The wait sucks
posted in Adoption, Infertility, Issues, Pop Culture |If OmegaDad and I had actually been able to start a second adoption from China, we would probably have been DTC in, oh, February 2006 or March 2006. That was shortly after the referral train slammed on the brakes, and the wait to referral was suddenly stretching from a breezy 7 months to, at that time, 12 months.
No one could ever have imagined a time when it looked like it was going to take three years from LID (log-in date) to referral. But right now, with the latest batch of referrals covering a grand total of two days, people who were LID in February or March of 2006 are now looking at a referral in February or March of 2008, and people logged in since then are looking at waits stretching out even longer.
Of course, the nature of international adoption being what it is, that could change in an instant.
I am not here to tell those folks who were hoping to get a referral this time, only to be told “Nope, sorry,” anything about how the wait vanishes once you have your referral in hand.
I’m not going to talk about “In His own sweet time,” or “This was meant to be,” or “This just means your destined child isn’t ready for you yet,” or “Maybe this is God’s way of telling you to do x, y, or z instead.”
Because I know just how horribly infuriating all of those are.
I especially know how frustrating and infuriating it is to be venting about it and have well-meaning friends say this kind of thing in response. They mean well, but it’s dismissive and condescending.
The right response is: “I’m sorry. The wait sucks. I’m sorry it’s taking so long. You must be feeling so upset and frustrated and worried right now. I’m here to listen.”
On to other adoption stuff…You may think that sentiments like “you never know what you’re going to get when you adopt,” or “Often, these kids are physically ill or weak, or mentally unwell,” or “Even if a kid is perfectly normal, somehow adopted kids tend to just not turn out ‘right.’” are all things of the past.
Aren’t we beyond that? Doesn’t everyone have experience with at least a few adopted kids who grow up to be happy, successful adults who just happen to have been adopted? And doesn’t everyone have at least the sense to realize that making sweeping generalizations about any group of people is pretty silly, because it doesn’t take long to find just one exception…at which point, the sweeping generalization is rendered moot?
Ah, well. I am here to tell all of my readers that there are people who will string all three of those sentences together, plus a few more, and then defend it when called. And add on the ever-lovely, “You can’t love an adopted child like a biological child”! (For those who think I’m pretty blase about whatsername, Alice Walker’s daughter, saying just about the same thing, I have to say that she was careful to make it “I couldn’t love an adopted child like a biological child.” The one is an admission of a deficiency within oneself. The other is, as I said, a sweeping generalization about the entire human race.)
Be prepared!
(And, no, I’m not going to link to it. I’ve already said my say there, and I just want to vent here.)
Okay, a quick clarification: I am not talking about Julie’s post. I am talking about a post at ParentDish, and actually, it’s not the post I’m talking about, but the very first comment responding to the post.About Julie’s post. Hmm. While I don’t like the “settling” comment (really!), I have to ask: Am I alone in having started off very ambivalent about adoption? I’m so very glad that the local adoption agency made us wait until we had been married three years, because (a) it moved us in the direction of adopting from China (because the Chinese didn’t care how long we had been married), and (b) that extra year between that sentence from the local agency and the official start of our adoption process was needed by *ME*, so I could take the time to grieve my dream-baby, take a year off from testing and tryouts and shooting up meds, and shift my dreams in another direction, towards my darling dotter.
I do think Julie needs to wait, to process some of those feelings. Finish off the IVFs, close off that process, say, “That’s done. Time to heal. Time to do other stuff for a while.” Other stuff being…just live life. Enjoy her son. Then, at the end of that time, then is the time to examine adoption again.
Something for people to remember: “Second choice” doesn’t mean “second best”. Our dotter was our “second choice”. She is in no way “second best”.
