For Those Of You Keeping Score At Home...

...we recently heard from China. Baby Sister will be home sometime in early 2010! So you can all update your scorecards to reflect Haggis Family +1 = 4. :)

It has been a long wait, but one that has made this result possible. If she'd arrived in the fleeting 9 months it took for Bambina I would have been very sick and we'd have been unable to complete the adoption. If she'd arrived in 2 years, I'd have been just coming out of isolation and unable to really be a full-time mother to both girls. So we waited and waited--and the waiting was good. It caused me to reflect on how much of life can involve waiting, and on how much life can be sweet if we view the waiting as a necessary time rather than a punishment.

I think back to all the times I was waiting and praying and hoping for something but failing to realize that maybe I wasn't ready just when I thought I was. I wonder if God (or the universe or whomever) creates these fallow times in order to create some change in us that needs to occur before we can be ready for the blessing we're awaiting. Bambina has been struggling with kindergarten transition, generalized anxiety and a delayed (or right on time?) reaction to my transplant from 2 years ago. It has been a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute drama for all of us as her intellect has caught up to her memories. It's as though she has just figured out that what happened back when she was 3 was really, really scary and serious. And so she must process these feelings now, with us, her school and a child psychologist's help. I awake every day ready to go pick up my second daughter. But I view the wait as my opportunity and my privilege to ensure that my first daughter emerges from the situations of her young life unharmed and healthy. Bambina needs me right now, completely. And I know that the wait for Baby Sister is making it possible for me to focus totally on Bambina, as I need to. She's been through a lot of stuff in her 5 short years, dealt with separations and losses and feelings that most people don't experience till adolescence. So her anxiety is no mystery and no cause for shame. It's simply something we will all work through together and emerge stronger on the other side. While we wait.