That's right. The ticker does not lie.

We have now been waiting two years for our second child from China. Last year I chose to poke fun of the wait, but this year I'm going bring the room down a little bit. I figured I can share with you guys, right? That ticker totally BUMS ME OUT. I find myself looking at it every time I go to our blog - and on one hand it gives me a strange sense of accomplishment and on the other, it represents the time that we have missed with our second child.

Now don't get me wrong. See this little girl?


Yes, the little girl on Santa's lap. She is our WORLD. She makes it all go round. She gives us purpose and fills our lives with so much laughter and joy - more than we feel we deserve. She makes this wait bearable. My heart goes out to adoptive parents who are waiting for their first child. However, Hannah also makes it harder. You see, I can block the wait out of my mind - I can fill it with work and my husband and my daughter and friends... but Hannah brings it back. She wants her little sister or brother. She does not understand how so many of her little friends at school have little sisters and brothers and we have to wait, and wait and wait. She saves pictures she's drawn and clothes she's grown out of and toys she's stopped playing with - just for her sister. At least once a week she tells me she is going to dream of her baby sister, and I tell her I will too. She says she misses her, even though they have never met. I try to tell her that we have to wait a very long time and we need to be patient. Yeah right, a patient four year old. I grew up as an only child and I do not want that for my child. My childhood was not bad at all, it was just lonely. I want my daughter to be able to confide and teach her sibling in ways that I only long for. And realizing the challenges she will face being a minority, I wanted her to have someone that she can directly relate to.

In the end, we do not know how much longer the wait will be. Technically the wait is not yet at four years, but it will reach four years soon enough and then what? We do not know. China is not saying and frankly I do not want to do anything to make them angry and shut the whole program down. China is a communist country and therefore they keep the information to themselves. We have heard a bundle of excuses for the delay - the Olympics, swine flu, more domestic adoptions, etc. and at this point we are just not sure what to believe. So we will keep on keeping on and hope that one day we will see a light at the end of this very long tunnel. We are in it for the long haul.


Okay that's enough belly-aching. As my friend Denise says, "Buck up buttercup." And we will do just that.
:-)