My life feels like it has been on hold for six months now. On June 18th, I saw pictures of my daughter for the first time. On June 19th, I saw a one minute video of my daughter running around in an orphanage playing with a water bottle. On July 18th, a giant stack of paperwork arrived in Taiwan... these papers were her ticket home... all that we needed to begin the court process to bring our little girl home to Tennessee. They enthusiastically said "We'll have her home by Christmas!".
"your phone call is important to us. we are currently experiencing heavy call volume. your estimated time to bring your daughter home is 9 months. thank you for holding."
I don't know a better way to describe it... it feels like I've been on hold with a credit card company since June... the phone is at my ear and this message just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating. I can do things while I wait.. heck, sometimes for a moment or two I even forget that I'm on hold, but like clockwork, every few minutes that voice comes back on to remind me that life is indeed on hold.
This has been without question the hardest six months of my life. I wake up every day and wonder about a thousand different things. Life here has been good, Jessica and Connor are wonderful and we've had some great times as a family only we haven't... our family is incomplete. Ever since that moment we saw her face for the first time everything we have done as a family has felt just a little bit off. We are incomplete.
We have tried everything we know to do to help us get through the wait... you try to put it out of your head for awhile and just pretend it isn't happening. You tell yourself that will make the time pass more quickly. It doesn't work though... we both work around tons of people every day. I can't go 20 minutes without being asked about it some days. I don't mind being asked... I really don't. I know everyone means well, genuinely cares, and really hopes and prays we'll have our little girl home soon. It's just hard to have the scab ripped off the wound 10 times a day sometimes when all you want to do is just survive another day, think about it as little as possible, and hope that the time passes quickly.
They told us home by Christmas... then our court date was delayed (it should have been in early September... it was October 26th) and they told us mid to late February. We're hanging our hats on that for now... if we don't get a phone call in the next couple of weeks though, even that isn't going to happen and we could be looking at March or April. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
So all of this to say... I'm sorry I haven't been updating my blog lately. I just haven't really felt like writing anything substantial... it's just another thing that it's hard to give your full attention to when you're on hold.
As soon as we get the phone call we've been waiting 6 months for... the "come and get your daughter" call, I would imagine I'll have plenty to write about. For now though, you have my apologies. Please keep my family in your prayers... as much as this has taken a toll on me, you can only imagine what a toll it has taken on Jessica.
sorry I ripped off the scab the other day and asked you:) We are praying for you guys daily though...I know that doesn't help being on hold. Here's hoping to happy posts and no hold music soon:)
Posted by: shannon kelley | December 29, 2009 at 07:00 PM
Thanks Shannon... we appreciate it!
Posted by: greg | December 29, 2009 at 10:41 PM