Ya’ll.

Seriously.

Adoption is hard. HARD. DIFFICULT. FRUSTRATING. Makes you want to pull your hair out. Makes you want to cry all the time. Is always always always on your mind.

Here’s some updates on our two concurrent adoptions.

This process has all but slowed to a slow drip. The state offices that deal with adoption have become severely understaffed. To be honest, we sent our paperwork over there in February and we’ve been given no indication that it’s even been looked at. It’s probably sitting in a stack, still in it’s battered envelope unopened. Word on the street is that the timeline is about 18 months after you’ve been matched with a child (seen their face, signed paperwork committing to them). Ya’ll, we don’t even know when the matching will happen. We’re hoping by the end of this year, but I think that’s overly-optimistic. If you’re doing your math, that means we’re crossing our fingers that she would be home in 2015.

We went to a foster care orientation at the beginning of June. We had 33 hours of trainings, a health inspection, a fire inspection, and all our paperwork in to our agency by mid-July. I just read a website that predicting it would take normal families about 9 months to get licensed for adoption out of CPS. We did it in six weeks. Yes, that’s how crazy serious we are about this adoption. The only thing that we lack is a home study.

While we were in Colorado, we got an email saying that our agency was putting all straight adoption families on hold because they’re giving priority to foster only families. At a meeting today, they told us that it will “at least be two more months” before we can get a home study.

I know, especially compared to our Thai adoption, that two months is nothing but….on the flip side of that coin, that means that I’m two additional months further from having my son in my arms.

We’ve been in an adoption mindset for over a year and we’re no closer to knowing anything about the future of our family. Adoption removes all control from the adoptive parents. We are literally at the mercy of systems, agencies, people who know nothing about us. Sometimes I want my children with me so badly that I can taste it. We’re collecting toys, painting walls, getting school supplies together and we’re doing it without knowing when or who is going to join our family.

The sad truth is that it feels like we’re stumbling towards what God wants has asked us to do and we can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, we don’t even know if there is a light.

I know that God is using this as an opportunity to refine us and learn to trust Him more

…but the hard truth is that I’m feeling beaten down today.

Please pray for us.