Thursday, October 29, 2009
Logged in for 26 months
We've been logged in for 26 months. There are 71 LIDs ahead of us and 450 families. Our fingerprints are good through February 2010 and our I171-H form is valid through May 2010. We will likely have to renew both for the THIRD time. Sigh.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
To Switch or Not to Switch?
Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted anything. It's been a rather frustrating several months on the adoption front. There have been some referrals out of China through CHI, our agency, but not the number I would like to see. However, we have moved up in line. Quite a bit, actually. There are now 481 families ahead of us in line. But, the movement is not due exclusively to referrals of real live babies or toddlers. The numbers just don't add up. Instead, it's a combination of referrals, some families choosing to adopt special needs kids, and other families just giving up and dropping out. The dropping out is bad for them, good for us.
I anticipate the wait lengthening for us, too. No one has told us this. CHI still says it's around 39 months. BUT, given the number of referrals we've seen (not many), and the number of families still waiting (a lot), I just don't see how we could possibly be ready to travel 16 months from now. Like I said, the numbers just don't add up.
We talked about switching countries. That's difficult to do without sounding disingenuous. All of our documents reveal to all who care just how much we love China, how much more we love little girls from China, and you can bet your butt a lot of our money is already in China. All of these things are true. But as we wait and wait and wait and very little happens, we started to wonder if we are doing the right thing.
So we talked. And I talked to our agency representative. Neither of us really wants to switch countries. But we wanted to know our options. Turns out, we don't have any options. In order to switch countries, we would essentially have to start from the beginning, and we would forfeit the money we've spent so far. Starting from the beginning is just too ominous a project to consider seriously.
My biggest concern, and the thing I'm having to work to get my head around, is that fact that as we wait, we age. Yes, it's true. :) When we started this, I was 35, Brent 38. That put us well in the range to be paired with an infant. We're now 38 and 41. As we age, we also end up outside the acceptable parent/infant age ratio. Essentially, we are too old to get an infant and instead will likely get a child around the age of two. Much different!
Don't get me wrong. The two year old will be as awesome and wonderful as an infant would have been.... it's just a different experience and one that we didn't start out thinking about. Now we are.
In the meantime, we've already done an amendment to our home study, had our fingerprints taken twice, and received a new, updated I-171H form (the one that says we're "clear" to adopt). We will likely have to go through that process again, maybe twice, maybe more, before we get our referral.
We don't know what the hold up is. CHI won't speculate and discourages us from doing so. We thought it might have something to do with the Olympics, or the massive earthquake. It doesn't. CHI mentioned China wanted to "wait out" the swine flu. Whatever.
We will have been logged in 23 months on Thursday. As crazy as it seems, we are making progress toward that day when we board the plane to China.
I anticipate the wait lengthening for us, too. No one has told us this. CHI still says it's around 39 months. BUT, given the number of referrals we've seen (not many), and the number of families still waiting (a lot), I just don't see how we could possibly be ready to travel 16 months from now. Like I said, the numbers just don't add up.
We talked about switching countries. That's difficult to do without sounding disingenuous. All of our documents reveal to all who care just how much we love China, how much more we love little girls from China, and you can bet your butt a lot of our money is already in China. All of these things are true. But as we wait and wait and wait and very little happens, we started to wonder if we are doing the right thing.
So we talked. And I talked to our agency representative. Neither of us really wants to switch countries. But we wanted to know our options. Turns out, we don't have any options. In order to switch countries, we would essentially have to start from the beginning, and we would forfeit the money we've spent so far. Starting from the beginning is just too ominous a project to consider seriously.
My biggest concern, and the thing I'm having to work to get my head around, is that fact that as we wait, we age. Yes, it's true. :) When we started this, I was 35, Brent 38. That put us well in the range to be paired with an infant. We're now 38 and 41. As we age, we also end up outside the acceptable parent/infant age ratio. Essentially, we are too old to get an infant and instead will likely get a child around the age of two. Much different!
Don't get me wrong. The two year old will be as awesome and wonderful as an infant would have been.... it's just a different experience and one that we didn't start out thinking about. Now we are.
In the meantime, we've already done an amendment to our home study, had our fingerprints taken twice, and received a new, updated I-171H form (the one that says we're "clear" to adopt). We will likely have to go through that process again, maybe twice, maybe more, before we get our referral.
We don't know what the hold up is. CHI won't speculate and discourages us from doing so. We thought it might have something to do with the Olympics, or the massive earthquake. It doesn't. CHI mentioned China wanted to "wait out" the swine flu. Whatever.
We will have been logged in 23 months on Thursday. As crazy as it seems, we are making progress toward that day when we board the plane to China.
Monday, March 23, 2009
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