Slides and Crossroads - New Year 2013

     That time of your life when hope turns to despair is not easy to live through. That turning can be instantaneous in the example of a car wreck that takes loved ones or it could be a long drawn out process of a debilitating disease. To some extent that slide downward into despair happens to everybody no matter how upbeat and positive somebody might be. In the case of Rebecca and I we could feel our hope for the adoption starting to slide into despair. It might have been in a conversation where we hoped the 'a' word did not come up knowing that our answer of

'No we haven't heard anything yet' 

would be received with another dejected expression accompianed by the awkardness of what else are we going to talk about. As time carried on the inevitable questions and comparisons to the UK system started to become less frequent and in many aspects that was much easier.
     While the slide into the despair of our situation seemed to subside for quite a while in the back of our minds we knew that March was coming and the one year anniversary of being approved. In a previous blog post from late 2012 I wrote that we were in a waiting place and that was OK. The reality is that it is almost impossible to be in a waiting pattern wholly. While waiting we knew that hope and grace were beginning to fade away. The motto of the adoption 'on our hearts but not on our minds' had also shifted as it was squarely on our minds, if not everyday very close to it.
     The feeling reminded me of when driving and the gas light comes on and is staying lit. I know I can still drive, for a few more miles but that orange hue emanating from the dashboard reminds me every time my eye catches it that I've got to either fill up or run out to be stranded.  For us we knew that the months of waiting had taken their toll emotionally and new with the update on our homestudy being due in March we had approached another crossroads.

     Many questions abounded from where do we do the homestudy from, how much will it cost, what other paperwork needs to be submitted and a whole host of other questions. With the arrival of new questions also comes the uncertainty of answers and what that could mean for the future. Would we need to make another trip to Indiana? If so how difficult would that be to face family and friends in person only to say

'we are still waiting and just here to update files'

 that myriad of copycat conversations did not sound like a very inviting situation to be dropped into. So the slide from hope to despair concerning the adoption picked up speed in earnest after 2013 began.