What's in a number?? A time of reflection.

I think we are Dossier #32. Some of you are wondering what's that?? Our adoption paperwork is called a dossier. Our agency gives each dossier a number when it is received for final processing. We are #32. So, what does the number mean? Honestly, I wish it meant that we would be the 32nd family to receive a referral! Twenty-two referrals have been issued so we are #10 on paper. However, it is not as simple as that.

So here's the process- As children become eligible for adoption our agency reviews the child's file and then matches them with a family. Some families are requesting infant girls, others a boy, some are open to either gender.... We requested a toddler boy. Only a hand full of families have requested a boy in this age range. We may receive a referral before the 32nd referral is issued because our agency will "skip" down to the families that requested this age range. However, there will have to be a toddler boy that becomes available. We could be waiting well after the 32nd referral.

As we learned from our Russian adoption (which took two years), where we are in line doesn't mean much. For Russia it felt as though we hit every adoption stumbling block possible and then we waited and waited. While we were in the program, Russia families did not go in “turn” or in number order. It was much more like an individual faith journey than a process within a numbering system.

While we could not see it at the time, God was preparing new jobs/roles, a major move, a new church, a new house, speech and OT teachers for Igor..... None of this was revealed until months after Igor's "gotcha" day. But when we saw it all unfold, we knew it was God. He had not forgotten us during our two year process and as always, He had been in control. He had a perfect plan for our family... a plan that was so much better than we could have dreamt of...
God's plans are rarely linear. He has never short changed us by going by our time-line or our number. He sees things, all things and we know he has a bigger and better plan for our family than we have. His plan is perfect and just like last time we will wait on his perfect timing. But sometimes, I wish we could take a ticket, wait in line (in order!) and our adoption would be as easy as creating a spreadsheet and the number 32.