Back on the Main Road...

Thank you for taking that little side trip with me.  It was just something I had to get out! :)

So back on the main road again, I said I'd tell you about how we spent our waiting period.  I'm going to back track, just for a mile or so.

I told you that our private agency worker was wonderful.  She was!  To this day we stay in contact.  Distant contact, but contact.  Our Ministry worker was much more than just wonderful.  She took a bit to get to know us and understand our quirky and weird sense of humour, but she eventually did.  This beautiful lady became a member of our family.  She came to know the ins and outs of our relationship and what was going on in our lives.  She became an honorary member of our family.  We had hoped (as did she apparently) that she would be a part of us forever.  But, that wasn't to be.  She has moved on to another adjoining career where she helps people on the other side of adoption (completed and with specific special needs) as well as care givers and bio families with this specific special need.  She is a lovely lady to whom we will forever be grateful for helping us build our family.  Thank you D!

So after she finished tweaking our homestudy to her satisfaction we were finally approved.  The whole process took about 2 and half years.  That's a long time, but not in terms of adoption.  Then the waiting begins.

We were sure that our worker was going to eventually block our phone number and email addresses as we pestered her regularly!  This is a common occurrence among prospective adoptive families who are waiting on a match.  I am surprised that more social workers aren't nasty human beings.  It must be awful to spend a good portion of your work day telling people over and over again that you're sorry nothing has happened for them yet.  AND KEEP SMILING!  Patience must be a pre-requisite for being an adoption social worker.

We kept bugging her.  She kept telling us that she WOULD call when something came up!  That first go 'round that woman was a saint.  Depending on the day I was having though she could just as easily have been my worst enemy. LOL  The adoption social worker holds your life and family's life in her hands and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it.  That's a very difficult concept to the one who is constantly requiring control of one's universe and is extremely proactive.  Yes that's right, that's my description of me!

At least once a month (sometimes once a week) I would send off an email to our wonderful worker with the pseudonym of a child that we thought we might be interested in.  Our worker would dutifully send off an email to the child's worker to see if the child was still available, and would the child's worker be interested in hearing more about us.  Usually the child's worker would be interested but for one reason or another we would decide or our worker would decide that this particular child wouldn't be a good match for us.

So throughout our waiting period, we said no to probably 20 or 30 children and sibling groups.  I did countless hours of research on many, many, many different special needs.  By the time we received our proposal for son #1, I had roughly 2000 pages of research on a variety of special needs.

We lived in a little 3 bedroom house on the outskirts of town when we were finally approved.  We renovated that little former pot growing house into a cute little family home.  We inquired about a little boy and we were told we had some conditions to meet and we could have him!

Stay tuned.  Here comes the first BIG hill on our journey.