For the past few weeks, we've been living in a holding pattern while waiting to hear if Kolya is officially available for adoption. Our agency in GA told us we may hear news on Monday, which became Tuesday, and then, well, you get the picture. We would stay up late each night hoping for any bit of news from our agency, finally fall into bed exhausted, sleep poorly (if at all), and then get up early to see if there was any news about Kolya yet. I have always been pretty diligent about checking my email, Facebook, and phone messages, but this past week, I was beyond obsessed. The days ticked slowly by with no word. Wait, wait, wait. Apparently, God knows I need to work on patience, because we still have a lot more waiting ahead of us. By Thursday, I was resigned that we were not going to get our news that week. Then on Thursday afternoon, our hosting family group on Facebook started buzzing. Someone had received news about their child, then another and then another. By the time we went to bed that night, the old worry germ was attacking again. Other families knew and we didn't. It was another long night with little sleep. One thing is for sure, with all the wakefulness, I had LOTS of time alone with God to pray. And I think I prayed for just about everyone I knew (especially my Aunt Margaret who just lost her husband, Uncle Donnie, to cancer Wednesday morning - the funeral is today, and we are with the family in spirit today).
Finally, around 10 on Friday morning, we got the news that we were hoping for! Kolya is on the official orphan listing and is adoptable! However, he is on the "closed" list. This means that the children are available for adoption only within their own country for a 12 month period before they become available for adoption internationally. We were told it will still be "a few more weeks" (read: probably much longer than a few more weeks) before we find out when he is free for international adoption. What this does mean, however, is that, at some point in the next 12 months, if he is willing, we will be able to adopt Kolya!! We are so relieved and excited and still nervous all at the same time. It's a strange mix of emotions. Some time "in the next few weeks" (here we go again!), we have also been told that someone will talk to Kolya to see if he wants our family to adopt him. Then it's a matter of LOTS more paperwork, pulling LOTS of funds together, and waiting again until everything goes through and we are ready to bring our boy home for good. So exciting!!!
A few hours after we found out Kolya's status on Friday, our social worker from our Ohio agency called to schedule her home visit. She had a cancellation and could she come over at 3 on Saturday? YES, please! So, today we had our home study visit. Unlike our social worker for our foster care home study two years ago, our new social worker is so nice and we both found her very easy to talk to. She has eight children who are all adopted and was incredibly encouraging. She stayed for three hours! Libby gave her the tour of the house before she left and was seemed so grown up. All of the kids actually acted civilized and even Sara was on pretty good behavior. That's a miracle in itself, considering how she usually is - applesauce photos are my case-in-point!
We're off to eat pizza for dinner now and relax in front of the TV for the Cleveland Brown's pre-season opener game. Football season means that fall is nearly hear and that we are one season closer to bringing our family all together. I'm excited to see how it all works out!
*Sara Update: I just rescued a tube of ChapStick from Sara - she was literally biting off pieces and eating it!!!*
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