Continuing the continuation.

Anyway, moving on, coz I could seriously rant about the lack of communication forever, we were chosen for a cute little 6 year old boy back in April, along with a couple other families, to go to committee where they select the adoptive family. This little boy seemed so right for us. He was already techno-geek child, just like my husband, Brad, and he even looked like Brad! I was totally, "He's your Mini-Me, dude!" Except, of course, we weren't selected for him. And we don't know why. We weren't told. Ugh. Crap. This sucks! Really sucks. Coz while we hadn't been to committee for other kids before that, we know we weren't selected for other kids and we never hear why. Why? And this little guy was friggin' cute! *sigh*

I talked to a caseworker in Texas about a girl there and she was saying we seemed like a good fit for the girl. She said they would go to committee in a month and would let us know. A month and a half later, I contact the caseworker, asking, "What's going on?" She says, "Oh, we haven't gone to committee yet." Umm... okay. "When do you expect to?" She's all, "We don't have a date set yet. You are still under consideration for her, though. Sorry for the inconvenience." That was 2 months ago, ya'll! And guess what? She's still on the website, waiting for a permanent home. Wtf?!?

This process has just been killing me. I had decided when we started this whole process that I wasn't going to take time off work until we were connected with a kid coz I have a limited amount of time off from work and I wanted to be able to take some time off when we were finally chosen. I did book some time off around the holidays at the end of the year coz I like to do it then. Kind of a nice way to unwind after the holidays. And then we came up for a 10 year old girl here in Utah. I had just been getting ready to make vacation plans coz work has been so frantic lately and it's been way stressful. I mean really stressful. Like, "Put down that uzi and back away with your hands in the air and no one gets hurt," sort of stressful. So I put off plans while we waited for the committee to convene on this girl. Then we get told that another family was chosen for her.

And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I can't. This stress of trying to find a kid, the lack of communication. The waiting, the wondering. Knowing you're being considered and then told that another family was chosen. And I know it's all about trying to find the right family and all. But how do they know we aren't the right family? It's a judgment call based off a generic home study. They don't know the families they are considering. My bet is that they haven't even met most of the families. How can anyone, in good conscience, make that kind of call?

And then there's the fact that you're actually encouraged to use, as Brad so efficiently puts it, the "shotgun approach", where you're firing out inquiries and home studies on any kid that you might even be remotely interested in just hoping to hit something. I don't think that's a great way to select a family for a kid.

So I book some time off after the 4th of July. Because, you know, I've wiped out all the Ben & Jerry's at the local Walmart from all the stress of not being chosen for a kid and from work and neeeeding some time off, oh my GOD! I need time off! And I book some more time off around the Labor Day weekend, trying to combine my vacation time with a paid holiday to get the most bang for my buck. And I have 2 vacation days left that I haven't booked. And then I get an email from my dad, I'm not even kidding, less than a week after I've booked my flight out to Orlando to visit my sis over the Labor Day weekend (my non-refundable tickets, mind you), telling me that he and my step-mom are coming out to visit in September. Aarrrgh! Okay. Well, it's probably a good thing coz my kids haven't seen him in such a long time and the guy is getting old. Like 80 years old. So okay, I'm contemplating the best way to work out how to take some time off to see him. Then out of the blue, the caseworker for the girl we just missed out on calls us and says, "The family we chose for her backed out. You're next up."

*bonk bonk bonk* goes my head against the wall.

So we get to meet with the caseworker tomorrow night to go over... I dunno what we're going over. Stuff. Information about the girl, K. We know a lot about her already but I guess there's more to know. Then sometime after that? We go to committee again to have our petition for K approved. We don't even know when it goes to committee. We don't know when, or even if, we'll get approved and get to meet K. We don't know when we'll be bringing her home with us. More uncertainty. I feel my heart growing weaker as I type. I need more ice cream.