22.1.11

Self soothing

Rough work week.  Maybe the worst in my career.  Glad it's over.  Thankful I still have my job, extremely grateful that my boss went to bat for me, and that my reputation is still intact with my colleagues.  I spent the latter half of this past week self medicating with white wine aged with coffee, a thoughtful (re)treat from my very dear friend, E., who gifted the bottle to us from her travels to NOLa.  Just a glass or two after dinner the last few nights.  And next week will be a new work week.  Learn and move on.   


Our adoption update from PSB
Our adoption coordinator, H., wrote:  "We just heard back from R.  ICAB confirmed that they are matching Filipino families whose dossiers were approved in the first and second quarters of 2009.  While it’s not as close as we would like to your dossier approval date, it’s a heck of a lot closer than where they are for non-Filipino families (still in the second and third quarters of 2008 for them!).  R. has already started talking to some of his friends at various orphanages about your family as a way to introduce them to you.  These kinds of discussions sometimes make matching a bit quicker when dossiers from around your time are being considered."


Every email from PSB always makes my heart flutter.  I'll see the subject headline and wonder, Is this it?  Do we have a match . . . Does this bring us a little closer to bringing our child home?  And usually it brings us just a tiny pinch closer, nothing more.  I suppose that's par for the process.  Many times, A. & I talk about -- if we do this a second time, maybe we'll go domestic.  At work, I am constantly reminded how many children are in the foster care system, and while the goal is to reunite them with their birth parents, for so many others, adoption is also a wonderful opportunity to experience a loving home . . . and that, I have no doubt we can give them.  Though A. and I would have to be prepared to accept all of the challenges that come along with children who have memories of their birth families and most likely all of the terrible situations that they may have experienced.  That goes without saying as that may be the case for the son or daughter we bring home from the Philippines too.  


I've got a couple of family friends waiting to give birth at the end of the month and early February and have also heard the lovely news of others expecting in the late spring or early summer.  Here's to welcoming their little ones into a world full of warmth and peace . . .


Prayer for a miracle
miracles grow in their mothers' wombs
as our blessing glows in our hearts
little by little --
day by day, week by week, 
month by month, email by email --
we light a forever candle 
and say a silent prayer
that we will make our way to each other soon
and experience the wonder of life 
amen