Friday, September 21, 2007

So Long

Definitely the biggest thing in my life right now is waiting. We have been working on an adoption for about 4 years now. Finally it seems to be approaching, but at an obnoxiously slow and indeterminate rate. For quite some time now, we've been telling people that it could happen at any time, or that it could be months. We've known who Karthik is for... I think it's been like 11 months now. I'm not sure. We've had pictures. We've had visits. We've had medical reports. We're watching him grow up on paper from 8300 miles away. For quite some time now we've been waiting for the last phone call that would tell we have 2 weeks to get ready and go to India to pick him up. People are constantly asking us, "Why is it taking so long?" I don't know, okay. I don't know. It just is. I don't know why other people's adoption processes haven't taken 4 years and ours has. I don't know why we've had Karthik's picture for so long and we still aren't his parents. I don't know. I'm starting to think that people think we're just delusional, that we're making the whole thing up. And I quite sure that many people think it's our fault that it's taking as long as it is, that we've done something wrong or are somehow wrong. That's not surprise, I suppose. A fairly significant minority of people think that anyone other than the biological parents are somehow illegitimate, that a failure to produce biological children means that God doesn't want you to be parents. We've had people tell us that for quite some time already, so it shouldn't be surprising that other people blame us for the slowly turning wheels of bureaucracy. And to some degree it has been our fault, to the degree that we are too young, too poor, too religious, too rural, too mobile, and too white to be considered acceptable parents. It's very emotionally taxing, the whole thing. You want to be excited. But we've been "excited" for so long now... you just can't keep it up. Now I'm just tired. And it's so weird to be planning for all kinds of things at church and in the conference, and I don't when I'm going to be gone. I can never say that I'm sure I can be somewhere, because who knows when we'll be leaving. People want a solid "yes" or "no" and I can't offer it. Our best guess right now is that we might be travelling at the end of October, but there is no way to be sure about that. We might not be able to travel until next year. We have absolutely no control over it at this point. And yes, I know that it would be better for Karthik to be with us sooner than later. I know that the longer it is from now the harder the transition will be. I know how important early life is to development. We've known all of that from the beginning. I'm sorry that we aren't able to tell people what's going on with more certainty. That's just how it is. It's uncertain.