Yes...but.

It has been almost four months since Imagine Adoption's bankruptcy...adding four months to our already-almost-19-month-long wait for a referral.  I am optimistic, and fairly confident, that our November 30th deadline will result in the continuation of our agency, which means that we can similarly be optimistic and confident about our own adoption process continuing.

That's great news...right???

This is the question I've been asking myself privately for a few weeks.  A 'yes-but' kind of answer. Sometimes recently, it has seemed as if the joy that I have had about the prospect of our adoption has become a bit forced, a bit conjured up.  It's as if I'm assuming that of course I'm happy about the prospect of adopting, without really paying attention to whether or not I really am happy about it.  I don't know if this makes sense.  Just acknowledging these feelings is hard, and harder still to write them down...it makes them somehow real, legitimate.

Where's this coming from?   I've wanted this adoption to happen for a very long time already - I thought about it as a teenager, talked with my husband about it before I would date him, planned for it when it later became clear that we would have fertility issues, and began to actualize on the dream about seven years ago. It's been a long time coming.

And yet...

This is what keeps going through my head when I have these doubts...

Assuming referrals start to happen early in the new year, we're in the top third of the wait list. In fact, I suspect that we're in the top 10% of the wait list.  So I'm guessing that we would probably have a referral by mid-year next year or earlier - I could be wrong, but that seems reasonable to me.  By that time, our son will be over six years old, and I will be close to 44 years old.  Our child request is for siblings born after March 2005; so our children by mid next year could be anywhere from 0-5 years of age.  What if we end up with twin one-year-olds?  At one time that would have been a welcome thought, but now it terrifies me; I've been through that stage before and it consumes a lot of energy...and a lot of diapers. Also, if they're very young children, I'd be concerned about the age difference between our Ethiopian-born children and Matthew - who would so dearly love to have siblings to play with.   On the other hand, what if they're five?  That thought scares me, too, because of the complex issues that they (and we) are more likely to have to deal with. Whether they're a year old or five years old, I know that we will love them and welcome them with open arms, but I am increasingly daunted by the prospect of either end of our age spectrum.

One other thought has occurred to me, which suggests a different source of my angst than what I've just described.  I wonder if I'm engaged in some kind of self protection mode here.  Despite my optimism about the November 30th deadline and about Imagine securing the critical number of families needed to proceed, I might be wrong.  The thought of going through another experience post-July 13th is - well, unthinkable.  Those days live as a few of the worst of my life and I don't want to go into those kinds of black days again.  I guess I'm wondering, given that fear, if I'm 'simply' fearful that our dreams may not be possible...thus leading me to question whether this is even something that I want. Does this make sense? I'm not sure.

Whatever the source of my questions and concerns, I keep reminding myself that as someone who believes God has a plan for my life, he is ultimately in control of what happens.  Not everyone will believe the same way as me, but it's what I believe.  When I was on route to the first creditors' meeting in Kitchener (that amazing meeting that I've posted about before), I very consciously prayed that, regardless of what I wanted, his will for our lives prevail - I handed over the issue to him to figure out and decided that I would accept whatever outcome he had in mind for us.  The overwhelming sense that permeated me at that moment, driving along Hwy 401 in my rental car, was that it was God who put into my heart the desire to adopt; this was accompanied by a strong feeling that things would be ok in the end.  When the creditors' meeting resulted in such an overwhelmingly positive outcome, I felt confirmed in my peacefulness about the ultimate outcome.  So when I'm anxious about all of this stuff, and even questioning my own feelings about it all, it is this recollection that brings me peace.  Somehow, I don't know how, it's gonna be ok.