September 18, 2015

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and worried about the final bits of our adoption process. I am ecstatic to travel to get Priscilla and can't wait to have her in my arms and bring her home to our family. It is the steps between today and that beautiful moment, as well as the steps after, that are causing me to lose sleep and keep my stomach in knots.

In my heart I know that this is God's story and I am immensely blessed to be a part of it. I know that He has lead us through every single step and it has been beautiful. His timing and lead have been amazing and humbling. My type-A, organized planner of a brain can't handle it though.

I have been reading as many adoption blogs I can get my eyes on lately. In particular scouring for people who have written the steps and approvals with dates, so I can get a general idea of a timeline. When Mitchell last talked to Lisa, she thought we would be traveling to China in early November. We have yet to make a deadline they have suggested, so I assumed we would travel toward the end of October. I called USCIS on Wednesday night to see if they had an update on our paperwork. It had been received at the Lockbox facility in Texas on September 10 and then was sent to our specific agent assigned to us in Missouri. The approval usually takes 10-14 days, but I thought there was a chance they had an update. Nope. That is OK, it was still too early to freak out...or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Mitchell has a crazy busy Fall approaching with lots of travel and new responsibilities. In a perfect world he wouldn't take on any extra burdens right now. When work gets like this I take on more of the responsibilities at home and try to minimize any added stress. Well...this year that isn't possible. I need him to fly to China with me for a minimum of 14 days, pick up a little girl that we are completely in love with, but will be terrified of us and then fly to the US immediately to get her US passport (in Chicago) and have her health tests with Dr. L. and Dr. M. (in Des Moines). After all of that is complete we will fly back to Spain and FINALLY introduce her to our kiddos. That in itself makes me want to panic, but add on being away from Henry, Adeline and Truman for all of that time, all of Mitchell's responsibilities at work and the fact that I have to book all this crazy travel only 2 weeks before we leave, I start to lose sleep.

I have also been stressing a little about the money. Adoptions are expensive. Start to finish ours will cost around $40,000. We have been very blessed that living abroad has helped us save some money (put aside to help build the farm) while living abroad. We have been able to use that money to pay for the adoption costs so far, but we are coming upon a huge payment in the next two months and its a little scary. Our next big payment is $18,000, the biggest one we've had so far.

I want to be able to give all of these concerns, fears and frustrations to God. To have Him get me through all of this. Dear friends, please pray for me. I absolutely can't do this on my own and need God to be my strength. I want to be able to TRUST God on this journey and lean not on my own understanding. I know that He is working on all of this already and His plan is far better than anything I can conceive. He hasn't left us so far and He won't do it now.