Yesterday we found out that our I-600A hasn't been refiled. It was supposed to happen last week, and I was really hoping to get a confirmation letter this week. But our home study agency informed us that it has not been filed due to the lady in charge being sick. For some reason, I took it much harder than I normally would. It's not like there wasn't a legitimate reason for it not being filed. But it somehow managed to make our adoption feel so much further away. I also discovered a couple of other families from MN that are adopting from our country. I stumbled across their blogs and it was very exciting for me. The hope that our children might be able to meet other African/Americans is exciting. But, I also learned on one of them that the expected time it will take to complete the adoption is much longer than originally anticipated. The program is just on the brink of becoming much more popular, and thus, waiting for your approval and to be matched with your child is taking longer. I keep trying to tell myself that time-wise, it is like trying to get pregnant, but not being able to for the first few months. It all culminated with me waking up in the middle of the night terrified that all of our efforts towards this baby might come to nothing. I layed in bed with a horrible feeling of what if we get turned down by the govt. or something happens in the way they handles adoptions before we get our refferal? All of our dreams, time, money down the drain. I layed there for an hour thinking about this. Worrying about this. And I finally fell back to sleep. The good news is this morning I woke up and was feeling much better about everything. Yes, we could wind up without a child. International adoption is interesting at the very least. Countries close and open, and people's dreams can be crushed. But the reality is, the situation is out of my hands. We can only move forward with the confidence that we have, knowing that the outcome is whatever God intended for us. We most certainly want the outcome to be a beautiful daughter that becomes a part of our family. If that doesn't happen, we need to trust in God that he has a much better plan for us. Grasping that this morning made most of my fears go away. And over the next year or so as the adoption proceeds, I will need to cling to the knowledge that God has a plan for me. I know that I certainly can get caught up in the doubts and fears, and that wasn't what my life was intended for.