Feeling renewed

I think most adoptive parents will say that at various points throughout the process they hit some valleys. Times where they just felt not only overwhelmed, but flat out hopeless about the circumstances. The past few days was certainly one of those points for me. I knew exactly why it was happening, but I didn't know what to do about it.

The problem was Dean and I were not in the same place emotionally and spiritually and I couldn't just grab his hand and drag along.  He was feeling really scared about stuff and not talking and I was doing the "It'll all work out in the end." and it was driving him crazy. It didn't help that we've been really busy and had not taken the time to sit down and talk about what was going on.

Last night we had a homestudy class. I realized I get to talk to other adoptive parents all the time, but Dean doesn't. We were the only family there who is adopting for the first time, the others are on their second or higher adoption. This was the first real chance Dean's had to sit down and hear other adoptive parents talk, particularly about the money flying out the door, and how scary that is sometimes, and fundraising, and wondering how they're coming up with the next chunk of cash, etc. He's anxious to connect with other adoptive families so we have a support system in the adoptive community. I feel well connected, him...not so much. We'll be fixing that.

The meeting got out about an hour earlier than we expected so we had time to stop somewhere and just sit and talk. It was nice to finally regroup from the past couple of weeks. We talked about our options for the very near future, and we prayed for Ianna and the people in charge of making the decisions for her future. The whole evening has me feeling re-energized and like I can almost see the light at the end of the homestudy tunnel! If we can just get the homestudy done that is a major hurdle!