4 months (well 23 years and 4 months)

Today if you check the counter at the bottom of the page is 120 days that we've had our paperwork in E Country and that we've been waiting for a referral. We had a close call in late January/early February where the agency thought they might have something for us, but then were unable to move forward because of lacking documentation from what I have gleened. Yesterday I posted about being encouraged to broaden our request and then today I was told that it was best to just hold on with our request the way it is. It's hard to know how to handle things, especially because we're not dealing directly with the in-country coordinator who's working on locating children at various government orphanages for referral to waiting families. I asked in the end that our caseworker here in the States communiciate to the in - country coordinator our willingness to be flexible if he finds a situation that is somewhat different than our request.

We can wait; it makes me nervous, but it's okay. Some people have suggested that the wait hasn't been that long - Gigs and I have been at this for less than 2 full years at this point and our dossier has been in E Country for 4 months, that's not long. But I haven't been a mommy for 23 years come the 16th of March and having had the experience of that mother-child relationship, I know that I don't want to go the rest of my life without it. I've said it before, but... I've travelled the world, I've joined the Peace Corps, I've jumped out of airplanes, I've started businesses, I've been on mission trips, I've had the freedom and the resources to do pretty much anything I've wanted to do for almost a quarter of a century. Nothing has compared to that 5 years of my life when I was a mom. I thank God for every moment of that experience and pray that He hasn't put this desire in my heart for naught.

For a reminder and some comfort, I revisit one of my favorite scriptures:

Romans 8:25-27 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.