This isn't our first rodeo. We have had many chances in our life's journey to build our family that have taught us how to wait, to develop patience and faith...and times when it was prudent to follow up, fight for things, ask for help (divine or otherwise) to get things moving.
We have known the rollercoaster of adoption, the waiting and wondering. The thrill of hope and sadness at it not being right. We've felt the simultaneous heartbreak of our hearts and another young woman's heart also when things didn't go as planned with the placement of her child in our family. We experienced the vulnerable abandon of caution as we joyfully welcomed our little unborn Noah into our hearts while we waited for him to join our family...to again have that fall through (the indescribably heartbreak that accompanied that)...and then to have his mother change her mind again a week later and go through with her plan to place him with us (and the elation, humility and joy that accompanied that).
We have endured many years of aggressive fertility treatments, fought through fears and heartbreak there, waited and trusted, advocated for a surgical procedure that our doctor didn't do often since we felt it was our best shot...accepted negative test after negative test...endured injection after injection, complication after complication. When pregnancies finally happened we lost twins, we managed an HG pregnancy...and experienced the joy of bringing a child into the world (twice) - which only broke our hearts more for Noah's first mother and the difficult decision she made.
We officially began the journey for this adoption nearly 6 1/2 years ago. We advocated for ourselves when there were roadblocks right in the beginning, we struggled to finance things especially at first, we obsessed over paperwork and updates and worries about the program we felt led to...until that door was closed and we were clearly led to an adoption worker at our current agency with the Haiti program. Since that time it's been updating paperwork, praying, trusting (both our agency, God, and our own intuition with changes we felt led to make over the years). Many times the only thing we could do was trust the agency we felt led to, and ultimately God who we trust orchestrates things of this magnitude of importance. Other times there have been things we have really felt impressed to push and follow up on. That right there has been one of the biggest challenges for me lately.
This may not be our first rodeo. We may have collectively many, many years of experience when it comes to adding children to our family by fertility treatments and adoption...sometimes we need to act and push for things, and other times we need to wait patiently and trust in the Lord.
So while this may not be our first rodeo, the trick I am finding is that I have to remember that the rules seem to be a bit different from rodeo to rodeo. And, ironically, things play out different from person to person that signed up for the same rodeo.
Right now I am struggling with how much I am missing our girls. We know there is a long road ahead of us to be able to bring them home with us, and I am always anxious to do anything I can to advocate for them and for our file...but mostly there isn't much I can do, but wait and pray. The times I've needed to push, and advocate I certainly have. Yesterday was one of those times...
I received an email from our adoption coordinator saying that she felt that I should email the embassy in Haiti to see what is taking so long to schedule our preliminary visa appointment for the girls. We had a lot of delays getting our preliminary I800 approval from immigration, but we received that last month and normally the preliminary visa appointment is issued within days of that happening, but nothing has happened.
So! I sent the email to them and they responded this morning that they are still waiting for the actual transfer of our daughters' cases from USCIS, and that once they receive that they could issue the visa appointment within one or two days of receiving it. Say what? Why hasn't it been received? I didn't even know that was something that I should be following up on! I guess I will call USCIS today and see why that hasn't been sent over.
This is exactly the struggle I'm talking about...when I try to be patient and trusting and then find out that there is something I could have been DOING to move this process along. We're more than 1/3 year out since receiving the referral for these girls and no closer to bringing them home that we were then except our I800 approval which should have been done LONG before it was. It just feels so discouraging. I just want that dang visa appointment so we can exit IBESR and get this show on the road with the courts! With the tense climate in Haiti it seems more like a matter of when (not if) another huge shut down will happen and I want progress to be made on our file when it can be, so I can be patient when progress can't be made.
I sure hope we get this visa appointment soon so we can exit IBESR. I would love to see that happen before I go visit our girls next month. Let's get these files to the courts so we can make these girls legally ours!
So yeah...this ain't our first rodeo, but the rules are still unclear and things still feel pretty rough in here.
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