' letters that birth parents peruse when looking for adoptive parents.  If someone likes our letter, they can ask to see our 24 page scrapbook.

September:  Salsa Party! (Salsa report coming soon).

June to the present:  Waiting.  We just hit the 6 month mark.  Even though they tell you to be ready for a 2 year wait, I can get a little jittery.  I suppose it might be natural to hope to be chosen sooner rather than later. When you start out with an adoption, sometimes friends like to encourage you by saying you'll probably be chosen quickly.  It's easy to cling to something like that, even when you don't realize you are.  But all that kind of thing does is make the waiting worse when it turns out to be, like, 2 years. 

This second time around the waiting is easier, as Audrey is keeping our lives full.  And yet, it is still easy to fret some. It's easy to start asking the same questions as before. Are we too _______ to be chosen?  (old, square, rural, pale, etc.)  Is our scrapbook too blah?

Last week I asked our LSS social worker how many waiting families there are in the book for minority adoptions.  She said she thought there are nine families right now, and since the time our letter went in the book, there have been 2 placements, and 2 more families added.  That was a surprise.  I had this notion that our letter was pressed into a 3 inch thick binder with hundreds of other letters and that it might never be seen by a birth parent.  Nine.  Okay.  Never mind that worry about never being seen.  I'm glad I asked.   

Next year, at the turn of 2014 I hope that our status is something other than still waiting.  But I am working on being o.k. with it, if that is what it is.  I'm trying to get my expectations set to a 2 year wait with the possibility that it could be even longer.  

I know that God knows our next child -- who, when, where -- and that his timing really is perfect despite what I might wish for. So this is what I aim to satisfy myself with while we wait.
God knows.