Willing the call to come sooner

If only there was something we could do.

Maybe finishing this will make the call come sooner.

You know we probably need to fix that before we will get the call.

I bet if we just do this we will get the call

These and many more are the absurd things that have been going through our heads lately. Pretty much the equivalent of a small child saying “Mommy I am sure that if I stand on my head for at least 5 minutes Santa will come in July instead of December.” Or maybe it is like the crazy show we watched about OCD, where a woman was convinced that if she did not park her car correctly her mom might die sooner. It all sounds certifiably insane, right? But we can tell you, we understand those people a lot better in the past few weeks. We relate to them as we say things like; “maybe when we finish the closet build out we will get the call.” Or when we do things like stay up until 3 in morning hand quilting a blanket because it needs to be done or we won’t get the call. We do this because in our mind it surely cannot be all the changes in the Ethiopian government or just bad timing that is holding up that call. Because we can’t control those things, we can't make them any different, so they must not be the reason we haven’t got the call.

Clearly we can all see the reason the call has not come is because we have forgotten to do something. I mean it is all clear to you right? No you say, that is crazy; it is just that God’s timing is different from ours. Oh, there was no way you could anticipate the orphanage shut downs. You know African nations have notoriously dysfunctional systems. You tell us, can’t you see there is nothing more you can do? Had you told us this in say, January, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. But now we are almost 16 months into this process and our level of desire and desperation have increased exponentially.

This watercolor that Mandy painted hangs

in what will be the baby's room.

It is both a joy and a pain to see each day as we

remember the baby we are waiting for

and the great sacrifice his mother

will make for us.

So let’s just get it out there, the reason we are going crazy with these thoughts, is plain and simple. We never planned to wait this long. If things had progressed the way they were when we started, we would have the baby home by now! So there it is, we are freaking out with crazy ideas because our minds were not prepared for this kind of wait. We hit our wall, we have done everything that can be done for our agency, we have made t-shirts, we have started a blog, we have made a blanket and a closet, we have planned out his curtains, we have taken our adoption classes, we have written in our “journey” journal, we have researched cribs, for goodness sake we cleaned our blinds, baseboards, windows and, carpets, and we have prayed everyday for 16 months! What else can we do to make that call come sooner?

Well, we all know the answer to that… NOTHING! There is nothing we can do or say, no person we can call, no question we haven’t asked and re-asked. There is nothing we can do but wait. And to be quite honest, that waiting is killing us both. For the first and probably only time in our life we dread the weekends, because there is no chance of a call. We both cling to the very limited and nondescript e-mails that go out every so often. We check our yahoo group to see if anyone else has news we missed. But mostly, as said before, we try to distract ourselves with anything and everything.

But we are sick of distractions! We don’t want to read another book, or watch another movie, or follow another blog, or plan more things for his room. We want a name, we want a picture, we want an age, we want a travel date, we want a hug, we want a snuggle, we want a smile, we want a kiss, we want our baby to be the only distraction in our life!