Waiting, waiting, waiting....

The last two weeks have been frustrating, to say the least.

First, in the wake of the death of the adopted Korean child, the Korean Court's mandate is still in place that all families with court dates after April 30th must take a battery of five psychological exams.  However, four of these tests are completely and utterly outdated and useless to determine how a parent would care for a child.  We are talking ink blots and drawing tests designed for people with brain damage.  Needless to say, the agencies are fighting back on these four tests and advocating that only the MMPI-2 test, if any, should be required.  So, given that we are probably/hopefully looking at a May court date, we have found a psychologist in DC that is able to administer all five tests (despite how silly 4 of them are).  We have been going back and forth on whether we should take all 5 just in case the Court isn't persuaded to drop the 4 or just take the MMPI-2.  Some families with our agency in the mid-west can't even find a doctor that will perform two of them because they are that outdated.  Thankfully, the psychologist we found is working with two local adoption agencies and has been in communication with the directors (including ours) and they all came to the conclusion that families waiting for court dates right now should only take the MMPI-2 personality profile test.  In addition, he will write an accompanying letter to the Court as to why the other four tests are antiquated and irrelevant in the context in which they want to use them.  The Court with be holding a meetings with the Korean partner agencies next week to again discuss the testing requirements.  Hopefully they are persuaded by the evidence the agencies are providing.  So, this coming Monday Cody and I will be taking the MMPI-2 test with 576 true/false questions along with an interview with the doctor so he can write up his report.  Can't wait (sarcasm)! 

Secondly, the goods news is that practically every single case sitting at the Korean Court right now has been issued a court date by one of four judges.  The horrible news is that for some reason we are not one of them.  I only know of one other family that is waiting for a court date right now with my large Korean partner agency.  Everyone else with our court submission date received the court date of 5/13 in the last week.  I guess there is still a chance we can receive that date as well but who knows.  It is unclear how the judges divide up the files and we have no way of knowing what Judge we were assigned to and when he/she may issue our date.  So, it feels pretty bad to be one of the last ones left anxiously waiting.  We could get a court date tomorrow or not for another month from now, who knows?  It's definitely a frustrating way to live right now.  We are just trying to focus on Grant and how we know he is happy and thriving with his foster family.  He is oblivious to all of this, not to mention that is life will soon enough get turned upside-down.  So for now, we will keep preparing Auden for our trip, keep researching things to do with the boys in Seoul, keep practicing our Korean toddler words and common phrases and have our extended-stay hotel ready to be booked....and just wait for that call.