Friday, February 23, 2007

You ought to see my spreadsheet. As you may or may not know, I’m a CPA (or rather, a mostly-retired, technically “inactive” CPA), so organizing my life in Excel comes very naturally. For months and months now I’ve been tracking every little bit of info I can get my hands on about the timing of other families through this adoption process (about 70 of them at this point – and that only includes those who participate in our agency’s on-line forum). Did you know that Excel can calculate dates? Of course, our agency tries very hard to drill into our heads the fact that we really shouldn’t compare timelines. But when you’re this emotionally involved in a process (a child!) over which you have ZERO control, you are reduced to prayer and analysis. It’s embarrassing how many times I have manipulated the dates trying to figure out just when we’ll be picking up our precious girl. Add to that the complications of a wedding we’re trying to work around, my parents’ vacation plans, and my teaching schedule, and we’re looking at a very small window of “ideal” travel time. At this point, the very best case scenerio (based on past experience) would have us traveling the first week of April, while the worst case scenerio (based on past experience, plus a few weeks of extra delays for Tet) would put us on a plane the last week of May. I refuse to even think about the fact that our agency insists families should plan on a 3-6 month wait from log-in date to travel. 6 months means August, and that I just couldn’t bear. We have a lot of godly people praying for early April, so let’s hope that’s God’s will!
"The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" - James 5:16

4 comments:

Neil, Amy and The Girls said...

Early April sounds WONDERFUL to me!!! I agree with you, August is not even an option in my mind!!! I just pray that we are back from Vietnam in June (for your son's and my daughter's birthday)!!

Leigh said...

Laura,

I wanted to thank you again for sharing your spreadsheet. I am having lots of "projection" fun as well.

Our dossier came back from the Consulate yesterday. News today that we are DTV and #11! We aren't far behind you!

Your timeline WILL work for your family...no matter what it turns out to be. It's out of your hands...and the wait is almost over!! Woo Hoo!

Peace,

Elizabeth said...

I can totally understand the spreadsheets - if I had any information worth putting into one, I'm sure I'd be doing the same thing. And I will join you in praying for early April.

Rachel said...

I obsess over timeline too...in fact your spreadsheet helps feed my addiction! ;)

It's amazing how the timing works out just right. I hope you hear good news in the next few weeks. I don't think April travel is out of the question at all!