Adoption and Football - 13 Months Today

I will start off by telling you that today is 13 months since we officially went on the waiting list with our agency. We began this journey February 21, 2009. For those of you who are not counting like I am, that is 2 years. Or in the land of adoption, FOREVER! So with all of this brewing in my brain as I watched the Super Bowl last night, I could not help but find some similarities in adoption and the game of football. Let me just say that this is my way of dealing with the wait and is my attempt at finding humor is this emotional process. Please do not find offense in some of my analogies. So here you go:

At the beginning stages of our process it was a coin toss as to what country and what agency we would end up with. We did not want any false starts, so we researched countries and agencies for about 4 months. After alot of huddle time we chose WHFC and Ethiopia as our game plan. So the ball was punted and the game had begun. Our team was doing well. We were in great shape, we had conditioned and we were strong. Our offense and defense looked great until we hit a mound of paperwork. We felt like we had taken a loss of yards at this point. We knew we had to call a time out and evaluate what our strategy was going to be. This proved to be helpful because we continued play and aggressively barrelled toward the first down. We began to make a lot of forward progress until the first penalty flag was thrown. Off sides was the call and the penalty was that the Ethiopia Program fees would be increased. This penalty hurt but our determination never faltered. On the very next play we experienced a very painful blow. We were sacked and not only were we sacked but it caused us to fumble the ball. There was a penalty called on this play for unnecessary roughness. We were informed that a new rule had been put into place and we would now have to travel to Ethiopia twice now instead of once. We were definitely ready now for our pep talk at half time. We needed to be re energized and find the determination to win this game. I think Laura even needed a bit of oxygen at this point. Back on the field we go and we get a call that we finally think is in our favor. Our agency called us with a possible referral. Not a typical call but one we had to evaluate and make a decision about. After much deliberation and prayer we decided that this play would be too risky for our team. After a lot of blood, sweat and tears we decided to stick with our original game plan. We felt like we had just thrown an incomplete pass. It looked good coming out of the quarterback hands but the timing was off and the ball was sure to be intercepted. At this stage of the game we are determined to continue to rush down the field. We have the end zone in our sights. We feel it is now time for a big play, maybe a quarterback sneak or an onside kick. We are beginning to get tired and we are praying that there are not too many penalties or commercial interruptions to endure. We are looking forward to a long awaited touchdown. And I must warn you, there will be penalty flags flying for the excessive celebration that will follow. I know that our team is going to win this game! We are just hoping this game does not go into overtime!

Thank you so much for being our fans. We could not continue to fight as hard as we have without you. You make every yard worth it and we love seeing your excitement as we continue to move the ball. I know it has been a long game but hang in there with us and we will be victors. What a celebration it is going to be! We LOVE our fans!

Thanks for humoring me! :)