The road for us

I am between two roads. One road will take us into the final adoption process with a daughter that we have been waiting for over 3 years for and love her tremendously. This road brings the emotional roller coaster of parenting that does not compare to any other life situation. I am scared, excited, full of hope, lots of faith and willing to give up any self interests for her adjustment and well being. We will be trusted with giving her a family and helping her feel loved.

The second road is one I have just accepted as a choice. It will be the road of moving on to more independence, letting go of the little boys as they adjust into adulthood. It will be giving up the hope for adoption of one that would need me. I shall bemore grateful for what I have and content on the way fate has lead me on this road. I will be more aggressive in my work and seek more opportunities.

So here I am. I have been here a while but finally able to understand where I am, how I got here, the emotions tied to this and the positives of each road. I am trusting my faith that my road will be clear within 2 months. We will not renew paperwork or continue to wait for a daughter. There are so many others in line behind us that if we are unable to be matched then it wasn't our fate. If we do get matched with in 2 months then I will trust that this was our destiny.
It is difficult to put a deadline to this process, but as a family we need to.

We will see

Just looking at the time since our LID. 3 years 11 months and one week. I wish I could say it has gone by fast...like how my oldest son is in 8th grade soon to be in HS. My youngest is in his last year of elementary school. Yes, that was fast. I am blessed to see them growing up and making more memories with them. The wait for this adoption, not much to show except receipts and paperwork.
We made the decision this month to put our name on the Waiting Child list. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a list that comes out once a month from Ch*na of children with special needs. Maybe the right child is on there for our family, we will see. All we can do is wait....

Just stopping in...

I counted it out from RQ's latest projections from the lowest and slowest category of referral projection time. I actually counted 15 months with a LID of 9/29/06. It kind of shocked me. That was suppose to be the original time frame not the 3-4year emotional struggle we have been in. I used the idea that it takes 4 months to complete a month of LIDs. I guess that might be too optimistic.
15 months...seems so close.(if the glass is half full)
15 months...I wish it was now....

Round 3 of paperwork

Our paperwork for the US gov is off again with another check! Our paperwork is good each time for 18 months. Obviously, when we started this, 18 months was the wait time. Three times we are filing out the same forms- changing very little only our ages!
I was hesitating this time around b/c I am not bringing in a salary right now. I had already started the homestudy re-write in June, so some money was already spent. I guess I had to continue and hope for the best.
Once we get our paperwork update - it will be good for another 18 months. Then we will be grandfathered (no, not grandparents YET) and ask for another free extension for another 18 months. After that, it will be really hard to renew again.
We can't help that our original adoption family plan has changed and we will be 3 years older at that point.