"Between the wish and the thing,
life lies waiting."

~Unknown

Well, referrals came out yesterday, 9 stinking days. After the initial shock and awe I pulled another 9 paperclips off my paperclip calendar and changed my sign to 207 more LID's to be referred til mine. Ouch.

Found this on another blog:

We wait
while the snow clings
and the seeds sleep
and the earth turns.
*
We wait
while the heart sings
and the eyes weep
and the mind churns.
*
We wait
while the soul learns
that the love's deep.
So the hope springs,
as the dream burns
and the days creep
till the phone rings-
*
And she waits-

"How are you today?"
After one of the more stressful work mornings I've had in awhile, I quickly went around the drive through at the local McDonalds so I could stuff my face with some comfort food before racing off to my afternoon appearance (also guaranteed to be a nightmare). I was pretty much in my own little world-- turning up the air and fiddling with the radio while snapping my pink Razor shut as I ended a frustrating call with my son. Then, all of a sudden, there it was... the question.

It was posed by the young girl who stood beyond the window while she was placing the lid on the cup of my oh-so-desired Diet Coke. She was cute with her hair pulled back and neatly hidden under her McCap-- about 17 years old I'd reckon, if I was the "reckoning" sort. The way she asked left me with the impression that she didn't have a care in the world. That may not have been true. She may have had lots of stress gurgling behind that 17 year old smile. She may have had boyfriend problems, she may have been worried about failing highschool or not getting into the right college. She could have had horrendous family problems. Don't know. But, back to the question...

"How are you today?" she asked.

My immediate (and thankfully internal) response was "well, if you really want to know... its pretty tough here in Susanland. I'm under more pressure at this time of my life and feeling more out of control than I ever have, ever. I'm bombarded by work, parents, kids, and adoption frustrations. I'm part of the sandwich generation and I'M GETTING THE SQUEEZE! I FEEL TIRED ALL THE TIME AND SLEEP DOESN'T FIX IT!!! I'M READY TO JUMP OUT OF MY SKIN AND NOT JUMP BACK IN!!! I'M..."

"Fine, thank you" I responded, exuding calm.

I think I even managed a smile.

Its been a tough week or so. On 8/2/06 my father in law finally lost his 2 year battle with cancer. I'm going to miss him. I was going to post about it earlier, but haven't felt up to it, maybe I will later.

On the adoption front, we are now at 180 days past LID. The current wait time has increased to 13 mos and appears to be getting longer and longer. When we originally started this process, the wait was 6 mos, now some worst case scenarios have the wait stretching to 3 years!!! I think the worst case scenarios are just that "worst case" but still. The end of July referrals went through 7/13, let's hope CCAA can get through even one day of August. Even if waits stabilize meaning they start doing 30 days at a time, we would not have a referral until 2/07 and if they continue doing half months it would be August or September of 2007. Travel would likely be around Thanksgiving 2007!! That requires a serious adjustment to expectations. When we began this process, I was amusing myself with thoughts of having Baby Girl home by Christmas of this year.

The boards are filled with comments about the situation-- anger, frustration. Some people are choosing to shorten the wait by going with a Waiting Child. It may not really be intentional, it just may be that this excrutiating wait has allowed people a lot of extra time to sort through the Waiting Child lists to find the child that is perfect for them. Some are seriously considering changing programs. I continue to check the Waiting Child lists each time my agency gets one, but have not yet found our future child there. I have investigated changing programs but that does not seem like a good option for us at this time.

Korea~ rumor is they're not taking any more applications with the plan to phase out their IA program all together.

Vietnam ~was shut down a long time and just reopened. Not really too sure about this one yet. The first referrals since the program reopening are just coming home.

Russia~ seems to be having lots of problems.

Kazakstan (sp?) ~it has that 5 week in country plus I'm not very knowledgeable about the process.

Guatemala ~very expensive, seems to be going through some growing pains.

So, yeah, that brings us back to China. Not only that but I have become so China adoption focused that its hard for me to even "think outside the box" on this one. I just feel very strongly that my daughter is there. I so hope I'm right.