Confessions of a Fedex Package Tracking Addict

So, we got all our updates to our paperwork finalized last Friday and then Dave was kind enough to be our personal DC courier service to pick our stuff up from the embassy and run it out to our adoption agency so that it could get on its way to Rwanda.

So, starting on Friday night, we started entering the tracking number into the Fedex website approximately every 45 seconds looking for updates. Seriously, I probably checked on the tracking number no less than 40 times between Friday at 8 pm and Wednesday at 10 am. Then suddenly, after three days of zero updates, our package was in Rwanda on Wednesday morning! Thinking about my newfound familiarity with the fedex package tracking module, I realized three things:

1) I really want my child to come home. I never would have predicted that I'd already be so emotional about this child about whom I know so little…but every day of waiting and watching our documents sit doing nothing was really difficult to handle
2) I'm impatient. This process is going to teach me a lot in that respect.
3) I'm quick to blame other people when things aren't going the way I want them. I was ready to drive to Newark, NJ to give the fedex employees there a piece of my mind for keeping my package for 3 days when it should have been on its way to Rwanda (it actually was, the system just didn't update).

And I guess part of that impatience and blame is just connected to #1. I don't want to delay my kid coming home by anymore days than I absolutely have to…but I think a lot of it is me thinking that I can or should be in control of how things are going to play out, and I'm not. So, I'm learning…but I still wish I were learning while our dossier was at the Ministry.

In related news: Lucy has begun to express her opinions about this stuff. She says that she wants a little girl when given the choice. That's exciting…unfortunately, when asked if Daddy is a boy or a girl, she says "girl!", so maybe we shouldn't trust her on this one yet. Please note: this is not an open invitation to make a joke about me.

So, our next mini-step is for the agency's staff person to pick up the dossier in Kigali and get it over to the Ministry of Family and Gender…and then we'll wait for a while (probably a couple of months) and hope that we get approved.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to checking the tracking status and hoping for a "Delivered" status to show up.