One Day At Time Little One...

Today is embassy day. I have been feeling a wide range of emotions:

Excitement,
concern,
grief,
joy.

As each day gets closer to traveling, I am understanding more about the losses my little daughter has faced, and know more is to come when I pick her up.

She has already been through so much. She has lost home and family, and now she is about to loose her country, and the familiar surroundings of the orphanage and the workers whose faces she knows. Whose language she speaks.

This isn't a post of regret but a post about acknowledging the pain and hardship my daughter has gone through and will continue to go through until she begins to trust in her tomorrows with her new family.
My arrival most likely will bring more pain, more hardship for her. For awhile anyway and that grieves this mothers heart.

Adoption is a good thing. For families, for children. But it's a hard thing too, because it stems from loss.

My hope and prayer is that my family, myself and my God will be a healing salve to her broken heart and life. My hope and prayer is that I will be the momma she needs and deserves and we will keep her connected to the culture she came from while at the same time giving her a new country to grow up in. I don't want to take any more from this sweet child. I only want to add to her life. The Congo will always be a part of my daughters life and it will always be a part of this family's future.

God,
Thank you for this new child of mine. Be with her today as she sits and wonders about this appointment she goes to. An appointment that will change her life for ever. Use this day to usher in blessings from your heart to hers. Keep her for me. Prepare her heart for her new life. Give me the ability to understand her heart and needs. And allow me to be a gracious momma that will always care for her first mom, the one who gave her life. Help me to be a sweet blessing to her all the days of her life. Teach me how to teach her of your love and goodness. Change me so that she will know you through me.
Allow her to receive my love, our family's love. But most importantly your love. Help me to love her as you do.

Thank you God for Maida. Thank you for creating her and allowing me to share in her life.

Beth

Counting down to Embassy Date....

                                                               Embassy Date!


We are in the last stretch. The agonzing, terrifying, can't wait any longer stretch. Will this day be the day we hear all is right regarding Maida's final paperwork and we can go and meet our daughter and bring her home?

If they accept her paperwork, we could get her visa very soon after and travel by the end of the month. If they ask for more information... it could drag out for who knows how long. Not knowing which direction it will go until we get there is SO difficult.

Sometimes reading the blogs of others who are or have adopted from the DRC can add to my already anxious heart. There are examples of visa's being issued days after the embassy appointment and examples of visas not being issued after MONTHS of the embassy appointment.
Wondering what will our story be? When is she going to have a home and family?

One of the reasons (not ours), that people adopt from Congo is the short adoption process. Well that is true for some, but not for everyone; and irregardless of that, in my book six months is too long for any child not to have a family. A mother and father who know them and care about them and share in their day to day life.
Six months of Maida's life I know something about... that she has been without family. And that breaks my heart and I want that to end for her.

Every morning I wake up and acknowledge another business day is over in Kinshasa. Has the needed work been done today so that my daughter can have a family this month? A forever mom, dad, brother and sisters? I hope so. I'm praying so. Please pray with me....

Beth