Expired.

Our visas expired today.  Unfortunately, they were unused, a waste of money, and didn't result in any family-building progress.  Let's just pretend we bought 93 packages of 2-day sale diapers from work and call it even.

We've got some Small Shoes to Fill.

It's been 21 weeks since we sent our folder over.  I originally thought at least 30 so we are still in the normal range of waiting.  We were told 6-12 months.  It is just a bit more maddening since we already had one offer.

I hope.  I still hope. 

Sadly, I will be missing my friends wedding, in Cuba, next month.  I will miss my cousin's wedding, in North Carolina, in June.  I will be missing my friend D's and Mike's friend J's weddings - both this summer outside of province.  I feel so sad that we have this state of limbo that is resulting in us missing so many wonderful weddings.  I just hope these people understand how sad this makes us and if it was anything but waiting for this we would be there - with dancing shoes on!  This is another form of loss I had never thought about before embarking on this journey.

We actually had to talk about when to stop waiting.  That was hard but I feel it was necessary.  I don't want to wake up one day a decade from now and feel like we missed all of these wonderful things for naught.  The same way I decided it wasn't happening naturally, we settled on a "it's not going to happen this way either" date.

That's a long ways away though.

Because I hope.