Fighting Against Hope

I was proctoring the exam for our geriatrics elective a few days ago and given I had to just sit there for about 2 hours for everyone to finish, I had some time to kill. Luckily I had brought my laptop with me and it was fully charged ( a rarity for me) and I started going through more of the guidebook on our agency's website. I ended up reading an article that talked about this concept, fighting against hope. It was like a lightbulb went off and I realized that is the perfect term to describe a lot of the feelings that go along with our situation.

It does sound a bit weird to say it, not quite as inspirational as fighting against cancer or something like that, quite the opposite actually. But for people who are pursuing adoption after infertility I think it describes a lot of how we respond and react to situations/ news. Adoption is a significantly different experience for those who cannot have children of their own versus those who can and have. I've encountered some parents who already have children who think it's completely the same, but no way is that true. I've found most people

DTC!

That is dossier to china for all of you non-adoption lingo experts. Just like every profession has their own jargon so does adoption and infertility. Lots of acronyms! After 5 months of paperwork, anxiety, and high usage of FedEx (we have our own account, we're that important) our dossier paperwork is complete, assembled and on it's way to China today!

It will probably take a few weeks for them to check it in and give us our log-in information. We need the log-in information to be eligible to be

They exist!

Our documents have returned from the US State Department today!

They were there almost 5 weeks and caused us major stress the past couple of weeks. We are just so happy they don't have to be redone....again. We have one document to be walked in to the State Department hopefully tomorrow or Thursday. Hopefully before that freaking government shutdown. Then to their last stop at the Chinese Embassy and hopefully have our dossier ready to send to China next week!