When are we going to China?

That’s the million dollar question. Well, it won’t be June 12th… and it won’t be June 19th. Will it be June 26? Maybe… maybe not. So what in the world happened? That's the TWO-million dollar question. All we know is that our adoption agency has not gotten the U.S. Consulate appointments for all of their 23+ families and none of us can leave for China until we have our appointment dates set.

Is this unusual/unexpected/upsetting? Yes to all of the above. More so when we know that other families who signed-up with several other adoption agencies have already received their Consulate appointments and have their airline tickets in hand. We are among the last groups in the U.S. waiting for permission to leave.

Those that know me know I’m a planner and I’m a risk manager. So when I asked the agency today if I would make it China before my “Approval to Adopt” from the State Department expires in September you can just imagine how shocked I must have been when I was told:
"I think that September is pretty far off right now for that to be a consideration, but I am not completely ruling it out. Anything is possible as you know, but I would say that is probably not a very highly probable outcome. I would say that would probably be a worst-case scenario."

Where was the reassuring "oh, don't be silly" statement? Why did it have to include the "... but I am not completely ruling it out" fear inducing phrase?!

A fellow “waiting” mom asked me today “What is harder… pregnancy and childbirth or adoption?” Gee, I didn't even have to stop and think about that one... it's adoption by a mile! Of course this will all be worth it, but as you are going through the "labor pains" you still can't resist the urge to scream.

I honestly have to say that adoption is not for the faint of heart. We started this process 1,008 days ago on Sept 1, 2005. Now I sit here with a picture of our beautiful little daughter’s face and I have no idea when I will meet her. I’ve made many promises to Skylar during this journey about when her sister would be home. Surely she’d be home before Skylar’s 4th birthday. Wrong. Well, surely she’d be home before Christmas 2007. Wrong again. With a May 2 referral we felt confident that Chloe would be home before Skylar’s 5th birthday so I made yet another promise. Silly, silly me.