Counting the days before Christmas feels like fun as a kid. Ticktock. Ticktock. Watching time ebb away. Ten days left. Now eight. Now three. Giddy anticipation builds and you imagine the mountain of glorious goodies that await your discovery.

When THE day arrives and your eyes catch that first glimpse of boxes, wrapping paper and bows, the clock chimes. Bong. Bong. Bong! I remember well that, at that point, any further delays feel like eternity. My patience is threadbare and my ability to stave off desire has altogether disappeared. I want it all and I want it now.

The adoption waiting process feels like Christmas morning. You complete truck loads of paperwork. Every minute detail of your relationship, finances, home and value system is analyzed and recorded on some piece of paper. You pay fee after fee to the government, agencies, or lawyers. And then you wait. You have control over information up to this point and then, suddenly, you have virtually none. And the thing is, by the time you start this waiting game, you’re pretty much done with waiting.

When I engage in conversation about adoption, I almost invariably face the question, “Why did you wait to get married?” Or “Why did you wait to have kids.” I didn’t wait by choice. I didn’t consciously postpone taking part in these life passages because I wanted to.

Over the years, I was certainly no stranger to dating and I’d had a few longer relationships, but nothing that led to, “Will you marry me?” When I finally did find “the one,” I was 46. By the time we said our “I do’s,” I was 48. It was the first trip down the aisle for us both. We talked about children and our options for creating a family early on in our relationship, and had several lively debates about the direction this path might take along the way. My own biological clock had wound down at the young age of 46. Using donor eggs was a contender in our quest to become three, as was adoption. We chose adoption.

Here we are, nearly ten months past that initial decision. We are “paper ready” as they say in the world of adoption. Our pile of paperwork has been collected, notarized, apostilled, and government (ours) approved. Now we call it a dossier, and it sits in Armenia, in the process of being translated into Eastern Armenian. Then (hopefully quite soon), it will sit on the desk of the Armenian Prime Minister, the first signature of approval we need to move forward and receive our referral.

Waiting feels interminable. I really don’t want to wait any longer. I’m ready to be a mom now. Past ready. So every delay, every month that passes, every redo or stall in the process is pure agony. I have moments when I am able to be more Zen about it than others. And, I have just as many moments when I feel like a bronco ready to buck from his pen, just before the barrel race.