Standing Still

The past couple of weeks have been extremely difficult. We have been waiting for weeks to receive our immigration approval. We were told to expect three to four weeks. After four weeks we received in the mail an envelope from USCIS. Unfortunately the paper was pink, which immediately caused me to worry. The letter informed us that they could not process our immigration at that time because one of our papers was unsigned.

I had built up in my mind that we could potentially be traveling in April. As soon as I received that letter I knew there wouldn't be a way (barring a miracle) that the rest of our paperwork would come together for an April trip to China.

We signed the paper and sent it back to immigration and are STILL waiting to hear back from them (they received it a full week ago). We have filed for our visas and should hear back from them in a week or two.

Right now I feel as if we are standing still. There are no other documents that we can file until we hear back from immigration, and now I have no idea how long that will be.

I hesitated even to say anything publicly for multiple reasons. First, I feel like I let myself down; I let my family down, I let Ruth down, and I let everyone who financially contributed to our adoption down. And second, I felt very guilty. It was my responsibility to make sure all the papers were in order and all signed in the proper places. But I missed one and because of my mistake it will delay our travel.

I have been very grateful for the women in my Bible study and my best friend for helping me through this. I started feeling rather depressed. While I'm generally an optimistic person I was having a hard time pulling through this dip in the road.

Thinking from a place of emotion is not the most healthy way to make decisions. I released the timing of the adoption back to God. You see, I realized that I had depended on God the entire way through the adoption. And all of a sudden I was taking everything into my own hands and almost telling God, "It's okay. I've got this now. I don't need your help." Ha! Actually, I do need Him. Very much so.

It was quite easy to come up with a lot of reasons why a May travel date would actually work better for our family. My main hold up was quite simply that I miss my baby. We are blessed to have a steady stream of photos and videos of her in addition to weekly FaceTime. I feel so connected to her already that in my mind, any possible way I could rush ahead and get her in my arms is best.

Here are a few reasons I came up with to remind me of why May is better.
1. Our older girls will be finished with the school year. *which really is HUGE* It means I don't have any more teaching to do with them until the fall and we can all just focus on helping Ruthie adjust and take her to medical appointments and prepare her for surgery.
2. There's a very good chance my niece will be able to stay with the girls the full two weeks instead of having them flip flop houses every few days.
3. We won't miss Abbey's birthday (but we WILL miss Ruth's birthday in April)
4. The weather should be lovely for traveling

I know in my head that everything will work out and it will be wonderful. That's hard to tell my Mama-heart. If you think of it, would you pray for us? Pray that the remainder of the paperwork will come together and we can trust that all these pieces will come together.

Xoxo,
Mama Hess