Inertia and our Vietnam Adoption

I have a million and one things to accomplish this week, and really have no business dorking around on the internet or posting on this blog. I have a sermon to prepare, a presentation for a workshop on Friday that I haven't even begun to put together, a fundraiser for the family center this thursday, two boyscout troops that have signed up to help with our community "Yooper Quilts for U.P. Troops" project that are scheduled for Thursday evening, and a get together for our congregation at our house on Sunday afternoon that requires a top to bottom cleaning of the house as well as a menu that needs to be planned.

But, Inertia has struck. hard.

I cannot muster up one lick of motivation to do any of the above mentioned things. Instead I sit here reading blogs, googling Vietnam Adoption updates, checking the Waiting Child list on our agency, and re-reading the latest update from our agency: "33 families with referrals waiting to travel, 154 families on the dossier list waiting for a referral and 203 families that have applied and are working on their home study and waiting for CIS approval [April 20, 2007 email]."

I have no idea what the other agencies are quoting to their clients, but the numbers we are seeing alarm me. R and I are part of the 154. Some bloggerland friends of mine are among the 203. Who knows how many others are signing up as I type this, upping the numbers even more.

I also have no idea what number we are on the list: all I know is we are part of the 154 people. I tried to go back and find the updates from January (when we officially joined the waiting for referal list) so that I could work out the math, but I can't find any updates from that time. I know we are not 154 of 154, but we sure as heck aren't anywhere near the #1 spot either.

Nor do I have any earthly idea how many of the 154 are on the "girl only" wait list, how many are on the "boy only" wait list, and how many are in the "either/or" category of the wait list.

I would write and ask where we stand, but I have this irrational (or is it?) fear that if I ask I might be making a pest of myself, and I am terrified of pissing someone at the agency off- as that can't be a good thing. Somehow our agency has evolved in my mind from " the agency who we waited a year to work with, we are so impressed with them and trust them with our lives" to "the agency that has all the power and we best make ourselves unobtrusive and passive as possible cuz just maybe there is a slim chance that doing so will curry their favor and we will get a referral sooner."

Stunningly stupid thinking on my part, I realize. Clearly I am reading far too many adoption horror stories on the internet. The agency we are working with has never given me any reason to question their ethics or to make the preposterous assumption that they would react negatively to any inquiry on our part concerning the adoption.

Yet the irrational fears keep their stronghold on me.

Frankly, the long list of folks on the list pisses me off. The "I want to scream at the top of my lungs to the whole world that I did not sign up for this" kind of pissed off. I find myself thinking of the different paths we could have chosen had we not signed with this agency and for this program. If we had known the wait was going to be this long, we could have pursued having a child the biological way (more fun, less expensive, to be sure) and then adopted. Guess what? With the agency we are with, if we become pregnant during the process, we cannot complete our Vietnam adoption. We could have also pursued a domestic adoption during this wait time [hey we might have gotten lucky (blessed really) like Jenn and BJ, who are the proud parents of adorable little Amos], but, again, our agency contract stipulates that we cannot do that either, and if we do so, we will have to drop out of the Vietnam adoption program.

I am kicking myself for not paying more attention to these rules when we started. Its the familiar "If I knew then what I know now" situation that we all encouter at one point or another in our lives. We didn't know, of course, that our wait would grow from a few months until a referral to 10-15 months for a referral.

In the end, it all comes down to money. Counting the homestudy costs, the INS costs, and the Agency fees we have shelled out around 7 grand so far. If we made any changes at this point (i.e. switching agencies) we will forfeit a little over 4 thousand of that money.

There is something particularly distatesful in the fact that we are staying put in this long wait line primarily because of money. Yuck. But the reality is we cannot toss aside that much money. Nor can we come up with that same amount to sink into another agency or program.

So, there we are. Stuck in the ever growing line of foks waiting for a referral. Wondering how in the world we are going to handle the possibility that this adoption has disintegrated from a "we want to be parents, there is a child in Vietnam who needs a parent, let's do this" to "There are apparently an unlimited number of people out there who want to be parents and apparently a limited number of children in Vietnam who need parents and are eligible for IA, which has created a rather icky situation of demand exceeding supply."

It all rather feels like I have drawn the "Cherry Pit" card on Candyland and the red square cards have disappeared from the deck, thus leaving me stuck for the remainder of the game. No advancing towards the Candy Castle or even moving backwards to the Peppermint Stick Forest.

R just came in the door, so I am going to post this uber depressing blog and see if he wants a late lunch.

Ta, everyone. I'll try to be more positive next time I post. I really hate being the Eyore of the blogging universe.