Expecting

Ex-pect verb 1. to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of 2. to anticipate the arrival of one's child origin: Latin ex (s) pectere: to look out for, await

Yes, friends we are expecting again. In them most marvelous and wonderful way, that only God could orchestrate, we are expecting (looking forward to, watching, looking for and awaiting) our next child. There are a lot of unknowns with this precious little one. Instead of doctor appointments and ultrasounds we have had social worker visits and fingerprint appointments. Instead of my waistline growing I have a bulging binder of documents on my table. To see our family you wouldn't know that we are expecting but we are praying for and dreaming about our little girl who is on the other side of the world right now. We are pursuing her with love as we step out in faith to open our family and home to a little girl who has neither.

Being "paperwork pregnant" is definitely a strange experience. So many questions and not a lot of answers at this point. Just waiting and waiting. We are thankful that our daughter's country has a very solid adoption process. We know exactly what the steps are and approximate waiting times for each step. We celebrate each milestone we reach and move on to the next wait. We are a busy family with 3 young children so as difficult as the waiting can seem we aren't really suffering very much with as full as our life is in this season. However, there is a precious little girl waiting for us and her waiting is much more difficult. I don't yet know what her circumstances are. Perhaps she is in a loving foster home with an adoring foster mom and dad or perhaps she is in a great orphanage that provides love and meaningful interaction. I like to think and hope that she is in one of those situations but the honest truth is that she may not be. She may be in a more difficult orphanage situation. When I think about the way my first three children spent their early years and how that might compare to where our daughter is right now my heart breaks. It drives my sense of urgency as I work toward bringing her home and redeeming those years without her.

But for now we wait. We look forward, we anticipate and we watch for her. We pray that God will supernaturally love and protect her until she is in our arms. We pray that He will send others to love her so that she is better able to receive our love one day. We welcome you to follow along on this journey with our family as we bring our daughter into the love of our family . . . forever.

P.S.

I've read a lot of adoption blogs over the years. It seems surreal that this blog now carries that title too. I am excited about recording our journey here for our family as well as an encouragement to those of you who might be considering adoption as a way to grow your family however some details aren't appropriate to share in this forum. I am very aware of the fact that our daughter will likely read this one day and I want to respect her privacy. I also want to protect the adoption process for others who will come behind us on this journey by being respectful of her birth country in East Asia and the process they have set forth for the adoption of children from her country. If details seem cryptic or sketchy as I write this may be the reason. I'm happy to correspond with you directly so please don't hesitate to post a comment.