Due Dates 

 

With pregnancy there is a clear start and a clear finish.  The due dates stands as the end point. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  You know that even if you go past that day (for instance by 10 days like Gavin did) that it won't be too long.  You know!  When you walk around people can see you growing and they know your time will come.  Friends, family and even perfect strangers can share in your joy and your excitement. They can all take notice and make comments on your progress, however inappropriate those comments might be.  Like the time I was told I must be due any day and I was only 7 months pregnant.  The point is there is a clear finish line.  With an adoption there just isn't. You can't say for your sure whether you will be holding that baby in your arms in January or June. You can't make plans for taking the baby to this thing or that thing because you just don't know when you will have the baby in your arms.  No one else can tell you either. No one knows you are "expecting," unless you tell them and everyone wants to know when. They can't mark your progress by the changes in your body or the changing of the season.  No one but God knows.  So you wait. You fill out your papers, meet with a social worker, notarize things, meet with a social worker, mail things and wait. 

We got an email from our agency the other day saying that our wait will be longer.  Things in Uganda have slowed down for a great many reasons.  I don't do well with processes. I like starts and I LOVE finishes. I don't like the middle. The ups the downs the not knowing. It isn't that I want to take a baby home tomorrow. Oh NO! I mean Owen is still 1 for goodness sake.  I just hate not knowing. I hate not being able to plan things.  Right down to how we spend our money. Will we need that soon to spend on the adoption. Can we go on a vacation? Will we need to save Mike's time off?  I don't know!

The intense excitement and love I feel is building for this child whose face I won't recognize, whose name I don't know and whose world I have never seen. Those are days I want a due date. A light at the end of our tunnel. I can't imagine how the orphans feel. Does God have a family somewhere across the world waiting? Many of them don't. Of the 2.3 Million Orphans in Uganda only 69 of them went to forever families last year.  My heart breaks for the orphans. 

Please remember to pray for the Orphans!