Weekends

I LOVE weekends. Friday is my favorite day of the week and I always think it's because the weekend is stretched out before us with so much promise, so much possibility. Saturday mornings are great, coffee and a leisurely read of the paper. Then there are always a million things on the list of "to-do's" for the day. Sunday is great, long mornings with a big fat paper, but a little sad, because most of the weekend is behind us at that point. But I have found that throughout the adoption process, I have started to have mixed emotions about weekends. The great thing about weekends now is that it means another week of waiting is behind us and we are entering into another block of time that is incrementally closer to registration and hopefully travel. But weekends are torture in that I know nothing is happening in our case over the weekend, so it's two long days when I don't imagine and hope that someone is doing SOMETHING to bring us closer to our little angel.

This, once again, proves that absolutely everything about life as we know it is affected by "The Wait." Every plan is made with travel in the back of my mind. Every dollar is spent knowing that we will need the extra cash for our adoption. Every day is greeted with hope and ended without any definite plans. Every victory is tempered with guarded optimism. Every weekend passes as a celebration of another week checked off the timeline, but another two days that I know no progress was made toward getting us to Russia.

How will this child of ours ever know the longing with which we waited for her? How will she ever understand the hours of hard labor that went into bringing her into "this" world? I've been through labor, it's a breeze compared to "The Wait." Will she ever understand that there has never, in the history of the world, been an unwanted adopted child? Will she understand the anticipation with which I have expected and hoped and prayed for her every day of her life? Even before she was born, when Connor was an infant, I would kneel in church and ask God to watch over our daughter's mother and help her face the things that were to come for her. When we decided to adopt again for sure, I started to pray that God would just hold our daughter and comfort her and provide for her until we were there to be His hands and voice. I know that He is holding her still. And that she is expecting us, maybe not aware, but in her heart she is longing for us as we are longing for her. My friend and neighbor just had the best quote the other day. She was talking about how the longing for a daughter goes "beyond pink." That is so true. Yes, the pink and frilly things are cute and amazing and all of that. But the longing to share that relationship that only a daughter can bring goes so far beyond the "stuff" and so much more about love and parenting. I can't wait to experience all of this parenting stuff through a new lens, the lens of a mother/daughter relationship. I can't wait to watch my husband fall head over heels for a new love. I can't wait to see him experience the unexpected rapture of his daughter.

So, the weekends are a mixed bag, a blessing and a curse. The Wait goes on for now. We are cautiously optimistic that our travel dates will be in April. We are tentatively planning everything and living our life on hurry up and wait scheduling. And until "the call" comes, we'll keep passing the weekends with joy and frustration.

Genesis 49:18 "For Your salvation I wait, O Lord."