I know I just did a little post on my intention to start writing again in late March, but here I am with all of this angst and nowhere to put it. So I shall deposit it into the blog-o-sphere:

I am full of mommy-mania. My maternal clock is screaming. I am becoming, quite literally, hysterical in the old-fashioned Freudian sense.

As some of you might know, the huz and I have been in the process of adopting for more than two years. More accurately, we’ve been in the process for roughly 8 years. Almost as soon as we moved to the Philippines back in 2001 and I started working at Rainbow Village, we knew that we wanted to adopt. We even looked into starting the process then. The only problem with our little family plan was that we were basically still children ourselves and didn’t come close to meeting the age requirements. Besides, everyone told us, “Oh, you should have your own first, then adopt!” The very idea of “our own” made me a little grossed out but I thought, “Hey, maybe that birthing instinct is going to hit me any time.” So we waited.

Finally, still merrily childless in July of 2007, I turned 27, thus meeting the elusive age requirement. We really had been quite happy as our own duo up to this point, but I knew how long the process took (or thought I knew) and convinced Kevin that by the time we started the process we would be well into our baby-ready stage of life.  I immediately requested an adoption application from Holt International and Kevin and I excitedly filled it out.

The months following were full of paperwork, psych evaluations, and some very scary times following a required physical exam in which it looked like Kev might have thyroid cancer. Thankfully, he didn’t and we eventually got every little bit of paperwork turned in and before we knew it, we’d been approved for adoption.

Here we are, back in 2004, naively exposing our hearts to the most lovable children in the universe.

That was June 25, 2008. We’re still waiting.

I have a little counter on my igoogle page. Today it tells me that we have been approved for adoption for 566 days. 566 days!

There have been seasons where it has been unbearable, particularly when I first started working at an elementary school and was overwhelmed by the hilarious, energetic, adorable ways of the children. Sometimes, when I had to walk across the playground during recess, I’d get choked up and have to look away, hoping not to actually trip over any of the little ones I was trying not to look at. But usually those tough season (often not more than a week) would give way and I could focus on the fun, beautiful, busy craziness that is my life. And, of course, I constantly remind myself of what a very bad mom I would be right about now between my moderately consuming job and my excessively consuming graduate program. So it’s good, right?

But lately, since we hit the 16-month mark back in September, the tough season just won’t go away. I am constantly heart-sick, constantly aching for this little hypothetical creature whom I do not know, can’t even imagine. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl. I just know I love him/her.

The 16-month mark was hard because when we started the program, that was the estimated wait time. And I remember thinking to myself, “Well, that’s the estimated time for regular people but surely they’ll see how nice and lovely we are and that we lived in the Philippines for 3 years and they’ll match us much more quickly!”

What a dummy. January 25th will be 19 months since we were approved, with nary a peep of a hint of a suggestion that our little one is ready for us. And to take away even more hope, most adoption guidelines have moved the expected wait time for referral waaaaay up, saying it could be up to 24 months.

Sigh. Sigh Sigh.

How can I possibly think about controversial theological, philosophical, or social issues when there is a cute little munchkin out there waiting for me?