What's in a name?....Waiting for Godot.

I have searched on every Indian name meaning website and have yet to find a meaning for "Joshne" (pronounced Joe-shna). It really doesn't matter it's meaning because to me, it is incredibly beautiful. I wonder, did her mother name her? Was it a family name? The thought of "Joshne Jones" has a fabulous ring to it...but I am a little biased! It is hard to have no other information. As you can probably guess..."any day now!" When it comes and paperwork becomes official, I will quickly post a photo.

It feels like waiting for Godot. Will she ever come? Will I ever know this precious girl? Once we sign papers, we can send her a small care package. What do you put into what seems like a very miniature box to connect with your child? I want to put my heart and soul. I want for her to know us. I want her to feel comforted and safe, knowing there is a family waiting to bring her home. Does one small "snuggly" sufficiently communicate all of that? Do the other children know that when one child receives a package it means a family wants them? Do they then hurt and long to receive that small box of their own? If I stop to think about it all, it often seems overwhelming. So for now, I think of our child and what I will place lovingly in that box.

What to excpect when you're expecting....an adoption

I am going to write a book: What to Expect When You're Expecting...An Adoption. Basically, it will be summed up with one word--WAIT. You've heard it said before, "No news is good news." Well, in this case no news is very frustrating! We were supposed to have the case file on Joshne at the end of last week or the beginning of this week. It is now the end of this week, and there is still no reply to the messages I have left. Whew...okay, now that I have been able to vent, I feel much better. I am really not upset with the social workers because it is out of their control. I am just anxious to hear any little bit of news about our daughter! I will definitely post something when I hear. Until then....

To tell...or not to tell?

We have been through it before....the excitement of a referral of a child from India. In the excitement of it all, I printed a picture immediately and began thinking of that precious little girl as ours--even if we had not "officially" given the go ahead to proceed in adopting that specific child. Little did I know what was in store for us with my Dad's stroke. I had no idea it was not the right time to adopt, nor was it the child that was meant to join our family. When I did figure that out, it was devastating. Many people had become excited for us. I had to break the news that it was not meant to be. When I receive news this time, I am determined to be much, much more cautious! Not only do I not want to tell anyone right away, I don't want to even tell myself--just in case.

We received some news a couple of days ago from our social worker. While, yes, it was news, I did not quite know what to make of it. Our social worker said there has been a delay due to the orphanage's director's social worker's daughter's wedding (whew!). All of this meant there have been no referrals officially sent to any prospective parents, even if they were waiting to hear "any day now." I called our social worker to find out more details, and received an email from her using the name of this girl. This was the first time I had actually seen her name. It was a very casual use of her name by our social worker--as if I had always known it--but to me it meant the world! I was trying to stay calm...as calm as an expectant mother can be! There were still so many questions I had. Was this girl a referral for us? When would it be official? Could I be excited? I called our social worker and bombarded her with questions, the first of which was, "Is it time that I can become 'officially excited'?" She laughed and said, "Yes. You can now become 'officially excited'."

Here were some of the other questions I asked, along with the answers:

• Is this child going to be referred to our family?....Yes, the paperwork has been sent from India to Journeys of the Heart (JOH). When it reaches there it will be scanned and emailed to our social worker to be reviewed, then emailed to us. This will happen either late this week or early next week.
• From what has been previously mentioned to us, they (JOH) have been considering this child for us for quite some time to make sure it will be a good match for all of us. With this said, does this mean that our family will most likely be saying yes when we receive this referral?.....While the social worker could not answer directly, she was able to indicate that they currently find no medical issues that would be of concern to us at this time. There is some developmental delay, as with most children raised in an orphanage, but we are as prepared as we can be for that.
• If we say yes to adopting this child, what is the time frame of events to follow?....We would send our paperwork to JOH in Oregon. They then send it on to the orphanage in Chennai (at that point in time it may be approximately three weeks). From there it goes to CARA (the central agency in India which approves all adoptions). Thankfully, they are open during monsoon season. It takes them anywhere from one to three months (or more) to give approval for us to adopt this child. Once we have approval from CARA we can get lined up in the courts. The courts do close during monsoon season, but we are hopeful that we will receive approval from CARA right about the time in September when courts reopen. The difficult part is that everyone, even non-adoption cases, all try to get in the court system at the same time. India also has quite a few national holidays during the months of September, October, and November. If all goes well, we could theoretically be traveling to bring home our child in December. (Side note: when I told Ellie this news, she replied, "That would be the BEST Christmas present EVER!")

So what am I to do with all of my feelings? Do I try to stay on the conservative side and guard myself so that no one will know if this referral does not work out, or do I jump for joy at the thought of our daughter--even if it means potentially going through another loss? I have spoken with my sister, and she got on my case to update the blog (even though I have no "official" news). After weighing the options, here is what I determined: if this possibility for adoption does not work out, it will lead us to the child meant for our family. If this adoption does work out, I want our daughter to be able to know how much we all love her and desired to hear about her right away. So here goes....

