so many inspirations

There is a woman at my work who has been waiting on her Chinese adoption for almost 5 years! She is slated to get her referral in the coming months. There is a fantastic referral forecast set up to help those in the Chinese process track their projected referral date. She has known for quite some time that her referral wait time would stretch into years. Over the last few years, she has inspired me.

I cannot get down about my wait when I know that her wait has been even more excruciating than my own. She was promised a 7 month wait, 5 years ago! I had an agency go bankrupt. Yes, it was a bummer and it prolonged my wait, but I can't get down about that.

What does get me down however, is not hearing word one about my process. At least, W has a website that is tracking referrals based on LID's (log in date). She can access some very real information about where her file is located and when she may get her referral as she knows her LID. I, on the other hand, know nothing. Noone is telling me anything until I ask and then my queries tend to be met with some pretty harsh answers. It's hard to stay positive.

I have even started prepping E for the very real possibility that we may not get her brother or sister from Peru after all. Well, my little E won't hear it. When I suggested that Peru might not be where her brother or sister happens to be, she flatly told me, "Mommy, yes she is or he is. My sister or brother is in Peru." She almost made me cry, she was so convincing (and I'm so emotional these days-adoption process fatigue, I'm calling it). We have been talking about it for so long now, E completely believes. It took her commitment to pull me from my doubt and so yesterday, I filled up a suitcase with shoes.

These were shoes I had thought to bring to Peru. But when I began to waver, I thought I would send the shoes to Sudan. E doesn't want me to send any shoes to Sudan. She is convinced we are going to Peru even if I'm not. How is that for inspiration!

Now, just to be clear, we still will continue to send shoes to Sudan, just not the ones we had planned on bringing to Peru (mostly E's outgrown shoes). There will be a case of shoes, a case of toys and a case of clothes. E and I will share one suitcase for the two of us with all we need for ourselves. And I have got to send more books ahead as we have a 50lb (23kg) limit for each suitcase.

So, colour me inspired.