Waiting is the name of the game in this process. By far, it is the hardest part. Yes, filling out one million papers, many of them the same as previous ones, getting fingerprinted 3 times so far, proving certified papers are actually authentic and making frequent visits to notaries was also difficult. But at least that was a proactive activity. You feel like you are helping the process along be jumping through all these hoops. Waiting is different. You have no control and there is nothing you can do.
We officially started this process in January of 2006 after kicking the idea around in our heads now and again for years. A month later we officially decided to go ahead with adoption and began one of the many rounds of paperwork. At that time we thought a year later we'd have our child. We didn't realize it would take us 7 months to gather all the necessary documents for our agency and then for our dossier to submit to China.
September of 2006 we finally sent in our dossier. That was it. Our paperchase had ended and the waiting was beginning. Thus began the many stages of waiting. At this stage, the wait was one year to time of referral. We were exited! Finally we were on our way. All we had to do was wait one more year. A month later our papers had finally made it to the desk of a person in the Chinese government's adoption department and was officially logged in Oct. 17, 2006. The time to referral had grown to 14 months. A disappointment, but we were still early in the waiting process and we'd just wait.
The next month the wait was up to 15 months. We were busy with hosting an exchange student from China and the busy holidays were approaching to keep our minds elsewhere. In December, the wait was up to 16 months. This is where I began my next stage of anxious waiting. This was more than I could take seeing the wait go up one month for every month that passed by. How difficult the wait was becoming was evermore present in my mind. I began checking the (Waiting International Children) WIC list more often. After requesting information on several children only to say no when we began researching health issues, we decided go about it in a more prepared manner. We researched the health issues commonly found and indicated to our agency that we were interested in going this route while we concurrently waited in the regular list.
And so began the next stage of an undetermined waiting time. We would wait until the next batch of referrals was sent in another 3-4 months. I felt better about the wait again. Maybe we would find a good match through WIC and then our wait would be much shorter. At this point, the wait time became very ambiguous. It could be 4 months from now, it could be two years. Or maybe a year. Or maybe a year and a half.... The wait in the regular list had climbed to 18 months. I felt I had no control of being able to make decisions about taking on work or making summer travel plans or anything since I had no clue when this was going to happen. A pregnancy is much easier. You can reasonably place the time in a two week period and plan for it. There was no planning and I like to plan.
As the time got closer to March, I began my obsessive website checking of the WIC list again. I also began calling them every couple of weeks to see if the new batch had come in. They were all very kind in the agency and told me I could keep checking it, but I was beginning to feel a bit like a crazy person. The wait in the regular list was up to 20 months. Finally in May, I left a message and the return message was that yes, they had gotten in a new group and they were still translating. The group, they said, looked difficult, however, with a lot of children who may be hard to place. My hopes having instantly rose, fell once again. I would have to psyche myself up for waiting again until the next round. I checked the web list again and again. A young boy with a heart defect was listed. I questioned whether we really "needed" a girl. We were waiting, he was waiting, maybe this was what we were supposed to do. I couldn't decide, though. Suddenly the concept of having to decide on which child we would get was too much. You give birth to a baby and you love whoever you get, but to make a decision on who you would take seemed impossible. How do you decide?
This was the peak of the torture of waiting. A day later, May 11, 2007, the agency called with 3 referrals for us to think about! I was stunned. It was so exciting, and yet I was paralyzed. I could not make the decision of which one to ask for over the phone. Luckily Dave was home and he helped me listen and digest the information she was giving us on each child. We narrowed it to two and then to one. She said she would email us the referral right away. I sat at the computer and it finally came it. I opened it up and I instantly knew that this was her! This was who we had been waiting for! Little Yuan Jing, 13 months old, would be ours!
A week later we sent off our Letter of Intent to adopt a specific child after having her medical records reviewed by a doctor at the International Adoption Clinic at the U of MN. Excitement was running high! The kids were excited, I was telling whoever would listen that we had finally been matched! I told myself I could handle this waiting period now. We know who she is, we're on our way to being able to go get her and I can deal with this. And for two months, the wait was not a thing to suffer through. I could be patient. It was like being pregnant. But it wasn't. She was already born and waiting. Why did it have to take so long? It was two months before our paperwork was even transferred from the regular line to the expedited line. At least we knew it was finally under review. We were asked to submit two more statements, notarized of course, that made me angry with them for extending the process. Then we found out our papers had passed, but that we had missed the monthly transfer of papers from one desk to another so we weren't sure when the Letter of Approval would come. I finally resigned myself to having no expectation of which day it would arrive. Obviously, the government did not do things in a manner in which I would, so I couldn't predict what was next. A day or two later, we got our LOA! Another point of relief in the waiting. Now all we are waiting for is our travel dates.
And so we are in the final stage of waiting. There was the initial excitement of the prospect of finally being able to go get this sweet little girl and bring her home. And then I felt another, and somewhat unexpected aspect of the wait. I was beginning to mourn the coming loss of the freedoms I now have with the boys the ages they are. Things are good now. They are fairly independent and adaptable and we can do a lot of fun things. Was I ready for this? I wouldn't be able to bike Andrew to school anymore. I wouldn't be able to get things done at home during the day anymore. I would have to limit my work again for a while. I now remember feeling all of these things in the last two weeks before Andrew was born. Luke and I had a good thing going at the time and a baby was going to throw a wrench in our schedule. But of course, we fell in love with Andrew and we found a new routine and things evened out again. It will be the same with Neela. We'll fall in love with her, she'll slip in to our family and it will be as if it always was and we will again find a new way of being a family. And so now, in this final stage, I am enjoying the fun things we get to do right now, the start of school for the boys, working on a few last projects, the coming fall weather and I look at her picture everyday and tell her we will be there soon to bring her home.