Her name is Joshne! She is a year and a half old. This is all we know, yet it is enough to know that I already have a deep love for her. I long to hold her in my arms and tell her she is a treasure. She is not alone. She is protected. She is ours! I long to know her story. I long to know her birth family and her heritage. I am heartbroken to know that in her short life she has already experienced loss. I want to thank her birth parents for their sacrifices for her. I want them to know, if they are still living, that this sweet precious child will be lovingly raised and cared for. They will always remain a part of our family's story. It is part of who we are. So in the meantime, I must be patient again and wait. But this time is different. This time I am waiting with a small piece of the puzzle that will be complete at the end of the story many years from now. Right now I will savor this piece and enjoy every minute of it!

Patience in a Bottle

If they sold patience in a bottle, I sure would be the first in line to buy it. Just two minutes ago, however, I learned a little about patience from a bottle! For those who may not drink Kombucha, it is a fermented tea that contains many great benefits for strengthening you body's immunity. I have been drinking it for a while now and am fully aware that if you open a bottle of it too quickly, you run the risk of this drink spewing everywhere! (Trust me...it has happened more than once.) Tonight I was opening a bottle and could tell it was an active one, so I took it slowly. This particular one took longer than most others as I had to let it sit after slightly moving the lid to open, then sit again, then open slightly, then sit....well, you get the point. As I waited and waited, I thought of the similarities of the adoption. We hear one little piece of news, then sit and wait. We hear another bit of news, then wait. So they may not bottle patience, but this particular bottle sure taught me a lesson about my need for it as we wait!

From the Floods...

Last week Nashville went through one of the worst floods we have ever experienced. The news was saying a flood of this nature happens once every 1000 years. We are thankful that our home was not damaged, but many of our good friends were heavily impacted. The water rose 52 feet above flood level and quickly filled basements and homes around town. This past week has been full of people coming together to help each other recover. I could go on and on about this past week, but I am really blogging about the adoption. Being surrounded by so much water, and seeing the entire county (along with four others) come to a halt because of the flood has given me a little insight to what India may experience during monsoon season. For those who are not aware, the Indian government and local transportation is disrupted for a few months during monsoon season (June to August). In the past, I have been known to gripe about the delays in adoptions during that season. I just could not understand why the weather could impact the homecoming of so many children. Now I see. If the floods here could cause such chaos in a developed country with paved roads, how much more chaotic would it be in parts of India where the dirt road turn to deep pits of mud? It has been interesting to read about monsoon season and the impact on the country. About 70% of the annual income of India is from the rural population with farming. Farmers there rely heavily on the heavy rains during monsoon season for their crops. When monsoon season is delayed by even a day, there is a drastic impact on their crops. What to some may seem like an annoyance, to others is their livelihood. The monsoons are a great blessing to the people of India. From it comes food and life. Can the same be said of our floods? Yes. The life of our community has been revitalized because of the devastation. We have come together in a way that would not have happened without the rain. People are expressing their love for each other in their words and actions. I may never have the chance to experience monsoon season in India, but I am grateful to see the hope that can come from such difficult circumstances. I need to remind myself of this as I wait for Asha ("Hope"). While it is difficult, there is hope that it will be okay in the end.

It's Ruff!

This past week has been very difficult. We were told two months ago that it would not be long until a referral. Silly me! I thought that might mean that we would have a referral during our trip to Europe. No...okay, maybe we would have a referral when we arrived home. No...maybe by Easter? By what would have been my grandfather's 101st birthday? By Mother's Day? By the end of the school year? I get myself into trouble by having certain expectations of what life will be like, and these often differ from God's plan. I thought of how great it would be to find out about our child while we were on our trip with my family! Okay, how great it would be for Easter. Okay, at least by Mother's Day. Well, Mother's Day is a week from tomorrow, and I am not expecting any news. I would love to hear something by the time Ellie gets out of school for the summer so that we can tell her class about becoming a big sister. We have a book to read about a child who becomes a big sister through adoption to help explain it to the kids. I really would love to tell the kids about our child and about India, and send each one home with a little card with the information to tell the parents. Tonight it just seemed like we are never going to hear anything, and all of the emotions I have stored up for so long came flooding out in tears. Chip and Ellie had already gone upstairs for the bedtime routine, but they quickly came down when they heard me crying. After we talked about it all, Chip said, "I wonder what Jack would say." Ellie, without missing a beat said,"He would say, 'It's ruff, ruff!'" Whew! Did she ever hit the nail on the head with that one. :) It sure is rough. It will be even harder after we do hear about our child because right now it has been a theoretical child whom we have been hoping to adopt. This child will soon have a real name and face. How much harder will it be when we have to wait for a year or more to have approval from CARA (the Indian organization that approves all adoptions) and get into the court system? Until these happen, however, I will try to take one day at a time and not get ahead of myself. God does has His plan. Do I trust Him? He has shown himself in the small miracles like the news we received on Good Friday after my sister had spent hours on a walk the night before to pray for us to hear something soon. Just yesterday I was talking with my sister about how difficult it is to wait during this time and not have other adoptive families whom we know well to talk with about our frustrations. Today we received an email from a family in the adoption group at our new church who emailed saying they would like to meet us in person. They spoke about the difficulty of waiting for their referral. God knew I needed this right now, and He provided just what I needed for today. I hope I can come back and remember this the next time life gets "ruff!"