Waiting for Clarissa

Ok, here is the first of probably many posts to come where I complain that time is going by too slowly and that I'm tired of waiting. I'm SO ready for Clarissa to join our family and sometimes it seems like we'll be waiting forever. We're just starting our 8th month of waiting. If it were a pregnancy I'd be big and fat by now and washing baby clothes and getting out the crib bedding. But this isn't a pregnancy and it's not about to end. I'm not even halfway there yet!

Instead I just wait and wish and wonder. I wonder what it's going to be like. I hope that she adjusts to life in our family. It breaks my heart to think of what she's going to have to go through to get here, being seperated from her birth mother and then her foster family, her country and everything familiar to her and having to go to a place where no one looks or sounds familiar. I know that we'll love her and take care of her, but she won't know that at first. She'll be about nine months old when she gets here. Old enough to recognize that everything is changing, but not old enough to understand why. She's probably not even born yet and I'm already sad for what she's going to have to go through.

And more than that, I'm sad for the mother that is going to have to say goodbye to her. I have two biolological children and I know what it feels like to see your baby for the first time and have it instantly fill up your heart. Having to give a child up must be so hard. I pray for that mother, whoever she is. I hope that she finds peace.

So anyway, there's my pity party for the day. The wait it long and sometimes it's discouraging. I hope that someday Clarissa realizes how loved she is. Not just by me, but by her birthmother who will love her enough to want a better life for her and her foster mother who will love her and then have to let her go. I hope that I can raise her with an understanding of how much love went into finding her a forever home. And I look forward to the day that I can finally hold her in my arms.