Profile progress

Thanks for your encouragement! I decided to go ahead and update the profile and I'm making progress! I purchased and downloaded MyMemories Suite yesterday and finished five pages already. So exciting!

(Side note:  This is not a paid endorsement for this digital scrapbooking software.  MyMemories doesn't know anything about my blog, I'm sure.  But I found good reviews of it, and it's really fun and easy to use.  If you're looking for scrapbooking software, it seems to be a great option.)

Since last Friday, we've had another bit of roller coaster.  I got an email on Friday from our social worker, looking for families who were interested in being considered for a sibling group.  The children are a 5 year old girl, a 3 year old boy, and a baby boy born in May.  Can you possibly imagine the conflicting emotions that run through you in an instant when you read that?  Surprise, excitement, fear, curiosity, wonder, and a host of others.  Could this be what God has been preparing us for?  Is it possible our wait is almost over?  There isn't a situation we receive now that we don't think and pray about very carefully.  I think earlier on in the process, when we received a situation like this, while we prayed about it, we didn't have as much...emotion tied into every day of the wait and wondering.  We had more clarity about if this was good for our family or not.  At least, I did.  Now I'm a little less certain of what's right for us, at least initially.  It's been a year and no baby.  So, maybe God's been preparing us for something other than that?

Anyway, we had to decide if we wanted to be considered by Monday at noon.  At a time when my husband's phone isn't allowed to be on during the day.  At a time when we can't sit together at night and talk every detail through.  Ugh, I thought to myself.  I knew something like this would happen.  I was waiting for it, actually.  Waiting for a situation to present itself while we're apart.  I sent Daniel a text to call me as soon as he could.  He called back at 8:30PM.  (That was a fun day of waiting to talk to him and trying to think through all the ramifications of the possibility of adopting three kids, two of them older than Lucas.  If we hadn't had the company of my parents to keep us both occupied, I certainly would have gone crazy!)  I gave him the details of the situation and then - with an amazing amount of self-restraint, thank-you-very-much - told him to think about it overnight and we'd talk about what he thought in the morning.  I knew it wasn't fair to ask him what he thought without giving him a chance to think about it.

So, at this point, I'll tell you that I was not feeling afraid to say yes, but I just wanted to be sure saying yes (to being considered) was the right thing.  Having waited as long as we have now, there's a huge temptation to say yes, just because we want our wait to be over.  (Another side note, we also got our bi-monthly update early on Friday.  There's really nothing going on at the office right now that looks like it would end our wait in the near future at all.  Of course that shouldn't change our answer about a different situation, but if I'm honest, it did make me wonder a little bit more if we should say yes to this, knowing there's not much else on the horizon at this point.)

Well, on Saturday afternoon we talked about it, and Daniel, ever the realistic and rational one, helped me through the pros and cons.  We decided together it is best for our family not to be considered for this situation.  We're hoping for OCS for Daniel soon, and with or without it, very likely our next duty station will involve some sort of deployment, since we haven't done one yet.  Knowing that those children - and we - would best bond if we were all together, and that Daniel will likely be gone for a good portion of the first/second year(s) we might have them, made us see that it will be best for us and for them, if they are part of a different family that can bond together starting right away and will have more permanence.  Mostly, this is because of the two older kids, who already will have a harder time bonding.  And Daniel really hated the thought of leaving me alone with four kids.  While I know that God will provide what we need, I can't say the thought of trying to work through the bonding stuff and even just the practical care taking stuff of four kids all by myself - at this point - is something that makes me feel excited.

So, that's the long way of saying we had another situation present itself, we knew it wasn't right for us, we feel peace about saying no, but sadness and disappointment that our wait continues.  I'm ready for our baby to come home.  Working on the profile has been of some encouragement and comfort, and it's going to look great when it's done.