5 days shy of 7 months

Yesterday we got our letter of approval. Phew. That was a marathon. Now we are in the next stage of waiting! I read somewhere that the average wait time for a referral is now 15 months, ugh. I also hear of people waiting just 4. Yikes, for both options!

The baby’s room is empty – which is a good thing. It was full of our clothes and a spare bed. Now it houses a disassembled crib, some bottle liners, infant books, and some other baby equipment. It doesn’t look like a nursery at all, just a room that needs to be painted, full of unused stuff. I couldn’t imagine staring at a nursery for the past 7 months and the next 15. This way it’s ready to be set up at a moment’s notice, but in the meantime, the door is shut on the mess.

I called

We’re not the only ones waiting this long. I’ve been assured that our file has not fallen off someone’s desk into the bin. Apparently families who put in their file just before we did have received their approval, so… it should be any week now. I’ve heard that before!

Trying to stay positive, Carol.

1 year

Since we started to this process of having a second child. The first time around we were approved in 3 weeks and got our referral 7 weeks later. From there it took 8 painful months to wade through the paperwork to get her home. Hopefully this adoption is just the opposite; we’re getting the hard long slogging of waiting done now, and then lickety split we’ll be home as a family of 4.

I’m still sighing.

5 months? Seriously? To sign and date a piece of paper? This is worse than Ethiopia. Over there the power went out on the day of our court date so we had to wait 2 months for their summer break to be over so they could type our documentation. It was just 2 months. 5? Are they reading by candlelight?

More sighs.

Just been told it’s taking 5 months… whether it’s a country change or a plain old approval.

Oh well, 3 months down.

Gives me more time to nest right?

This is definitly deja vu

12 weeks waiting for a 2 week (we were told) country update re-approval.

Sigh. I shouldn’t complain. I mean, my agency’s director isn’t being investigated for fraud… and it’s not going thru re-structuring… and… and…

Not Me Monday

 

 

Have you heard of this? The author of this blog makes one of these posts a week, and today, after many weeks of observing, I join, even tho I have nothing to share. It most certainly wasn’t the first week where I had to call poison control as a parent because I let my daughter play with After Bite Xtreme. That would just be insane, not to mention careless.  And then, while on the phone, I certainly didn’t dump an ENTIRE jug of lemonade on the floor forcing me to clean the floor for the first time in this very boring week. I clean the floor on a daily basis don’t you know? It also was not the week I said “to heck with the contractors” who have been next door for a month, and tell them to shush during naptime and hang my scruffy intimates on the clothesline in plain sight for spite. How embarrasing would that have been? And finally, would I have allowed my 2 year old daughter to choose hair accessories to wear to the hardware store? For both of us. Nope, definitly not, I care too much about what other people think to let her go out in 3 different colours of barrets topped off with a sparkly bright yellow hairband, and myself sporting a pink flowery bow.

Deja Vu

6 weeks waiting for change of country approval.

Sheesh.

Here’s the truth

Everyone has been in turmoil. What do you say to families who have forever lost their dream of a family (along with thousands of dollars of their savings)? The thought of it just sickens me. It was like watching a horrible car wreck – of course I’m going to slow down and watch. But now I feel like I’ve been standing around too long. God will judge. And for us? He never has a plan B.

Plan A made sure we were not going to be with Imagine when it went down.  We nearly were. Sometime in May, we got to be feeling like Ghana is not where our next child/children is.  We took a leap of faith and pulled our file from Imagine.  We lost our retainer and 50% of our Agency fees.  A big enough chunk, but nothing like what some have lost.  It was a difficult move, our first choice was Ethiopia, but we were not interrested in the 2-3 years it would take for our little girl to have a brother/sister.  So we went with Ghana, we had already paid our retainer fee, and the timelines for referral were great!  We were prepared for a long post-referral wait – it rook 8 months for our daughter’s visa to come.  But we hadn’t bargained on the program not even getting off the ground.  The more people we talked to about adoption from Ghana, the more we felt it was not going to be a fit for our family.  Then once we had pulled our file… where to?  There are not very many options out there for international adoption, as about 400 families are finding out right now.  South Africa seemed like a good fit.  But the price.  Ouch.  About that time I visited a friend of mine from University.  While there I went to a little bookstore and bought a CD of Bible verses put to music.  We listened to it on the way home, little Pancake loved it.  But the verses were strong – “Do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself. Do not worry about what you will eat or drink…”,  ”If we don’t lose heart…”,  ”God loves a cheerful giver.”,  “Where your treasure is”.  Can you see the theme here?  Yes, it was loud and clear. God will provide.  So in mid June we put our faith into another agency – Mission of Tears, to adopt a child from South Africa. 4 weeks later Imagine goes bankrupt. 

We have been waiting 5 weeks to have our homestudy approved with a country change.  Once that comes our file will be sent over for us to be matched. The South Africa program works without a list per se, you are not #14 on the list, you are matched with a child based on the needs of the child. This could be 4 months, it could be 8.  Then you travel about 4-6 weeks after referral to meet your child and go to court and file documents for passports, etc.

More Reading

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/idahs-long-journey-from-malawi-to-burlington/article1191477/

Bucket list

You’re supposed to copy this, paste it into your own blog, erase my answers and fill it out. Enjoy! I had the hardest time coming up with 101. Either too many or too few options.