And So We Wait...622 days

Well, it's been a minute, friends. But LIFE.

I wish I could tell you it's because we've been so busy preparing our home for our girl...but still we wait. We submitted our final dossier to our agency last November and after several laps through agencies in the U.S., it arrived in Haiti mid-December. We received notification that it was entered with IBESR (the Haitian agency that processes all adoption paperwork) on February 2, 2017...and so we wait.

In case you're tracking with us and have lost count in my blogging hiatus, it's been 622 days since we submitted the first pieces of paper to bring our girl home. I can't even pretend that it's been good or easy or fun. I won't pretend that I've embraced the "joy in the wait" mentality. I wish I could say that I have prepared my head (and more importantly, my heart) for the long journey, but if I'm really honest, most days I feel like a 2 year old throwing the biggest tantrum ever because she needs a nap and didn't get "the thing" she wants most desperately in that moment. I'm tired. I'm weary in the wait and there is really no end in sight.

Despite feeling like we're not making progress, I know we really are. We're actively fundraising for what I like to call our "Yes Money" -- which is the money we'll need to send to Lifeline once we do receive that blessed email with her beautiful face and her story in it. Once we have that in place, we'll start on the next chunk for our travel expenses to go meet her. We're faithfully praying daily for her to be protected and comforted and to feel The Father's love as she waits for us. We're talking almost daily about what life will be like when she finally comes home. We're having conversations about race and being an interracial family living in The South. And well, I may or may not have bought a few things for her and her room. Because girls, y'all. The stuff for girls is just too cute!

And trust me when I write that I know that we are not the first to do this adoption thing. Nor will we be the last. I know our heartbreak is not unique or to be lauded; all other adoptive parents have felt these same aches and same longings and same frustrations. But it is our story and more importantly, His story. It's not how I would write the story (thank goodness!), but it's beautiful and messy and perfect! It's filled with His goodness and faithfulness, even if we can't always see it. It's pages are filled with His love for a beautiful brown-skinned girl who waits for us to call her "daughter" but she is already a child of The King and loved and adored deeply.

And so we wait. Rather impatiently most days, but still we wait.