Just need to vent...

OK, so I have been majorly venting on the yahoo group today, it felt good to just get it out, so I thought I would continue my pity party here. We are coming up on a year since we started the adoption process. We never thought it would take this long. When we started we were told we would be home by the end of the year with a baby. We had major problems with our CIS office and set backs with our Dossier. This caused the waiting list to get longer and longer ahead of us. I am just getting frustrated and feeling like the day will never come. I know it will but it's so hard waiting. I have actually done pretty good about waiting until now. I guess I am thinking about it too much. During our long wait for our CIS approval I really tried to think very little about the adoption. I have been thinking about it A LOT lately and I am driving myself nuts over it. I am such a pre-planner and just not knowing when we will travel, what age she will be, etc.... This is very hard for me. I guess this is one of Gods little lessons in life, he is trying to teach me patience and not to be such a control freak. :) The thing I am most worried about is more set backs. With the longer wait times for a referral and the longer wait times for a court date once we receive a referral this process could get REALLY long. Courts close again in August for the rainy season. It is taking 4-4 1/2 months right now for families to get court dates. It could get even longer... This means in order to get a court date before they close in August we MUST get a referral by the end of March or first of April. Even then we will be cutting it close. We can still travel during the rainy season it is just getting that crucial court date before then. Plus with the increase in adoptions from Ethiopia the court dates will just keep getting pushed back further and sometimes court dates are rescheduled. Also our CIS fingerprints and approval are going to expire and have to be redone. I honestly don't know how long our home study is good for. Wow, I really hope we don't have to do the whole thing all over again. The upside is our agency has been getting a lot of referrals lately. Hopefully they will keep rolling in. I personally hope they get a few toddler referrals in so that will boost us up the list in that age range. I totally don't care if we get a 2 month old or a 3 year old.

Earlier this week our agency received a referral for a little 5 month old baby boy who had been found abandoned and was severely malnourished. It broke my heart to hear his story. I would have gotten on the plane that day to go get him if I could have. They are considering him special needs and trying to find a family for him that would be prepared to take on his possible disabilities and medical care. Nick and I have been considering requesting to be considered to adopt him but they are very unsure how he will grow and develop due to everything his little body has been through. It's a hard decision. You just never know, he could end up catching up on his growth and development with the proper care, medical treatment, and time. Then again he could have a lot of permanent disabilities. There are just so many unknowns with him. There is NO health guarantee on any of these children that are referred. They usually know very little about their background and really all of the children have been malnourished to some degree at some point. Of course his case is more extreme than the others. We decided to wait and see if anyone was matched with him. We would have to get our home study updated to say boy or girl, since we had requested a girl. The agency really wants a family that is totally ready to go so they can get him in the States ASAP and get him the medical care he desperately needs. I am dying to know if anyone has been matched with him. I hate bugging our social worker but I may just have to give her a call today and find out...