Warning: this is a massive processing and venting post, proceed with caution and with a load of grace, please, dear friend…

“Alert: The Government of Ghana has temporarily suspended processing of all adoption cases, including intercountry adoptions, pending Ghana’s review of its current adoption procedures.” This was news we feared may come.  For the last few months there have been whispers, concerns, worst-case scenarios as well as reassurances and a wait-it-out attitude.  Now it appears that according the the official website, all new adoption cases are being suspended.

Guys – I can’t find a way to write much about this.  Maybe its because we are waiting to get the details from our agency on how this will affect our adoption process.  Or because we know that we fall under the not-yet-referred family category and therefore have no right to any sort of “grandfather clause” that would allow us to still be processed.

We have not been officially, formally, legally matched with a child yet.  Last week we finished our second home study.  Those who know about the home study process know that completing one is no small thing.  It has been a sacrifice, like labor pains, all valuable because it brings us one step closer to our child.  Now?  This news comes as a loss, as if the heartbeat is no longer.  What can we do to fight this?  Should we even dare to fight it?  What do you do when the child and the journey you have felt called to for the last four years suddenly shuts its door on you?

That is the place we find ourselves in right now.  Do we fight?  Do we wait?  Do we lay down our swords and walk away?  I wish we had clarity, but we don’t.  Four years of waiting, aching, pursuing.  Two agencies, two home studies, countless fundraisers, incredible stories of generosity and lives changed – four years of our LIFE invested and now we are standing in a windowless room with a locked door.

I am a week or two away from delivering our baby girl.  The range of emotions I feel is insane.  From the massive scope of excitement and anticipation to the deep pain of loss – I am gaining a child and losing a child all in the same week.  How does a person process that?  What feelings do I even have the capacity to engage with right now?  How do I honor both of these babes?

Please pray for us and for Ghana.  Mostly, please pray for our Ghana babe.  My arms have been aching to hold this child for years now, and my ultimate prayer is that he remain safe and loved and in a place that will offer him security, protection and family.  I so badly want that to be with us, and yet I have to be willing to let go if that is what is asked of me.

At the same time, please pray for our baby girl, that she would be born into love, fully accepted and absorbed in all her fresh new goodness from the very moment of her first breath.  Pray Steve and I can find a way to process what we need to and to seek wisdom together.  And – I can’t even imagine how to have that conversation with Emerson.  He talks about his Ghana brother every single day.

I wish I had more information for you, more solid facts that would bring clarity.  Until we do know more, we ask that you sit with us in the unknown, and show us and those other adoptive families in your lives extra grace and tenderness this week.  May we continue to see love abound even in this situation.