Moving On, But Feeling Discouraged

I wonder how long it'll be before we do finally adopt. I wonder if we should keep going with it. I wonder if we should just give it up and be happy with the family we've got. I wonder if no one (that we feel capable of parenting) really needs us, as there seem to be so many people out there who want to adopt. It's hard and it's so much up and down. I'm really tired of the process.

Barbara, who said she'd make inquiries Tuesday afternoon about the many kids that we're still in limbo on, hasn't. She says she's been busy. I feel like we're missing chances that we wouldn't be if we were allowed to contact case workers. This is an aspect of Oregon's system that I don't care for.

There's a lot I don't care for, actually. I think that the system of 3 families needed to go to committee causes a lot of delay, for example.

Wednesday evening, though, I took home the two (one for single children and one for sibling groups) books of bulletins. We found 9 single children and 2 sets of 2 sisters each to inquire about. Four of them are babies less than 2 years old. Two more are 2 year olds.

It's amazing to me how many babies are available for adoption. In our informational class, we were told that if we wanted to adopt a healthy, single under 3 year old child to not bother, as there was a 3 year waiting list to adopt kids like these through the state. Gee, what they didn't tell us is that there seems to be a 2 year waiting list to adopt anyone, but back to the babies. It seems that there are more babies than any other age and most of them seem healthy. We usually pass them over, thinking they'll be snatched right up.

The four babies we are inquiring about, though, have all been waiting for months. I suspect that they aren't really available anymore and it just hasn't been updated, but if they do still need homes, we're open to the idea.

The other single kids are 3 year old Tyler and 6 year old Robert. One set of sisters are 4 and 3 year old Khalaysia and Kenya. The others are 6 year old Kyra and 3 year old McKenzie.

Shortly after I dropped the books back off on Thursday, Barbara called to say that some new bulletins just came in and did I want to look at them? I did, so back to the office I went. And added three more possibilities to the mix. There is 6 year old Tanner, 5 year old Shyloe and 4 year old Shawn.

The other two "new" single kids are actually Elijiah's brothers, who are being placed separately now. The bulletins say that their needs are such that it would be hard for one family to meet them for both boys. They do not sound like a good match for us, due to their needs, so I see their point. It's too bad, though, as they seem close.

Again, I'm at a loss to figure out how they decide who's going to be put on the web and who isn't. Robert doesn't seem particularly difficult to place. I don't really get it. "Our" kids who are currently on the web site are: Robert, Robert, Savanna, Kamau, Tamia, Thorn, and Elijah. There are, of course, lots of others who supposidly don't need the extended recruiting.