Weaving Families - Forever Families Friday: Managing the Wait

I/we managed (or are currently managing) The Wait by.............


Oh, I am a horrible, horrible waiter. We were blessed to have a relatively smooth process, but even so, the wait was extremely difficult for me.

Once we got Tommy's referral, I lost it. I could not wait to get to Guatemala to see him, so we visited when he was a month old. Leaving him ripped my heart out, but thanks to a friend we made on the trip, Bobbi (who is now a big part of
AAB), I was able to remember her words often and tried to believe them. "It will end eventually. One day, you'll bring your son home, too." (They were there picking up Reese and had just left their Embassy appointment when she found us in the lobby waiting to give Tommy back to his foster mom.)

When we got home, I was in a low place. Support came from everywhere...our family and friends, but the biggest support came from people that had gone through the process before because it gave us the slightest hope that it would end with our child coming home. Right after we got back from our first visit, Rebecca added a poem that helped them through their first 2 adoptions to one of my favorite pictures of Tommy. You can see the poem on her blog. I framed it that day and put it on my bedside table. Many times, that prayer was the only reason I was able to sleep.

We visited again before I finally just couldn't take it any longer, so I packed my bags and moved to Guatemala for a couple of months to wait out the rest of the process with our son.

Throughout it all, I cried, I whined, I had severe panic attacks, I checked for new emails a hundred times a day, I paced, I rarely slept, but mostly....I prayed. God was the only thing that could pull me out of a panic attack when I was convinced that I would die because I could not breathe. He was the only way I was able to crawl out of bed in the mornings, even after many nights that I never closed me eyes for sleep. I walked around like a zombie sometimes, not sure where to go or what to do. I blogged and kept a journal. I read every adoption book and book about Guatemala that I could get my hands on. I shopped for baby stuff and packed ziplocs full of stuff to send to Tommy through other parents that were traveling to Guatemala. We collected items for an organization working in Guatemala and brought those things each time we visited. I tried to do whatever I could to take my mind off of the process, but it didn't always work. I didn't always believe that the process would end, but soon after those thoughts crossed my mind He would always give me a moment of knowing that every thing would be OK and in the end, it was.


(after our Embassy appointment in Guatemala....the day we were afraid would never come)