The Waiting Game

       I’m not really sure how this whole “waiting for a baby” thing works, so I’m not sure if we’re doing it right or not. We’ve looked for books to tell us what we should be doing during this time, but unfortunately Books-a-million didn’t have anything called “What to Expect when You’re Expecting Someone Else to be Expecting.” Our house has generally divided into 2 distinct strategies. The first one, which has been adopted by me and the dogs, is to wait semi-patiently until there’s some progress. The second approach has been to freak out about everything and find work that, for some reason, has to be done immediately, even though our baby is, at best, several months away. I won’t tell you who has taken this approach, but I will tell you that it’s someone I’m related to by marriage and leave it at that.

     Last week we were able to get rid of the yard sale stuff that filled our spare bedroom for the last several weeks. This is the room that will eventually be our child’s room, so now that it was empty, that meant that it needed to be painted right away. If you understand that logic, you’re firmly siding with Team Ashley. (However, if you thought, “What’s the hurry? There’s plenty of time to paint,” then I welcome you to the good team.) It’s no big deal though. I mean, the room was empty, so why not go ahead and get that done while we had time. I get that. It makes a lot of sense actually. Plus, it’s not like we had anything else to do. And that’s the problem that keeps coming back at us; we have nothing else to do.

      For all the adoption books we’ve read, and all the research we’ve done, none of them really give you much advice on how to survive the wait. There’s a ton of advice on how to pick an agency, domestic vs. international, and home studies, but none of them tell you much about what the wait is going to be like. Some mention it and that it’s hard, but that’s about as far as it goes. But we’ve been “paper pregnant” for almost 10 months now, and for the vast majority of that time, the question has always been, “What’s next?” First it was researching and choosing an agency. Then it was the information gathering for the application process. After that was the home study and the profile book. There was always something to work on, until now. It’s kind of a weird feeling.

     So now we’re here, just looking toward a light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t know how long that tunnel is, or how long that light will take to get here, but at least we’ve made it this far. Until we get to the end though, we’ll be finding ways to stay busy to keep our minds off the wait. Whether it’s buying things for our child, or painting his/her room, we’re trying to put any nervous energy to good use. This kid had better hurry though. If not, we’ll end up with a house full of baby items and every room in the house is getting painted.

 

 

P.S.- Just to let everyone know, we’re planning on having another fundraiser dinner this winter and are hoping to include a silent auction. If anyone has anything they would like to donate for the auction, or would be interested in volunteering at the dinner, please let one of us know. We'll have more details on here as we begin to get our plans finalized for this event. Thanks again to all of you for all the support and encouragement you continue to give us.