So, How's The Adoption Going?

A harmless question. A sincere question. Usually I respond with a half-smile and a shrug and say "Oh, OK. Slow. But OK." Many times this evokes a sort of pitied look on the part of the questioner. I know many people *think* that we are in this process because we long hopelessly for a baby, as if not having a child is in some way robbing us of a full life. I would like to be clear. This is not the case. Please don't feel sorry for us.

I was asked this question by a co-worker yesterday morning, and instead of my usual response or some variation of it, I said, "well, it's the craziest thing I've ever done in my whole life." Not crazy in a bad way. Just completely incredible. Again, this was not intended as a sob story. It simply is what it is. As I retold the history of major events since the beginning of this journey, I realized that I can't answer that seemingly simple, sincere question very quickly anymore. Here are just some of the things that have happened since we signed that initial piece of paper, sometime during the summer of 2006, exclaiming our interest in adopting an orphan from China (not necessarily in chronological order):

My dad died. My mom developed breast cancer, had chemo, radiation and is now cancer-free. Fingers crossed. There was an earthquake in May of 2008 in China's Sichuan Province that killed tens of thousands of children who perished when their shabbily constructed schools crushed them. The U.S. elected Barack Obama POTUS. The 2008 Olympics were held in Beijing. We sold our first house and bought a better one, which we've now lived in for just over three years. I left a good job for a better one. We got a dog. Our adoption agency lost its Hague accreditation because two employees in their Russian Program forged some documents. The agency has regained their accreditation. A desperate mother shipped her adopted Russian child back to Russia. The Qinghai region of China experienced another earthquake in 2010.What have I left out inadvertently?

When we began this process, there were over 900 families ahead of us. Now there are 360. To put this into even more perspective, the 360 is just CHI families. There are 15,000-20,000 dossiers in China from all over the world. Today we visited our adoption agency in St. Louis to update our home study for the third time. Soon we will head back to Kansas City to be fingerprinted again.

So, the adoption? Oh, it's going OK. Slow. But OK.