Nausea

It's that feeling you get when you're ill. The one when you feel like you could throw up at any moment. It's also the one you get when you're so wrapped up in the emotion of a situation that you don't know your head from a hole in the wall. It's the frustration of being helpless to do anything. Just sitting and waiting and waiting and sitting. You try to find ways to fill the time, but it doesn't matter. It's always there. That feeling.

That's where we're at right now. I would love to tell you that it's all candy and roses and counting the days. But the truth is, it's ugly and raw and hopeless and painful and stressful and frustrating and crazy and long and difficult and exhausting. Fighting for a child you know in your heart is your daughter...a child you've only seen in pictures...a child half a world away in need of her Mommy and Daddy and family.  Doing all you can on your end to get to her as fast as possible while it seems as though everyone else that has a job to do in the process is dragging their feet. Having SO MANY THINGS fall into place, answers to specific prayers, everything looking so positive and so hopeful...only to reach a point where you feel you're the ONLY ones still believing this will ever happen, the only ones fighting to get to her, while others have just given up and stopped trying.

You want to scream. Cry. Throw something. Hit someone. Show up in person to get your questions answered. GET ON A FREAKING PLANE AND FLY TO CHINA!!!!!! At this point, they all seem better than what you can do...which is wait. Which seems like nothing.

The truth is, we are not right. We don't feel right. We don't look right (to ourselves). Because our family is not complete. One of us is missing. It's the very real, very open and gaping hole in who we are now. Although Mei Mei has never been "with" us, she's now very much a part of us--of all of us. The only way I can describe it and even possibly have you understand is this:  It's the same way you feel when someone in your family has gone on a trip, even an overnight stay. You look around and everything is there--except them. And while it all functions well and everyone is okay, nothing is truly right. It's just off somehow. Because the absence of the other person is almost palpable. You can feel it in your soul.

So I don't want to worry you or scare you. We are okay. We are getting by. Some days are easier than others. Some days, like today, just SUCK. This is adoption. Good and bad, joy and sorrow, beauty and pain. As I've said so many times before. It's RAW. And although I feel at times like I may go completely insane before this process is complete, I know...in my heart, in my soul, at the core of my being...that it is worth every day of grief and heartache. SHE is worth it.

We covet your prayers at this time for our family. Prayers for peace, for comfort, for direction, for patience--we need it all! Thank you friends. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.