Adoption Update
Jul. 16th, 2007 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgReally ought to get something in on here, as it is pertinent.
We met with the founder of our agency Friday. Alone. If that wasn't an indicator she was going to have to let us down easy, I don't know what would have been. Val is from the Orinda office - if she and I want to chat, it takes a couple of days to set it up. She's busy, I'm busy and the geography is 500 miles at best. She's down in Pasadena, and I really could believe it if it was just to talk to me, Jim and a few other couples.
This is what it is. We have to finish the China adoption, and be done with it for six months before starting another one.
With the current wait, the earliest we could assume our referral window will open will be this time next year. The earliest. Realistically speaking, we could go as long as February of 2009...and then wait another six months to begin the next one.
I'll put it in writing now. I am firm on adopting two children - FIRM. No, this is not like adopting two kittens so they'll have someone to play with and they really aren't that much more work in twos...this is my lifelong experience with only children and the very specific miseries I've seen all of them go through. Add to that? We're older. The kids need someone besides us as family, with the ties only family can grant you. Both of us have siblings we'd like to use for dunk tank fodder, but there's something about having that contact, that person with that much backstory, that I don't think anything else will replace it.
The kids will have lost enough, just being who they are when we take over.
We'll have to wait two more years to begin the second adoption. At best.
If I'm TRULY lucky, I'll be finishing adding kids to our family the year I turn 50.
Somehow, there are some really neat things to this.
One, I can get the travel one would do as a retiree NOW - still young and able-bodied enough to truly enjoy it.
Two, instead of running away from my family as a retiree, I'll still be in the midst of mine as they will be of marriageable age, or finishing college.
It is what it is.
Our only other option was to ditch the China program and begin all over again. That thought didn't even cross our minds. We're committed to our Chinese daughter - whoever she turns out to be.
And I'm not the only one doing this. I just need to add people to the circle like me -
I have plenty of friends in all age groups - I don't fear this.
I have. To wait.
The challenge now is to make the time productive.
*sighs*
Switzerland trip is back on the front burner, tentative dates around September 8 through the 15th. Mark your calendars.
We met with the founder of our agency Friday. Alone. If that wasn't an indicator she was going to have to let us down easy, I don't know what would have been. Val is from the Orinda office - if she and I want to chat, it takes a couple of days to set it up. She's busy, I'm busy and the geography is 500 miles at best. She's down in Pasadena, and I really could believe it if it was just to talk to me, Jim and a few other couples.
This is what it is. We have to finish the China adoption, and be done with it for six months before starting another one.
With the current wait, the earliest we could assume our referral window will open will be this time next year. The earliest. Realistically speaking, we could go as long as February of 2009...and then wait another six months to begin the next one.
I'll put it in writing now. I am firm on adopting two children - FIRM. No, this is not like adopting two kittens so they'll have someone to play with and they really aren't that much more work in twos...this is my lifelong experience with only children and the very specific miseries I've seen all of them go through. Add to that? We're older. The kids need someone besides us as family, with the ties only family can grant you. Both of us have siblings we'd like to use for dunk tank fodder, but there's something about having that contact, that person with that much backstory, that I don't think anything else will replace it.
The kids will have lost enough, just being who they are when we take over.
We'll have to wait two more years to begin the second adoption. At best.
If I'm TRULY lucky, I'll be finishing adding kids to our family the year I turn 50.
Somehow, there are some really neat things to this.
One, I can get the travel one would do as a retiree NOW - still young and able-bodied enough to truly enjoy it.
Two, instead of running away from my family as a retiree, I'll still be in the midst of mine as they will be of marriageable age, or finishing college.
It is what it is.
Our only other option was to ditch the China program and begin all over again. That thought didn't even cross our minds. We're committed to our Chinese daughter - whoever she turns out to be.
And I'm not the only one doing this. I just need to add people to the circle like me -
I have plenty of friends in all age groups - I don't fear this.
I have. To wait.
The challenge now is to make the time productive.
*sighs*
Switzerland trip is back on the front burner, tentative dates around September 8 through the 15th. Mark your calendars.
