You’re STILL pregnant?!?

Now I understand a little of what it must feel like to be nine months pregnant, and boy do you all have my sincerest sympathy.

It’s got to be bad enough feeling about as beautiful, poetic and graceful as a yak. But then you’ve got the stress and frustration of waiting and waiting for a sign – any sign – that this kid really is gonna get here one of these days, that it’s not just some cosmic fertility joke gone badly awry. And on top of all that, you get all the comments: “You’re still pregnant? WOW! I thought you already had the kid!”

Well, the good thing is, my ankles aren’t (overly) swollen, I’m not craving pickles and ice cream (well, maybe ice cream), and my belly is not so big that I cannot bend over to tie my own shoes…so far. And I’m not up every hour all night long having to pee, so overall, I think I’m still good.

But I do still get all the questions. What’s today, Wednesday? I think I’ve been asked 347 times this week, “Have you gotten the letter yet?”

(For those of you just tuning in, Welcome to the show! Today’s episode: watch Jason and Emily painstakingly wait for their Letter of Acceptance from China.)

Who’d have thought a piece of paper would get us all stirred up? But it’s a paper that says we agree to adopt Dang Yong. We thought we might get it back in late January. Now it’s late February and still not here. We need that letter before we can get travel approval to go to China.

So we’re still waiting for that little slip of paper that says all is good, that Dang Yong will really be ours.

And naturally, people want to ask us if we’ve gotten it yet, because they know what a big deal it is. My mom and dad went up to a school basketball game yesterday. Before they left, my mom said, “I have my cell phone with me, just in case…you know…in case you find anything out and want to call.”

It’s not that I’m upset that you’re asking, because I know you all are rooting for us. I’m sure my very-pregnant counterparts aren’t really angry at their friends and family for all the “just-checking-in” phone calls. Well, maybe they are… And maybe I am, a little. I mean, it’s HARD!

And I’m tired and anxious and a little stressed, like maybe China lost our dossier with the restructuring of the Waiting Child adoption department at the Chinese Consulate. Plus things are bad over there with their recent 50-year snowstorms; some orphanages are without food, electricity, water.

And I have all sorts of crazy weird dreams at night and don’t sleep well. The other night I was playing with Yong and reading to him, and he was happy, snuggling up and talking in English to me. But sometimes they’re bad dreams that wake me up.

Either way, I end up having to get up and go pee.

So I get upset, disappointed, frustrated and sad; I start griping at Jason over stupid little things; I feel raw and on-edge. I want carbs and lots of ‘em. I want warm weather and sunshine and the hope of spring – instead of this freezing cold February with never-ending snowstorms.

But yesterday we did get an e-mail update on what’s going on with our dossier in China (it is there and it’s under review) and an update on how Yong is doing at the orphanage. We are excited to learn that his language is developing well and he is progressing!

The bad news is: it looks like we aren’t getting our letter until March, and we probably won’t be traveling until April (or maybe May?).

So, yes, it feels like the African elephant pregnancy.

More ice cream, anyone?