Recently, Johnny invited a few of the fellow blogging Mommies to prepare a response to a post he'd been mulling over regarding *The Wait* and his difficulty in understanding why families who already have a child (whether bio or adopted) can complain about the wait. Before you read my post, obviously, you should read his.
Here is my take on the subject.
First of all, I have a lot of empathy for people who are waiting for their first child, sometimes after years of infertility. I know that road, I went down that road. But let me say this: There is absolutely no room for entitlement in international adoption, particularly with the China program. Yes, if you are approved, you will get a child. But China owes us nothing. They can set whatever standards they want, take as long as they want, change the rules midway, it's THEIR rules and we have nothing to complain about. We chose China because we felt that it was the most stable and with the least chances of failure, but that in no way means we ever considered it a slam-dunk, or that we weren't prepared for speed bumps along the way.
When we adopted Dumpling, through delays on our side with social services and the shut down because of SARS, the one year planned wait ended up being almost 2 from start to finish. This time, with Sprout, when we handed our file last August,we were told the current wait was 6 to 7 months. That was 13 months ago, and we still have no clue when we might see our referral.
Dumpling has no understanding of when her sibling might come, because not only is there no belly, there is no concrete time-line, so we don't really discuss it with her. She knows we'll got to China to get a baby, she knows she's coming with us, she knows we have to make a room and she'll have to share her stuff, but that's the end of it, until we get a referral. From a planning point of view, it totally sucks. We own our own business and not knowing when we are going is a very scary prospect. We have no plan B, no safety net. At this point, there is a small chance we will travel in December, which would actually be THE WORST POSSIBLE time for gift store owners to go away. But you know what? What can I do about it? If I had gotten pregnant, I would have had no chance to control when I gave birth, so really, what can I do about this situation?
One of Johnny's point was that if you already have a child, you don't have much time to worry about delays. I couldn't agree more. Dumpling is a fabulous child, but it's a lot of work, being a Mama to an active 3 1/2 y.o. From morning to night, I'm running around, trying to get things done, find time to play with her, find time for myself, for my husband, for our house projects. Frankly, the only time I think about Sprout is when it has to do with long-term plans: vacations, work, decorating, ski school, anything that has to do with planning.
Sure, there are days when I wish Sprout was here. In an ideal world, they would have been closer in age, I would have been younger with more energy to handle it, for sure Sprout would have been home during the summer when I had lots of time to spend, without needing to juggle the rest of my life. But an ideal world? Please, who lives in an ideal world? I know a girl who gave birth prematurely and almost died from pre-eclampsia. Her son spent months in the hospital. My neighbour's third child had to begin chemotherapy for leukemia the same week that she gave birth to her 4th child. Those are real problems. Having to wait an extra 6 months, 8 months, heck, 12 months, that totally SUCKS, but in the grand scheme of things, it's NOTHING.
So have a drink, buy more baby clothes, go to the spa, I don't care how you deal with it, but I, for one, am just chilling out and waiting. Because there is absolutely nothing else I can do, and frankly, I don't have time to complain about this, I have too much else to complain about!
