"The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience."
- Leo Tolstoy
- Leo Tolstoy
It seems hard to believe that we submitted our dossier over 2 months ago. In some ways I wish we had not worked so hard to rush things as it turned out to be unnecessary.
Originally we hoped to travel in late September. Then we hoped for early October. Then we hoped for late October. We still hope for late October.
But because of circumstances within Emerson's country beyond our control and unrelated to our adoption, it seems there is a possibility it will not be until November or later. Our facilitator is still going to push for the date we have requested; we hope she is successful!
It is so hard to fight off the disappointment and the growing sense of panic. Aside from the fact that Macy's 2nd birthday is on Nov. 12th and Dawson's 1st is on Dec. 12th and with Thanksgiving thrown between - all of which I would be crushed to miss - I am becoming more and more worried about Emerson's heart.
I thought about it a lot in the beginning but eventually learned to push it to the back of my mind, to divide this endeavor into two steps and to only focus on this first one for the time being. But now with this first step seemingly dragging on, I cannot help but recognize that every day that passes is one more day her heart has to work furiously to do its job. Every week that goes by is one more week she will wait for surgery and X percentage of increased risk of complications or death. Each day I check my email looking for news, never sure if it will be good or bad. I finally asked our facilitator about something Dr. B suggested - getting her here on a medical VISA and then sending her back. I cannot begin to fathom how we would afford that but the question was hanging there in the air and I had to ask it.
Which relates to my second worry... how much airfare will increase over the next few weeks as the holiday season approaches. If it's a lot, it might just be too much. We are already short as it is, any increase in cost would be a bulldozer to the house of cards we are fighting to build. I cannot believe we have persevered so long to get to this point and the rug still might be pulled out from under us. I feel like a cat chasing a never-ending roll of toilet paper down a steep, never-ending hill.
But to repeat what has become our mantra over the last 4 months - we cannot just give up.
We need patience. A cap on airfares. And a travel date.
