Pregnant

Earlier this morning, I was reading some blogs of other families who have either started, are in process, or already have brought their child home.  It got me to thinking that this whole process is like being pregnant.  It typically takes 9 months to prepare for a newborn baby that you love unconditionally.  Going through the process of adopting, I have realized we are paper pregnant!  It takes us time to gather all the paperwork together, to get our homestudy approved.  After that, our homestudy goes to the USCIS along with an application to basically ask for permission for us to adopt internationally.  Once we get that permission, we then compile and send a packet of formal documents which is a dossier on to our adoption agency, who then will send it on to a country in Eastern Europe.  They will translate our dossier, and when approved will let us know.  We would then travel within few weeks to go meet our little boy.  Once there, we will have to sign papers stating that we are committed to adopting him and will not back out.  We will be there for a week and then fly back home.  While we are home waiting for a few months, that is when the country we are adopting from will finish up doing the rest of the paperwork that we will need to sign when we go back to pick up Andrei to bring him home.  All this could take 9 months, very similar to a pregnancy.  We will love our little boy unconditionally, and look forward to bringing him home!

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist in its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7