There are certain processes you have to follow when you are adopting internationally.
You don't really have any options in following them. They are prescribed and you have to do each one. We've done them, in order, with vigor. So I foolishly thought that meant that we wouldn't have glitches. I knew adopting would take a lot of time, but I hoped that by doing exactly what we were told we would miss missteps. And because we paid a lot of money to professionals to help us I thought most of this would go smoothly, if not slowly.
Early in our homestudy and in our ongoing discussions with the agency handling our adoption we've made it very clear that we wanted to adopt two children. All of our conversations about fees, ages etc have always referred to two children. What we didn't know (and to be honest what I think the professionals involved should have known) was that all of our paperwork would need to refer exclusively to a sibling group in order for that to be the only placement we'd be considered for.
So last week we got a really exciting call...with the words we've been waiting for months to hear..."You have a referral!". In .02 seconds my heart soared. This is really happening, we have a referral!!!! And then approximately .02 seconds later it dropped as the social worker began to tell me about one little boy. I interrupted him and asked why it was a referral for only one. He came up with an answer, but basically there were a few reasons, some his fault, some the agency's fault, and for once, not our fault at all.
I didn't let our worker tell us this little guy's details until I talked to Steve about whether we wanted to consider adopting one. Selfishly I didn't want to know the details of a little boy who is waiting for a family, who we might say no to. We did say no. It was heartbreaking. At the moment I feel personally responsible for a little boy being raised in an orphanage instead of in a family. In theory I know that the globe is full of children in desperate need of a family, but this was the first time I got a phone call about one of them joining our family.
This journey is not easy. If we say yes to this little guy, we would not be able to adopt a sibling group at this time, and if we wanted to adopt a second child from Haiti we would need to start all over again. Pretty much from scratch. I have some strong feelings about not having one child of a different race in our family, I want to have two kids who are the same in a sea of different. If money were not a factor, and if this process were faster, I'd take this little guy, and a sibling group in a heartbeat. My home would be filled with children who need a family. But that's not how the system works. It's slow and arduous and ridiculously expensive.
To top it off we have aggravated our agency in this process. They are not as quick as we are to see that they hold a significant portion of the screw up responsibility. They aren't happy that they have to decline a potential match and explain to the Ministry why it happened. I'm ticked off because this has eaten up more time and added at least a couple months to the process. I'm ticked off because we've been as clear as we know how to be and we're still in the middle of mess. I'm ticked off because professionals are being paid to do this for us.
So here we are. Our paperwork is in Haiti and we are waiting for a second referral. Hopefully the next one will be what we've asked for.
