Hope is a B*tch

We went weeks without hearing anything about the two babies. I will never get used to the "hurry up and wait" aspects of this process.

In the meantime, I decided to call a pediatrician friend of mind and she echoed my concerns about bringing a little one with severe asthma into a home (albeit a very clean home) with pets. It would have been a "let's just see what happens" situation. No thank you. Asthma is nothing to be messed around with and babies are not guinea pigs. I told CW to please withdraw us from consideration. She agreed that that was probably best. I didn't get the feeling that anything was happening with the case anyway.

But my oh my, have we had a heartbreak this week.

Two very medical fragile babies. Beyond gorgeous.

D*C*F*S ideally wanted them placed in a home together, of course, but their care was so intensive that they were strongly considering separate homes until surgeries could resolve some of the medical issues.

We knew that we didn't have the support system in place to care for two babies who would need eyes on them 24/7 (and when I say 24/7, it is no exaggeration), but after much conversation we agreed to take one with the offer to adopt both after their surgeries, provided we could get a few basic questions answered first.

Our CW said she was almost sure they'd have to separate them - that their care would be too much for one foster home.

Our hopes went up.

Soared . . . to the point that I was figuring out how to arrange our bedroom for the baby to sleep with us each night so we could care for it.

We visited them in the hospital. We held and comforted them. We learned a little bit about their daily care. We dared to dream that they might be our babies, until I got an email from our worker yesterday morning.

They found the babies a home together.

Best for them, but heartbreaking for us.

Even O was shaken by the news.

He too had dared to hope.

Hope - - - she is such a b*tch.

When will I ever learn?

And Still We Wait

We've been approached about two siblings, both very little ones.

There is one stumbling block. (It wouldn't be us if there wasn't a stumbling block.)

One of the kids has what sounds like pretty serious asthma. Knowing what I do about allergies and asthma, I requested that someone speak with the child's physician to confirm that it would be okay for them to be placed in a home with pets.

As it is, our home is pretty asthma-friendly. We have no carpet (only hardwoods) and no curtains, and I keep things pretty well dusted and vacuumed because of my own allergies. But we do still have two part-time indoor kitties and two full-time indoor small dogs and they do have some dander. I won't do anything to put a child's health at risk, no matter how much I'd love to be their parent.

So our caseworker will be checking on that and getting back to us before we'll agree to proceed with anything.

We've also sent a list of questions to the caseworker based on the info we were given. One of them was if we could get a photo of the kids. I mentioned to O that I sort of wished we hadn't requested the picture - that if the asthma was going to be a stumbling block, I'd rather not see how stinkin' cute they are.

Cut to Friday afternoon just before 5pm. We're on our way to dinner and an email from our caseworker pops up on my Black*berry. It's the photo. Except the Black*berry has done something to zap the attachment so not only can't we open the photo, but we can't even forward the email to another email address to open.

Torture.

So I've zipped off a friendly email to our caseworker asking her to resend on Monday.

And still we wait.

But really, when you approach these situations assuming they won't work out, it really makes the wait a lot easier. If only I'd know that four or five years ago, life would have been so much easier.

Oh well, live and learn.