Screw This I'm Moving to Poland

So, I've figured out why adoption blogs, people in the adoption process, and people who have recently adopted are so off. Right, so I read and meet these folks and they seem slightly strange. For a long time I thought it was because adoption attracts strange people. People who would otherwise be collecting cats or presidential collectible plates or plates with cats on them. They talk to much, they talk about inappropriate things, and they are emotionally clingy.

Well, I may have been a presidential cat plate collector to begin with, but I've figured out that's not why adoptrents are so strange. Its because they are a highly,highly traumatized community. These are people who go through the process of almost maybe having a child- learning close details of the child, spending hours/days proving that they are worthy of the child, and preparing their home for the child- to be rejected.

I could write about the rejection and how that functions and how it's actually ok, but I have to go to clean up my kitchen. So, instead I'll take a minute to tell you a story about a recent interaction:

I had called an left a message for our case worker, she returned my call while I was driving from a meeting to a home visit. I was so elated that she rang that I pulled over into a parking lot. Sitting in a shaded spot, letting the a/c run I had a 12 minute conversation with her. I felt supported and heard. Sort of . . . among other things she said "I was impressed that CPS case workers pulled your file for a case staffing." Really? You were impressed? Because I'm fairly certain that a major part of your job is to make our family seem impressive to CPS case workers.d She did tell me that there are a number of kiddos that might be good fits and she would be sending on their information soon. I can't figure out if I'm a pain in the ass client who doesn't listen to or hear the expectations on me and has unreasonable espectations for the agency, or if my frustrations are legitimate. We'll see.

Book of doooooom

So, here are a few updates:
We "put our hat in the ring" for two brothers, who had a pretty amazing life story- but our family wasn't chosen. The awesome = they now have a permanent family. The sucky = getting a phone call from our case worker that essentially was "you're family isn't good enough."

(Yes, I know that's not what is meant, blah, blah, blah all the comforting stuff one would say, but really truly and honestly- our family was not good enough for those boys, and that's ok, it's just hard to think about).

Our caseworker has gone from being impossible to get a hold of to being inconsistent. I'll count this as an improvement.

We're back to just waiting. But that is really hard for me. I've gotten to the point where I can't help feeling like- if I made more money, had a bigger house, was more christian, less gay, less talkative, more eloquent . . . etc, etc. But deep down and in all my prayers, I know that we will be mamas and we are just waiting for our kiddos to be ready. It's an excruciating wait. But we can handle it.

Even if we are in the "no" pile again and again, I know our frustration is small compared to how amazing it is for kids to find their families.

OH! I should write about the effects of a really shitty law in AZ that essentially means that we could always, always be "nos." I'll do that soon.

Also, I'll write a really pissy rant about the photo book of doom. But not right now, just thinking about it makes me angry.