Adoption Update and a little dash of flipping out

We received our last piece of paper from China (Article 5) and was told our Travel Approval has been issued in a breathtakingly fast 4 days (it normally takes about 2 weeks). Once we get our hard copy of the TA, we begin the process of travel arrangements. Most people leave about 2-3 weeks after TA, which puts us at meeting Tali early September.

In like 3-4 weeks.

Weeks people, weeks.

In that time, we have to make flight and hotel arrangements (including in-country travel), get prescriptions filled (ew orphanage scabies), make packing lists and actually refer to them, clean the house (or try my hardest to care a little bit about it), make sure our visas/passports arrive in time, and other such travel-ly things. This is one of those times I wish I was organized and clean and had nice hair (this is so when something is messed up - I forget something or didn't sign something or accidentally packed Kate's underwear instead of my own - at least I can look good doing it).

I had a dream a week ago that I was in a room with Talitha. Strangely, it was a schoolroom, with those chair-desk combinations. Someone was holding her and I could see her, but only from behind. It was frustrating that I never saw her face and eventually I had to content myself with the fact that at least I could see her and know she's safe.

That's how it feels now. We're so close but still no Tali.

Adoption is such an interesting thing. I love her like I love my other kids but it's...different. With my other kids, it was natural, like floating downstream. But with adoption, the love begins as a matter of fact. You love this child, at least on an intellectual level, simply because you know that someday she will be yours. But it's a hard fought love - a clawing my way up a mountain - trying to hold on as much as I can - love. And now that I know her, at least a little teensy bit, it's so natural. Of course she is mine and I love her.

Love is such an overused word. It's a Nicholas Sparks movie and a 50 year marriage and strong feelings of happiness towards tacos.

And yet for all of the things that love is and means, I love her.

And I will be holding her close and squishing her little thighs and blowing raspberries on her tummy and calling her silly names very soon.

Send up a prayer for us and her if you get a minute please. As excited as we are, I know there are most likely dark days ahead for us. Adoption is amazing but at its core is loss. Loss of family, loss of heritage, loss of security. 

O God of Good Things, grant peace and healing. 

She is so worthy of love, this little child I don't yet know. Soon, sweet girl. Soon.