Adoption Jealousy

I'm just gonna be brutally honest here. I just experienced my first real feelings of jealousy in the adoption process. It's stupid, I know, I should be overjoyed for this family and happy for this kind of movement in our program.

I am happy for them, I really am. I saw the photos from the trip to Haiti our agency took in the spring and I specifically remember noticing the twin baby boys at one of the orphanages. They were so small and precious, and since I was hoping for an infant they caught my attention. But we did feel the Lord calling us to a daughter, not boys. I saw the pictures of one of the women on the trip holding each of them.

A couple weeks ago she and her husband got a referral for those baby boys. Their dossier will be submitted to IBESR this week while our program director is in Haiti. This is only possible because of a two week extension IBESR just granted to allow more families in under the old laws.

The main reason for my confusion is that our agency told us they would not be issuing any new referrals until they found out if they were approved by IBESR to do adoptions in Haiti under the new regs. Once they said that, I felt like the pressure was off and I've been much slower about finishing up the paperwork. I figured everyone in our program would fall under the new laws.

For us, that meant giving up our dream of an infant and raising our requested age maximum to 24 months.

The truth is, I know in my head that God is guiding our steps. This is His story, not ours. He knows the child who is meant to be ours. I know in my head that His timing is perfect, He must not have intended for us to have an infant, etc. But my heart still feels confused and a bit disappointed.

I have heard about these weird feelings from close friends who have been waiting for their referrals a looooooong time. They express feeling guilty about not being happy when someone else gets a referral or brings their child home. They just feel resentful, despite knowing the whole "God's timing is perfect"  thing.

So when I read the happy news of this family on my Facebook page, my first reaction was not joy for them. It was frustration for me. Thankfully my faith and knowledge will overrule the negative emotions that surface. I know where those come from and how to ditch them.

In the meantime, it's no use asking me if we have any idea what our adoption timeline looks like now. We don't. None.

But we have hope. We know the Father of the fatherless is sovereign and whatever happens, He wins.