Still Waiting...

...our fingerprints were taken on 24 April, 16 days ago, and we are still awaiting our I-171H from the USCIS. I had been hopeful we could have had it as early as a week ago today because our friends had theirs within 9 days of fingerprinting, but not us! It has been a daily letdown, going to the mailbox extectantly each day, and finding mainly junk mail (credit card applications, catalogs, sales flyers...you know the stuff). I am poised and ready to spring into action once that document is in my hands, and am prepared to make the 5-hour round-trip trek to Tallahassee to have our dossier documents Florida Secretary of State certified once we have them all and have them notarized.

But, until I have that last document in my hand, I simply have to wait. Of course, waiting doesn't involve inaction, since there is a never-ending list of things to be done in the course of normal daily living. But mentally, waiting involves an emotional and mental struggle to remain patient and faith-filled as I go about that endless list.

We're not alone in the wait. I am beginning to read some of the online forums for adoptive parents in the process, and am finding I need to not read so much of them as they only make me less patient.

Of course, our daughter is also doing some waiting of her own, waiting for her forever family. May the wait go quickly for us all!