Life goes on

This week marks 10 months approved and waiting for our son or daughter to join our family.  When I added up the weeks, it's actually 42.  But, hey, who's counting (besides me)?  Seriously, though, I know many, many, many people have been anxiously awaiting the day that we'll get to bring our baby home.  We got another bimonthly update email today, which has indicated to me that, again, there's nothing particularly on the horizon.  There are several situations our office is working with, including one that our profile is most likely being shown for, but nothing specific to us and nothing within the next month or two.  (Granted, we always know that anything could still happen at any time, since sometimes women call from the hospital in labor, or having had a baby, asking to see profiles because they do not want to parent their child.  That could happen still, but there's no way to know about that ahead of time, obviously.)  So...the waiting continues and life goes on.

I thought I should write the latest news on what's going on in our lives in another area, though, which is our decisions about Daniel's employment with the Army.  At this point, he plans to apply to become an officer in what we (affectionately? nervously? ) call Big Army.  The band field is pretty small, when you think about it, and we've gotten to know many people within Army Band World.  But, more than being a player in the band, Daniel feels called to be in more of a big picture, leadership type job.  So, we're getting ready to leave the familiarity of the band world and (as long as he's accepted) try something completely new within the Army.  His OCS (Officer Candidate School) packet (application) is due mid-May and his OCS board is at the end of May.  Selection happens in late July.  I would imagine the soldiers that are selected to go to OCS at that time will probably be going to OCS anywhere from the end of this year to spring of next year.  So, potentially, nothing would drastically change for us for a year or so.

Given that, we're still feeling the need to do what we can to have some say over what happens to our family during the time that we're waiting to hear about OCS.  So, Daniel will be going to WLC (Warrior Leadership Course) in June for three weeks and then pushing to go soon to ALC (Advanced Leadership Course, I think), as well, soon after that.  Both of those will be important for him promoting as soon as possible, which we think is important for obvious reasons.  Also, we've put in our list of requested assignments for our next band, should Daniel not get selected to go to OCS.  Generally, the command team here likes to plan for that about a year out, which would put us at about 3 years in this band, which is about as long as anyone stays in a band under normal circumstances.  So, we're waiting to hear what is open and what our next assignment will be, though we most likely would not go anywhere before OCS should Daniel get selected for that. 

We've also found that there are Army regulations allowing us to stay where we are, given the command team's approval, until our adoption happens, which is something I'm so relieved to find out.  I've been really worried that we'd end up moving sooner than it looks like we will now, which would most likely require us to do a new home study in a new state.  That would, of course, mean that we would then be put on the bottom of the waiting list of where ever we ended up.  Having already waited the better part of a year, that was giving me some anxiety, so I'm glad to know that we hopefully won't have to worry about that anymore.

So, there's the plan - or at least what we can do with what we've been given.  So much of what happens to us depends on what the Army decides to do with Daniel/us, which means we have very little control over it.  But God is in control...and life goes on.