Blue pot on the deck
Adoption is about waiting. Waiting for all the information you need to fill out the forms. Waiting for doctors to redo their paperwork since they missed a few things the first time around. Waiting for fingerprints. Waiting for immigration documents. Waiting for social worker visits. Waiting for the adoption study process to be completed. And that’s just in the beginning stages.
I’m not a patient person, but I’ve been prepared for all the waiting. They tell you about it in big, bold letters on nearly every document that comes from the agency. BE PATIENT…THIS IS A LONG PROCESS. Besides, I know this isn’t a case of saying, “Hey, I’d like a baby…got one?”
Yet it’s been three weeks since the study was completed, approved and forwarded to Korea and we still haven’t received a referral. And the fact is that after the referral comes the longest wait, the one I was most prepared for, that could last four months or more. (Believe me, I need that four months to prepare for motherhood!) Yet the step we’re at now seems to be getting to me the most. This is the one I thought would be so easy to accomplish. With our agency, once the study is complete, it normally only takes a couple of weeks to get a referral from Korea. And we’ve surpassed that point already, darn it.
I’m not freaking out yet. I know that the director of the orphanage in Korea, Mrs. Kim, is doing her best to get the reams of paperwork done on each of the babies. I’m not calling my social worker in hysteria or anything. But I am chewing my nails more than I’d like and feeling a bit distracted from time to time.