For the time being, I am done.
That’s not to say that I won’t recharge my batteries over the next few days and get back in the game. In fact, I’m certain that I will. I still believe that this is how we’re supposed to find our child, but for the moment I am completely and totally fed up.
Our county’s foster/adoptive parent meeting (run by our SW) was Tuesday night. We went to last month’s meeting and considered attending this one. It’s always good to get out there and meet people and get “face time” with our SW. But I just didn’t have it in me. I’m not a foster parent. I’m not an adoptive parent. I have busted my ass and jumped through every hoop they’ve given me so far. My efforts have been rewarded with disinterest at best. So I decided that I wasn’t terribly motivated to pay dues and listen to them talk for thirty minutes about how I can help with the fund raiser they are involved in. Normally I’d be all over it – anxious to help in any way I could. But this week? Not so much.
On Monday when I found out that we needed first aid along with CPR, I e-mailed my SW and asked her where we could take classes. She said she’d find out and let me know. It’s now Thursday afternoon and still no response from her. I expected that, so I spent five minutes online Monday evening, found a class mid-May, and signed us up for it. It will be interesting to see if she ever gets back to us, though.
So after some talking, we’ve made a decision. We are giving this situation until September to pan out. That doesn’t mean that we have to have to have a child placed in our home by that time (though I hope we do), but what it does mean is that all this bullshit is resolved and that we are licensed to adopt and can proceed to actively look for our child. If we are still in limbo due to other people’s mistakes, we will walk away and directly back into the reproductive endocrinologist’s office. On to IVF for us. I am not terribly enthusiastic about it right now, but I am very serious. By September we will have spent over a year of our lives pursuing adoption through the foster system. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that we should be licensed by the fall.
I understand now why so many people walk away from this process – why there is such a shortage of people willing to adopt through the state. My husband and I are not perfect people by any stretch of the imagination, but we would be damned good parents and if we reach the point where it’s time walk away, the state will have lost one of the most loving, committed, enthusiastic resources they ever had.
They have four months.
And now for the pretty flowers we've been growing/planting in our yard . . .
