Embracing Confusion?

     If I could sum up where we are in the adoption right now, I would say- confused. 

        January started off promising when we moved up 3 spaces in the Korea girl line due to 3 families switching to boys.  This brought us to #8 on the waiting list.  This sounds promising considering we started at #21 in July, but unfortunately it is anything but.  You see, with the new year came more disappointing news regarding the program…that there are going to be a lot less referrals (children to be matched) this year due to the government lowering the quota of kids to be adopted internationally every year .  The government is only suppose to decrease the quota by 10% every year but for some reason the impact seems to feel a lot greater.  So, where we stand right now- we could be matched with a Korean boy immediately because our agency has no families waiting for a boy right now.  And if we choose to wait for a girl, the director is still hopeful that we will be matched by July.  But I’m not holding my breath on that statement.  

       Unfortunately, waiting for a girl referral is not the only problem with the Korea program.  There are two other major issues- the yearly quota of number of kids that can leave the country creates a backlog that is causing travel times to grow and grow.  Right now they estimate it will take 18 months to go your child from the time you are matched with them.  That is 18+ months watching your child grow up on the other side of the world with a foster family.  To make matters worse, every time a politician questions an aspect of the adoption process (typically post-adoption procedure), they freeze all granting of visas indefinitely.  Right now they are in one of those freezes.  People who thought they were going to travel to go get their child this month are just sitting and waiting for things to resume.  This, as you can imagine, just makes the travel times even longer for everyone else as well.   It is easy to see that things are stacked against us with this program, yet it is so hard to walk away from it.  My biggest frustration is knowing that if we started this process a year earlier than we did (not that we could have), we would likely have our baby girl by now and if we started the process a year later, no way in hell would we have ever chosen this program.  We just went into it at the worst time where things were just starting to slow a little but they had no idea how everything would play out.

        So what happened to China?  Despite our original excitement about the program, the more we think about pulling the trigger (putting $$ into it) the more apprehensive we are about it.   I think we would feel a lot more comfortable if we were adopting a child 2-3 years old and could see pictures, videos, reports about them walking, talking, etc.  But due to Auden’s age they would match us with a baby around 12-15 months old (and we want to go in birth order as well).  Babies that are institutionalized all have development delays.  It is not uncommon for a 12 month old to barely be sitting up on her own yet and a 24 month old to just be learning how to walk.  This is understandable when the vast majority of babies in China spend most of their day in orphanage cribs.  So, when you are dealing with accepting a child with a special need, in our case a minor/repaired heart condition, it would make us feel better to see that the child is in good enough health to be walking, talking, etc.  If we are matched with a baby under 15 months, we will not get this reassurance by pictures/videos/reports.  And unfortunately we hear that sometimes medical profiles are less than accurate or something gets lost in translation.  I do think it is an amazing program, but I can’t help but think we (and when I say we, I mean Cody more than I) would be more comfortable adopting an older toddler with likely a repaired heart issue where we can better assess their general health and development delays.  So, maybe our third child will be from China?  Or who knows, maybe we will find ourselves still without a second child in two years and we will pursue it then since we won’t be restricted to babies?  Or maybe we will just take a leap of faith and just do it now?  This is where the confusion comes in.   

         Additionally, we recently received information about another couple (friend of a friend) in our area that was successful with quick private domestic adoption.  Cody has an acquaintance that also did this type of adoption fairly quickly as well.  When I say private domestic adoption, I mean “Juno” style.  Just like in the movie, you advertise yourself to find a birth mother, no third party agency to assist.  There are several reasons why a couple may choose this route instead of going with an agency.  I’m not going to go into them now though.  Hearing the latest couple’s story, intrigued us enough to set up a consultation with their adoption attorney who knows everything there is to know about private domestic adoption.  I’m not sure where it is going to lead us, but at this point Cody and I are just trying to cover all our bases and gain more information. 

          Now can you see how confused we are?  

         But I am learning from it.  I am learning to let go of any control I thought I had over this process.  I am learning to accept the fact that it may be years before we meet our next child.  I am learning to be okay with the idea that Auden may be 4 years older than his sibling.  Because honestly, in the grand scheme of things, none of this matters.  We will eventually succeed in adopting a child- and that child will be meant for us and we will be meant for that child.