One Small Step, One Giant Leap

Banner day yesterday! I called our agency's China Update Hotline (really, that's what it's called) to listen to the new message for this week. I almost couldn't believe my ears. The kind voice of AH-C, one of our program coordinators, announced that November is THROUGH REVIEW and has moved to the MATCHING DEPARTMENT!

WOO HOO!

To refresh, this means the good folks at the CCAA have looked over our paperwork (background checks, financial report, physical exams, homestudy report, reference letters, photos, etc), have decided all our papers are in order, we pass muster and approve of us to adopt a child. Given that some of you were in a few of the photos we sent them, we can all feel proud that Stew and I moved to the next step inspite of everything! :)
I was at home yesterday when I heard the news and quickly called Stew at work to tell him. Phew - what a relief to move from REVIEW (scary) to MATCHING (much better)! We both felt the rush that comes only from concrete progress. Because celebration means food, we had a nice dinner out to toast our banner day.

YAY YAY!

All that said...the reality of the situation is that even though we're finally in matching, which really does sound like a pix could arrive in the mail any day, folks who claim to be in the know continue to speculate that we may not see anything by way of a referral for up to NINE more months with the absolute worse case scenario being November of 2007. Granted, this is the time of month when all the really bad rumors come out to play but Stew and I have to prepare ourselves for the worst while always hoping for the best. Problem is, it's difficult sometimes to figure out what's the best but realistic thing we can hope for. This particular road has been 20 months long already. Add that to the previous 3 1/2 years of wanting a family and I gotta say - Stew and I look at each other every day and ahhh...along with the rest of you...we're not getting any younger. I said to Missy this weekend, "I can't believe our Chelsea is 16 and graduates in 2 years! Do you realize that I'll be about 56 when my daughter is 16 and pushing 60 when she graduates! Holy #$%@!"
Not the first time I've considered this, not by a long shot. Just that I do a fair job of putting it out of my mind most days. Missy, very reassuringly, big-sisterly, and thankfully, pointed out that most of our friends' kids are 2 years old or younger so we're not going to be the only ones taking our teens to the movies and qualifying for the senior discount. I don't mind getting older, I really don't. I just feel sort of badly for her, our daughter. Us adopting in our 40's was not what we hoped, not what we wanted for her, not what we planned but it's what happened so... All we can do is hope that she'll keep us young, that she won't notice the gray hairs poking through my dye job when she meets us for the first time, that maybe we'll be better parents then we would have been 15 or even 10 years ago.