A Long and Winding Road (part 2)

If you haven't read yesterday's post click here for the first part of this story/update.

After getting off the phone I spent a while crying, feeling sorry for myself, being very angry, and feeling very devastated. While I was feeling all of these emotions and just dealing with the tremendous letdown, I was also thinking of what we could do next. Our hearts are in Korea and we really feel like that is where God is leading us to adopt our next child from.

We started talking and praying and thinking through what our options were. I emailed the director of Riley's agency and explained what had just happened and asked her if their program had opened back up and what the wait times looked like. She emailed me back immediately, remembered Riley and working with us, and said that their program had reopened and that they would love to work with us again!

We were thrilled! With AIAA you fill out an initial application first which is very brief and then once you are accepted you fill out a formal application which is much more involved. We had already filled out an initial app back in 2007, so they allowed us to skip that step and proceed with our formal application.

During December we worked on gathering and filling out all of our paperwork and sending it off to AIAA. We found out the week before Christmas that we were accepted!!! And, we found out this PAST FRIDAY that ALL OF OUR PAPERWORK HAS BEEN SENT TO KOREA!!

This means that we are back on the clock in waiting to be matched!! AIAA has told us that referrals are taking about 6 months. That makes us very hopeful that we will be matched sometime by this summer and then our baby will be home 3-4 months later.

It has been such a crazy and discouraging process this time around. We do feel encouraged at this point that things are going in the right direction. But, it is also hard to not look back and think of all the time it feels like has been wasted...just spinning our wheels and not going anywhere.

It is also super frustrating because a lot of our paperwork will expire in the next several months and we are going to have to pay and take time to redo some of it.

I know though, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our baby has obviously not been ready yet. I KNOW that I will look back and although I may never understand why we've had to go through so many looooooooong months of waiting, I KNOW that it will all be worth it.

I know this because I have a precious 2 year old to prove it. There were so many endless days, weeks, months, and years that I longed to have a baby and I would wonder why I was having to wait so long and why things were so difficult. And, then September 13, 2006, Riley was placed in my arms and I know now HE is why God allowed me to endure that painful time. It is so worth it. And, I know that one day (hopefully SOON!) I will feel the same way about this longing and this wait.

I hope you will forgive me for not posting what was going on earlier. Because my blog is public I never know exactly who is reading it! And, I wanted to be sure that all of our paperwork was approved and in Korea before I publicly posted what had happened to us. I also don't want to put the name of the other agency on here at this time, but if you are considering adopting from Korea I would be glad to give you opinions (privately) on which agencies are reputable. As always, feel free to email me!