Freaking Out and Flashbacks

Note to self - Don't drink caffienated soda too late at night.  It makes you stay up too late because you can't sleep.

Have you figured out yet that I'm an emotional wreck?

I'm distracted.  I can cry at the drop of a hat.  In fact, the hat doesn't even have to drop.  The emotional roller coaster of adoption is just the same as the pregnancy one.  If not worse. 

At least when I was pregnant, I had a due date on the calendar.  It didn't mean too much.  Babies come when babies come.  The date was more like a target for the acceptable range.  Babies can come safely upto about four weeks before that date.  Doctors won't usually allow you to go beyond two weeks past your due date.  So the actual due date is more like a pin point within a six-week window of opportunity.

Now?  I guess you could say that we are in that window now.  But the window is thrown wide open!  No pin stuck anywhere.  No date to hold onto.  No absolute deadline.  Life is filled with maybe's and probably's into January.  That's over two months of if's and when's!

Life is crazy!

One minute I'm fine with the thought that we'll be waiting for a while.  I plan all the things I can do and all the things I can finish up.  The clock ticks.  Then I'm a mess thinking of all the things I'll miss if we leave too soon and all the things I can't get done.

Mixed in with all the waiting insanity, I'm now experiencing flashbacks to our trip in January 2009 to bring Keziah home!

I step into the grocery store and breath in all the smells of the holiday season.  Then my memory is triggered to the sights and smells in the grocery stores in China.

I push my cart outside, drink in a deep breathe of fresh, crisp fall air, and look out to the horizon and the colors of the sky lite by the setting sun.  Then the puff of a diesel engine, and my mind is racing with images of tall buildings surrounding me and pollution so thick that I never saw true sunlight for days.

I grab a can of Coke Zero for a little refreshment and begin to panic at the thought of not having an ice cold drink.

I brush my teeth with the water running from the faucet while trying to remember how to brush my teeth with a glass of boiled or bottled water.

As I grab fresh fruits and vegetables to prepare meals or just enjoy, I'm instantly craving more when I think about going two weeks without eating anything that might have been washed.  Salads become precious treasures.  Apples jewels.

The familiar foods of the Thanksgiving season remind me that we are about to return to eating strange, new dishes.

Told you that I'm a mess!

Today, the hardest thing for me has been that all I have of my girl are pictures taken months and years ago.  The last photos we received are from March.  We've had no updates since then, except during the summer when her city experienced flooding.  One report said that her orphanage was not affected, but that they had trouble getting food.  Later I heard that the orphanage did have to evacuate, but it was never officially reported to us. 

I WANT TO SEE MY GIRL!  I WANT TO HOLD HER IN MY ARMS AND KNOW THAT SHE IS SAFE AND WELL!

Breakdown over...for the moment...

I know that soon this waiting will all become a distant memory.  Soon I'll be typing away about our struggles as we adjust to the new normal of life as a family of eight.

But tonight, I just miss my sweet, little princess.  I long to see her smiling, laughing, and giggling at home with her brothers and sisters.  I can't believe this, but I long to hear more little girl squeals, more hair to brush, more baths to give, more nails to trim and polish, more little girls to dress, more teeth to brush, more dirty laundry, more chaos and noise!

Hadassah Peiwu, your mama loves you!  Come home, Baby Girl.  We miss you so much!  For you and you alone will I get on that plane again.  Hugs and kisses to you, Sweetie!  As I go to try to get some much needed sleep, I will be dreaming of you playing in the sunshine.