Two years ago...

My birthday was Sunday. Funny how I can't seem to remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, but I can remember the emotions of the two birthdays previous to this one.

April 15th of 2005 was one of the hard days in this adoption process. Just the day before Ian and I had celebrated that we had every single piece of paperwork for our dossier in hand (and even notarized) except for our I-171H. The amazing thing was that we had accomplished this task in less than four weeks ~ I can be a driven woman when on a mission, and this one was to finally become a mommy! As we often do, we had forgotten to check the mailbox the day before and so Ian went to grab the mail before I headed off to work. There was a letter from the department of homeland security and we naively thought our I-171H was going to be inside. WRONG!!! Instead what we read was a notice that our fingerprint appointment was on May 17th and from that time we could expect about a six week wait to get that last crucial form. Moments before I had cried sweet happy tears as Ian presented me my red thread bracelet. Now I cried tears of despair as the goal of getting our dossier to China seemed so much farther in the distance. And at that time we knew the wait from documents arriving in China to referral was six months which would have put us out to December 2005 or January 2006...

Fast forward a year! Now it is April 15th, 2006, the day before Easter. Our agency has not received a batch of referrals since the last week of January. Just the previous week brought news from our agency that we really didn't want to hear, "It is with heavy hearts that the America World China staff must confirm what has been rumored for several months regarding the wait time from DTC (Dossier to China) and the arrival of a referral. Sadly, this time frame has indeed increased to 11-12 months. Regarding referrals for this month, America World has received information of the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) website that referrals for Dossiers logged in from May 26th, 2005-May 30th, 2005 will be sent out. Since America World only logged in Dossiers in the early part of May, this news means referrals, outside of those in the special needs program, are not expected to arrive at the agency this month." So the possibility of having a daughter at home with us for Christmas of 2005 came and went and now having a daughter at home for Christmas of 2006 looks unlikely. In 2005 I felt sure that it would be my last Mother's Day before becoming a mommy and now I realize that it will be at least one more year. Our hearts were sinking as we realized that a referral in 2006 was looking unlikely. But I managed to smile and enjoy the from scratch coconut cake that Ian made for my birthday celebration with family. And that week as I was dog-sitting for friends at the beach I smiled when I saw dolphins jumping around in the surf. My heart was lightened as I rubbed my red thread bracelet, now absent of the red thread which had fallen off in early March. Somehow my heart was already keeping time with another across the sea.

Fast forward one more year! It was overall a non-eventful day, but my birthday couldn't have been more complete as I sat feeding my daughter garden vegetables, applesauce, and bananas in my Mama's kitchen with Kylie sitting in my old high chair. She is proof that good (no, make that WONDERFUL) things come to those who wait!