Cliffhanger Still Unanswered

I know I left everyone with a cliffhanger on the last post and I was hoping that by now I would have pulled everyone up off the cliff, with a direction we are headed, BUT we are still waiting. Waiting for an additional referral or waiting for N's paperwork to get signed. I will say that his file has actually been looked at, documents have been gathered, delivered, and probably ironed, pressed, decorated, bedazzled and anything else that would help it get signed, but they JUST WON'T SIGN IT! It naturally doesn't make any sense to us, whatsoever. It defies any logic. It is truly unexplainable. If there is a word for being way way way way way frustrating - then that is also what it is.

Five and half months and still no signature. The beautiful part of that is that God has probably heard the name of our child thousands of times by now. And if you could just see him, you would know that God has heard our prayers. I know you have heard me say it before, but he literally has the most beautiful smile. If you could just see his little video, you would know that there is just something special about this little guy.

We have been through the ringer in the past 5 months. Sure, we were given a referral that wasn't quite ready. We have spent extra money flying over there. We have cried so many tears. We have been angry. We have grown tired. We. . . . We . . . . We . . . . . However, WE are not the real sufferers in this scenario. It's funny how what one person can say, can change your perspective entirely. Someone on our agency facebook page wrote one time that we have to remember that it's the kids in ET that are really suffering, or something like that. OF COURSE, I've thought that, but something about the way she so simply stated it, just changed my outlook. We are not the ones that don't have enough to eat. We are not the ones that do not have a mom and dad. We are not the ones that are going to lose two more sets of caregivers by the time they get to America. We are not the ones that lie in a little box all day. We are not the ones that have four toys to play with. We are not the ones that rarely go outside.

I've expressed in way earlier posts about my fear of how all of this time in the orphanage will affect N's life, my family's lives and ultimately my life. How would everything have played out if we had not gotten a referral when we did? We would definitely still be waiting for a referral and our referral would still likely have come from this same orphanage . . . only much later. Our referral would probably read that our child went into the orphanage at 10 days old and now they are a year old. I know that I would look at that and think of the statistics. I would be thinking that I would want a child that has been in the orphanage for 4 and a half days, is the healthiest baby that they have ever laid eyes on and has remarkably come with a guarantee that this child will fit perfectly into any family. I seriously might not be too excited about taking a referral of a child that has been in an orphanage that long. TERRIBLE - I KNOW. I'm just saying, I know how selfishly I think and I know that is what I would be thinking. But when we got that picture of N, he became our child. When Dave met him in person, he really really became our child. Now, even if it took 5 years to get him, we still would. We will celebrate N's arrival here, even though we know he will be bringing with him some challenges that he might not otherwise have, if he were allowed to leave the orphanage when he was supposed to.

I don't totally know my point, but I have just been thinking about that lately. Could I possibly actually be thankful for this time? Maybe just a little tiny eensie weensie bit. I hurt every day for N, but I think I might just love him so much more because of this time.