Hope

It has been a year and eight months since I last posted about our adoption process.  As changes in the adoption process were implemented in Ethiopia, wait times became longer and longer.  Months would go by without any updates, no couples were getting referrals for children, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  For awhile, I pushed the whole thing out of my mind.  I am fortunate enough to have two biological daughters, who, as young toddlers, kept me very busy and focused on the chaos of daily life rather than anticipating the future.  But as they got older and I saw them develop and grow together as best friends, I started to wonder how our third child would fit into the dynamics of the family.  I panicked that if too much time transpired, there would be a huge age gap and our new child would be sort of a third wheel.  But our hands were tied - the age spread of our children would only be dictated by how quickly the Ethiopian government implemented the necessary changes to the adoption process and rolled out the new procedure.  As a result of the changes and new protocol, orphanages were closed and our agency was busy seeking relationships with new ones.  All of this takes time and patience.  Since I am one of the most impatient people in the world, I avoided thinking or writing about it.  When people asked how the process was going, I vaguely replied, "slowly" and changed the subject. 

Several months ago, we had to update our home study since it had expired.  When meeting with our social worker, I was forced to think about the future, the unknown length of time ahead, and whether our dream of adopting from Ethiopia would ever come to fruition.  She suggested exploring domestic adoption and I have to admit, we researched, but our hearts weren't in it.  We toyed with another biological child, but there was something urging us to stick it out even though it meant risking perhaps not having a third child if worse came to worse and the Ethiopian program closed and too much time had passed for us to really want to explore another route.

Once again, I pushed adoption thoughts from my mind.  But it was getting harder.  Every time I heard that song "Africa" by ToTo or "A Thousand Years" that's always on the radio, I would tear up.  Even watching my daughters bond and grow together was hard sometimes as my mind wandered and I pictured the third little one learning the ropes from them.  But somehow, even when time seems to stand still, days and weeks and months pass and at the beginning of the summer, I finally saw a glimmer of hope.  Referrals started coming through more regularly and updates held more promising news.  Our agency partnered with new orphanages in new regions and children were slowly but surely being released and matched with families. 

The summer is a busy time of year for an innkeeper on Cape Cod.  The last couple months flew by and before I knew it, we were creeping up that wait list, now seemingly nearing the top five or so.  That glimmer of hope I felt a few months back has become more than a glimmer.  It has morphed into certainty that our child is out there and soon we will hold his or her picture in our hands.  Every day, I feel closer and closer to that moment when the phone will ring and the voice on the other end will tell us the good news.  Until then, waking up each morning with hope, but more importantly faith that the thread linking our family to our new child is gradually becoming connected, keeps me going.