Imagining

*Edited to add: We've been asked if we were able to find out how much longer this process might take. The answer, unfortunately, is no. No one seems to know why we have been in IBESR for so long, but at the same time there are other families who have been waiting in the same office for almost twice as long. There are families who have been waiting for many months in other steps of the process - ones we have yet to reach - as well. I had the opportunity while in Haiti to assist our adoption coordinator with filing some of the paperwork, and seeing it in person was quite overwhelming. Handwritten birth certificates in a beautiful, flowing script - but still, handwritten. Papers rejected on the basis of tiny clerical or spelling errors. And the list goes on. Honestly, after seeing it all with my own eyes I felt a sense of despair and thought that it is truly a miracle when any adoption succeeds through this system! Which is why that has become my constant prayer ... for a miracle of our own.

Since returning from Haiti, I find myself imagining our boys being present in so many of our family activities. I watch the girls and Owen playing in the living room, and I picture Ian and Alec in the midst of the chaos as well. Today we went out for lunch, and Eva pointed out where the boys would sit when we go out as a family after they come home.

I've been holding it together pretty well, but I did break down during prayer time with the girls the other night. Isabel scooted over to me and put her arms around me while I took a few deep breaths and finished asking God's blessing and protection on the boys and pleaded for their soon homecoming.

This afternoon, Isabel said out of the blue that she really wished Ian and Alec were home.

I want to stop imagining - I want it to be real ...