Pity Party

I am in serious need of a giant pep talk this week. My PMA (positive mental attitude) has up and left the building. I'm sure part of the problem is the lousy weather. I am having a hard time being positive about our adoption journey this week.

We've been keeping in touch with the agency once a month by email since going on the waiting list last May. The social worker that did our home study left last July. We did not get a new one until September. We decided we should meet her at some point and decided to give her time to settle in and for the holidays to pass. We were supposed to meet Tuesday after rescheduling due to the weather last Friday. Unfortunately, her son became ill (of which I am totally sympathetic to) and we canceled the meeting again.

She did her very best to be helpful and encouraged me to ask her any questions we had over the phone. Well, I would have preferred if Hunter had been home at the time. But I did have 2 pressing questions so I went ahead and asked. One was about how long our home study was valid. The other had to do with all this networking or "advocating for ourselves" that the agency had so strongly encouraged us to do. I asked what do we do if someone approaches us with a possible adoption.

The answer was given very enthusiastically. We just needed to call the agency. They would give us a list of adoption attorneys to contact to do the legal work. The agency would do the required amount of counseling for the mother. But everything else would be through the lawyer. Oh and don't worry about having to call an attorney, I was told. People get worried about how much it costs to hire a lawyer. But, it was stressed to me, this type of adoption costs less than an agency placement and really is the most common form of adoption today.

I listened in silence absolutely stunned. I was confused, but without Hunter there I did not want to say or hear anymore. I relayed the conversation to him later and he had the same reaction. If finding your own adoption situation is the norm of adoptions today, why on earth are we signed up with an agency? We were led to believe all you had to do was sign up, be patient and the agency will take care of the rest.

We actually went to another agency the very next day. We were going to have a one-on-one session with them to see what other options we might have. I hadn't planned on bringing up our current agency situation, but couldn't help myself. As I explained the conversation my voice rose and my arms flailed as if not connected to my body. "I don't understand" I kept repeating. The nice woman we met with was able to calm me down. She explained that this is the reality of domestic infant adoption today and her reasons made perfect sense. She did explain that some agencies still advertise as doing agency placements as their primary option, but parental placement is now the norm.

She said it was a shame for us to have come this far in the process and only now come to understand. I am glad we went for a second opinion. We probably won't switch agencies. But it is so depressing to know just how much more there is to this process. And nobody can seem to help you. It's like negotiating a maze with a blindfold on. You only figure out you're doing something wrong when you hit a wall. And hitting the wall makes you reluctant to continue for fear of making yet another mistake and wasting more time.