If by some small chance you hadn't caught our facebook updates:
We were issued our travel dates and will be in country in less than ten days.
After an entire year has passed since committing to The Child, it is strange to finally be taking this step.
After our home study, after our dossier, The Child's country completely fell apart this last spring. We should have traveled to meet him sometime in June, and when that timeline was tossed out the window, well.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit it but our little family sort of fell off the face of the earth. As much as everyone will say, "Oh, utilize your support system! Be active in your church family! Maintain friendships! Return calls! Bathe! Everyday!"
Sometimes that just isn't going to happen. It's all good advice, yes, but it didn't happen.
We haven't been to church in months. It isn't anything our church family has done. It's just me. I'm emotionally incapable of handling social situations right now. Since our initial time life fell apart, I fell apart with it. I haven't been utilizing my support system. I haven't been active in our church family. I haven't been maintaining friendships (sorry, guys. I do love you!). I haven't been returning phone calls and, No, I haven't been bathing every day.
Every day where we have been in limbo about The Child and the adoption, I've felt like I was in limbo within my own life.
It's been a form of depression where I've wrapped myself around my children and locked us up in our little house. I can't control The Child's country. I can control my living room. I can't control the in country agency. I can control my bed. I can't control the orphanage. I can control what I cook for dinner.
This isn't good and it might not be typical but it's been how I've been able to deal with the unknowns that have come up through our own adoption experience. I've wrapped up in my blanket of things that comfort me and make me feel safe and I've hidden away from everything else.
Not healthy?Possibly, but it's the healthiest way I could have handled this for myself.
Now, here we are, looking at boarding a plane and meeting our son in less than two weeks and I'm wrapping that blanket tighter.
I'm terrified of the travel, truth be told. I'm scared of being in a foreign country where I don't understand the language and I don't know anyone (except my husband, We are traveling together and that's honestly the only reason I'm not having a complete come apart right now.). I'm weirded out about eating foods that I don't know what might be in them. I'm scared to death about meeting The Child. What if he runs from us and screams? What if he's indifferent? And Oh, My God, what if he just runs up to me and hugs me and I don't feel that rush of love right off? What if, what if, what if? So I wrap myself tighter, pull my children I have at home into my lap and whisper to them how much I love them and I'm sorry I'm going to be gone for 11 days.
Nearly six months of adoption waiting depression followed by some absolute pure panic.
And I feel all these things appreciating that The Child is going to be absolutely THIS terrified when we go to bring him home. He is probably going to shell up and withdraw. He is going to be scared of new foods, and not knowing anyone, and this new place, and his brother and sister. He's going to be terrified being here and not understanding what anyone is saying. And the only people he WILL know is Me and his Dad and he'll need to share us with Magda and Mordecai.
How I'm feeling right now? This pit in my stomach, this ultimately unnecessary and really childish fear? That's exactly how he's going to be feeling.
So when our little family holes up and wraps tight again, when we don't utilize our support system, when we aren't active in our church family, when we're not maintaining friendships or returning phone calls and Yes, when we aren't all getting a bath every single day:
please forgive us?
please try and understand that while this is such a blessing in our lives
while we ARE excited and grateful and blessed beyond belief
We are also a little terrified.
A little lost.
And probably a lot sleep deprived.
But we will reach a healthy state at some point, and we will break from our hibernation, a fresh new family.
I love you all and we are so thankful for the unending support and kindness of everyone following our journey. We will be coming home with pictures and videos and enough stories to fill a blank copy of Les Miserables and I hope to share just as much as we can with everyone who wants to know (and possibly anyone who just might be standing in line by me at the store). You'll all be so tired of hearing about The Child by the time November rolls around. I promise.
After this visit, we will wait for court, where the adoption itself officially takes place. IF the adoption is granted, we will be invited back for another week long stay to pick up The Child and bring him home with us. That trip might possibly happen in February of 2014. If it does, we will have him home just before his 5th birthday.
So far, that's what we know. That's where we are.
Ten days till travel.
12 days till we meet him.
Take a deep breath.
This is really happening.
