Why the Wait is so so painful...

Nobody likes waiting, I guess. Unless you are a Buddhist monk and enjoy flexing your patience muscles, the rest of us find waiting quite difficult. Especially why this waiting involves one of the biggest changes you are ever likely to experience in your life: becoming a parent! 

And so we have been waiting, for over five months now and I, probably because I am slightly crazy, have been looking at different research into waiting. One of the pieces of research I came across has made things clearer for me. In a paper entitled 'The Psychology of Waiting Lines' David Maister talks about the different effects that different types of waiting have. 

For example, and relevant to our situation, indefinite waiting times seem longer than definite ones (which is probably why at Greek tax offices they give you an average wait time, which is usually widely inaccurate, but - it seems - psychologically soothing). We have been indefinitely waiting since day 1, and we are only now inching closer to a more definite waiting time, as we get a court number and the wait times become around 4-6 weeks. 

Also relevant to us is the difference between the pre-process wait, which seems longer and the in-process wait. I am not sure which of these two you would place us in - somedays I think we have been in-process since the match, on the other hand, until our case is filed in court, it does all feel like a pre-process wait...

Of course what all this has done is bring into very sharp focus just how much of our life we have spent waiting to become parents. And although I know we should be "relaxing and enjoying the process" as a lot of people have suggested, as well as "enjoying our pre-child time with each other" it is becoming increasingly difficult to be in this limbo. 

Here's hoping for some good news this week... or next... 

Additions

I have been spending a few days in the UK, first a couple of days in London, for work and now a day and a bit in Cambridge, with my dear friend J. 

Part of today was a shopping trip, into Cambridge to get various things that we cannot get in Greece, like the great variety of teas, which I have unpacked and repackaged into small ziplock bags and stuffed into my suitcase. 

We also went into Baby Gap, something I have not done before - not to buy anything anywyay. 

I am proud to announce that I have bought the first real item that is meant for the kids. In fact this little dog is meant for B, the three year old girl we have been matched with. When we met her back in October we had brought a small photograph album with us to leave with her and had taken several pictures of the dogs for her to look at. She was delighted at it all and kept on calling "wo-shaa" which is the Amharic for "dog". 

So here it is, the first toy I have dared to buy... Still in the wait, but feeling more confident it might happen soon! (A couple of families who have been waiting with us have now been given dates, hence my guarded optimism...)

Does it remind you of anyone?

Attachments...

"They grow up so fast!" 

If I've heard it once I've heard it twenty times already. You don't even have to have a baby on your lap for people, usually older women, whose children might have flown the nest already, or are at the 'not-so-cuddly' stage, to offer up this advice. And really, as much as I appreciate advice (ok, so maybe I don't very much) what does it really mean? 

I understand the implicit meaning to someone whose kids are there, with them, to someone who might be too trapped into the nitty-gritty of parenting to appreciate the unique developmental stage their kids are at during that precise moment. I understand that and in a way, I believe that too: enjoy your children as they are right now (even if the way they are right now involves trantrums and snot, hmmm). Mindful parenting, immersed in the moment, is something that I too, aspire to. 

But telling a woman, like me, whose (prospective - that word again) children are half a world away, on a different continent, well, that to me sounds as a simple, and maybe rather cruel observation. She might as well have said "Look how they're growing without you!" or "He's a little boy already and you will never get to live the baby-stage with him". 

We have a friend who is currently in Addis Ababa, visiting his prospective children as him and his wife are waiting for their paperwork to be finalised. He very kindly visited the orphanage where our kids are at, and took several pictures and a few videos for us to see them. 

I knew he was going to visit yesterday - he had told me and D and I had sent him a little video of us, taken on Saturday in our garden, our three dogs around us, saying hi to our little girl. I had also sent him some pictures we had taken with her while we were there in October. October... that was five months ago... The mere thought makes my heart sink.

The whole day I scanned my phone obsessively, even during class (which I don't normally do) waiting for an email, a picture. I was on the way home from my early evening lesson when my phone started pinging. I ran up to the house and then sat next to D while we opened the attachment to our children's pictures. 

We watched them, several times and we laughed. And we cried. And we laughed some more. We scanned the pictures, we scrutinised every second of the videos, for little signs of them - for something more than just a picture. For the funny way she moves her mouth, the way she tidies her bear on her lap, her assertive manner. For his first proper little laugh (in front of our eyes, at least), his, now chubby, arms poking out of his shirt. For his lovely hair, that has grown curly and plentiful. And for the way he looks at her. We watched them again and again, feasting our eyes in the sight of the two little ones that will hopefully be in our arms soon.

Telling me that they grow up so fast was like a punch in the stomach. Like I don't know. Like I don't realise that the three month old infant I left behind last November will never be the same. That this bubbling, smiling 8 month old will not even be the same tomorrow. That by the time we manage to go and get them, by the time our court date has come they will have changed again, into different little children. 

A bitter sweet evening, with over 8 attachments of my children. In all honesty, not the sort of "attachment" I was hoping for at this stage, but precious all the same. 

We wait...