Consulate Appointment! :)

At 4:30 am, we received the email letting us know the consulate appointment has been scheduled!!

We spent the next several hours getting travel information sent to the travel agent and emailing or calling back and forth trying to hammer out an itinerary.  The final plan has us leaving January 16th and getting into Nanjing on Jan 18th.  Lots of time in airports or airplanes in those 2 days.  :)  It's a good thing that I like to travel, I guess.  We will have Gotcha Day on 1/21, which also happens to be Martin Luther King, Jr Day.  Jaden will have a built in holiday for his Gotcha Day celebrations!

It has been a very emotional day but obviously a very happy one too.  One of the unexpectedly wonderful things about this journey has been the outpouring of support from everyone.  When we posted about the CA today on facebook, it was amazing how many people posted in support.  I realized that we didn't have a swimsuit for Jaden to use in the indoor pool and posted that and within the hour I had several responses offering to bring me one to the office!  I love knowing that I am bringing Jaden home to a community that wholeheartedly looks forward to embracing him. 

As we make these final steps, some of the not-so-happy things have to be faced.  I know that Jaden's life will have so much more promise and opportunity with this change but I am not a 3 year old little guy who doesn't speak the language.  Adoption is a wonderful thing that begins with heartbreak.  Jaden has lived in the orphanage since he was 12 days old.  The nannies and other children have been his only family.  In order to start what we hope will be a wonderful life, he has to leave everything behind.  He will lose his home, his family, his language and go with strangers who look very different, who speak gibberish and who don't understand him.  We know we love him but right now, he doesn't know that.  I can't begin to imagine how incredibly scary this will be for Jaden.  I have prayed for months for God to prepare Jaden's heart for what is coming.  I am trying to prepare my heart for all of the possible scenarios.  Some children grieve so hard for all that they are losing that they just shut down, others grieve loudly and still others seem not to grieve much at all.  The common thinking is that the "better loved" the child is the more likely he is to grieve terribly, because they have more to grieve.  Jaden seems so happy in all of his pictures, I am afraid that he may have a really hard time at first.  The flip side of this is that often the ones that are well loved, find it easier, later, to love their new families.

 God led us to this adoption, I KNOW this.  That has been such a crazy, amazing comfort in all of this.  I have been told in countless studies that when we walk the path that God has planned for us, there is peace.  I have had so much peace and a sense of "rightness" over the last several months because  I've never been so sure that I was doing what God wanted as I have with this adoption.  God directed every foot step of this journey.  He put so many people in my path with adoption stories--patients, lay speakers at events, friends, musicians, random people in stores--it was crazy.  People I've known for years would come up and tell me about their adoption story.   When we saw Jaden's picture on a website of waiting children, it was like, "oh, of course.  I get it now." 

 My comfort through the bumps in the road of this adoption has been knowing that God wanted this for Jaden before I did.  He is in control.  He will be there to comfort Jaden, even if Jaden isn't quite ready to let me comfort him.

Lord, help us know how to help our son.  Let us allow him to grieve in whatever way he needs but show us how to reach his little heart so that he can begin to accept our love.