What are we waiting on?

Confession: Sometimes I am impatient.  I am tolerant, meaning I can put up with a lot.  I just don't like when things take a long time.  Patience is a virtue I lack.  Right now, I wish the entire adoption process was already completed, so that we could focus on our real tasks of loving on and healing the kids.

It pains me that I spent an afternoon requesting marriage certificates for the sixth time.  The county clerk knows me by name now, and it hasn't actually affected our forward progress, but there are so many things I would rather be doing. My doctor's practice manager is balking at filling out my medical form and providing licensing information.  I am trying to stay calm while I explain what I need and why I need it, and what will happen to the paperwork when I receive it.  Inside I am screaming, "Can't you see the urgency of this? Stop worrying about the petty medical filing bureaucracy for two minutes, and sign the paper. It is the same thing you filled out for the state!"

I am counting to ten.  I am breathing deeply.  I am praying.  Would you like another confession? I don't pray nice, flowery prayers that you could read aloud in church.  My prayers are usually things I mutter under my breath like "Dear God, please let there be a matching pair of shoes under this bed," or "Please don't transfer me to voicemail, for the love of Jesus."

I am also checking my email ten times an hour. Not a day. An hour. (Yet it never fails that I receive all of my emails when I am away from the house running errands. Why is that?)  I have heard this from other people in the adoption process, and I just thought they were exaggerating.  Nope. It has gotten to the point that I turn off the router when I am working in the kitchen so that I don't hit refresh every time I walk past the computer. It would be comical if I wasn't serious!

There are other things too. I look at pictures of the boys when they were younger.  I have photos of both of them from six years ago.  They were babies. They were just little babies, toddlers.  There are pictures of the adults from the same institution, and they were only little children.  You want to stop time, go back and change it. But you can't, of course. It is life, and those little babies are now teenagers.  The older children in the photos are now adults, and will never be given a chance to leave.  At least the ones who haven't turned 16 yet still have the hope of having a family, even if they don't realize it.

This whole process is filled with pain and anxiousness and worry and hope. And love.