5 months old today and I am on a new path

Well our precious baby girl is 5 months old today. We are anxiously awaiting the pictures that our coordinator took over the weekend. Saule thinks that she is looking good which is so nice to hear.

We left Kyrgyzstan 2 months ago today and during the wait I have had the opportunity to do a lot of soul searching and I think that thanks to a colleague, I think I have made a very important turning point. I am going to include an email that I sent to 3of my dearest friends on last Sunday night. The goal is not to bore people but so that I can look back, read the post and have it serve as a reminder of the new path that I am going to try to take.

As I sit here in front of my candles, fragrance and all, I thought I would tell you about the amazing conversation that I had at work on Friday. It is a little religions which is something that we haven't emailed a lot about but I think that it is pertinent to all of us. One of our pediatric surgeons adopted a toddler from Russia in the spring of 2007 and she checks in with me from time to time to see how things are going with our adoption. She has been hard to get to know and not that open with her personal life or emotions but I guess that Friday was an exception. I had just finished updating her on Addison's health and the general state of affairs when she reminded me of some of the obstacles they had faced when waiting to bring their little boy home. Same sort of thing, corrupt judges, problems with the MOE, ect and all of which lead to a 4 month delay in bringing home her child. Well, she had done exactly what I have been doing. She was obsessed with being proactive and did her best to find ways to help get him home sooner and just like all of us, had absolutely no luck. After she told me about all of that that she asked me about how religious I am. I told her that I have always believed in God and that He has a special place in my life, especially in terms of this adoption. Not to mentioned that I have never prayed so much in my life as I have the last several months. So then she told me this story. I am going to paraphrase it but you will get the point and I am probably going to not do it justice but here goes.

The Jews had been stranded in Egypt for centuries and they were so excited when God sent them Moses to show them to the "promised land". However, once they got to across the red sea they realized that they had not been led to the promised land but instead into a desert. Needless to say, they were very angry and sad. GOd left them there for FORTY years! They tried everything that they could think of in order to leave but had absolutely no luck. It was not until they put their complete trust in God and had true faith in him that He finally led them out of the desert. It was not until they totally trusted in him and believed in him that they were rewarded.

She said that once she stopped running in circles, and truly put her faith in God to bring her little guy home did things start to happen. It was only then that she was at peace and was able to deal with all of the stress of the situation. We were both in tears at the end of the story and I told her that I understood the similarities but that I have felt like I needed to do everything in my power to help Addison. Once I even tried backing away and then felt guilt that I was not doing enough to try to help her so back I went to running in circles. I just can't seem to win and yet either way, it is consuming a ton of my emotional energy. She just smiled and told me to have faith and that God will take care of her.

I have thought about this a ton this weekend and I think that there is so much to be said about this. I do believe that God has his watchful eye on our precious babies and undoubtedly has a plan for all of us but Danielle (the surgeon) is right in that we need to have more faith in His wisdom. Not to mention that in spite of our hours and hours of communicating, emailing, and problem solving, we have not truly been able to influence the situation. We have been able to give each other the amazing strength and encouragement to continue on this path but have done nothing to change the situation for our babies. I know that is a hard statement to swallow but a true one. I still believe that knowledge is power and I will continue to learn as much as I can but I am also going to try to relinguish some of my worry and heart ache to God and try my best to have more faith in him.

So at the end of our conversation, I walked away, prayed and I collected myself for rounds. At the end of rounds, I had a call from our coordinator stating that the court was asking for some our documents and that she is hopeful that is a sign that things may start moving again. I think that God sent his message to me loud and clear- first, an eye opening conversation from an unlikely person and then a call with some signs of hope. Well, I listened and am going to do my best to step back and truly put my faith in the Lord.