Where do we go from here?

I will be the first to admit. I am a total nerd, geek, whatever you want to call me. I played the flute and piccolo in the high school marching/concert/jazz/pep band. I've always loved sci-fi and fantasy movies and television shows. I own every single season of Lost, Buffy, Firefly (and Serenity) and Angel on DVD (as well as the "lesser known" must-haves, such as Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, and Dollhouse). I quote 80s movies and refer to the A-Team in class lectures. I've never dressed up as a sci-fi character, but I keep asking Craig if we can go to Comic-Con one year. So, yes, I am a total geek. I will not lie.
Many years ago, the creators of Buffy had the wonderful idea to combine two of my favorite things: musicals and Buffy. The last song, "Where do we go from here?" has been running through my head all day (that seemed like a long aside to explain one point).
Our adoption is... for lack of a better descriptor... is not going well. In our previous post, I noted that the US State Department has warned of further slowdowns. However, Craig and I continued. Last week, I received the following from our agency:

Currently, I see Ethiopia taking longer from submission of dossier to referral (presently 4-6 months), referral to court ( presently 3-5 + months), first trip/court to second trip/child home (3 -5 months).  Our most recent case has taken seven months from referral to court.  We are also observing that each and every recent case is going under an investigation process by the U.S. Embassy before the visa appointment is set for the child.  In some cases, we have seen that add on a few extra months time too.  Ethiopia is still an amazing option to adopt from.  If that is your heart's desire, we will do our best to make it happen for you.  I also want to offer you another option.

She shared a message that she received from a Senator familiar with adoption:

She stated that it looks like Ethiopia is going down the same road that Vietnam and Nepal went through.  I am not trying to scare anyone and sorry to bring this bad news to light, but I want to make sure everyone understand where this country is at right now and what to expect. 

 The director then proceeded to tell me about their domestic adoption program. I digested the domestic program (and higher cost) and we decided to continue with Ethiopia because we had our hearts set on it.

This weekend, I continued with our paperwork and could feel myself getting more and more stressed and overwhelmed. I found myself getting short and irritable with Craig because he couldn't understand what I was communicating and then increasingly frustrated with the whole process in general. While completing our financial form, I became concerned about our income/assets to liabilities, specifically my student loan debt. I contacted the agency and received this email from the Ethiopia program coordinator:

I had our Executive Director look it over.  She says that it is possible that the Ethiopian court will let it go or that they will factor in your income and not pay much attention to your net worth.  Our big concern right now is that many things are changing in the program.  It is in a state of flux and we feel that based on our past experience with programs in a state of flux that they will become much stricter.  You did get a very favorable home study and they base most of their opinion on that home study.

This was followed by an email from the agency's director:

Jennifer is correct when she says we are concerned about the direction the Ethiopian adoption seems to be going right now.  The U.S. Embassy is sending most of the cases up to Nairobi for visa adjudication.  In tern, Nairobi is sending a team of investigators to look at each case and interview the police and social workers who found the child, etc. before they will issue the visa for the child.  This team has the power to refuse to issue the visa even after the adoption is finished in Ethiopian courts.  The courts themselves will indeed become stricter  and will look at each and every document in the dossier. Based on the changes that have taken place in Ethiopia this past week, we do believe this program will slow down to a crawl for U.S. families wanting to adopt.

We are offering you the opportunity to change to a domestic adoption which will end up at approximately the same out of pocket expense.  In a domestic adoption, no statement of net worth is required so your finances will not be questioned. 

If you break down the costs, the costs of domestic and Ethiopian adoptions are similar. However, for Ethiopia, we have the opportunity to save between payments, while the domestic adoption requires several large, lump sums. Furthermore, biological parents in domestic adoptions can change their mind, meaning that we would lose up to $5000 in living expenses and have to start over. Part of me is saying to jump at the domestic adoption and figure out the cost later. The other part of me is saying, "Everything that can go wrong in our baby efforts, has gone wrong. I'm not risking it." A friend of mine recently said, "Something has to happen. It is statistically improbable that all this bad stuff will keep happening to you guys over and over again." I kept thinking, "Has she not been listening to the story" and reminded her that yes, statistically, it has to work because bad things can't just keep happening to the same people over and over again, but in statistics there are always outliers. What if we're an adoption outlier?

There is a small part of me that just wants to give up. I'm tired of the disappointments, the hurt, the frustration. Craig asked, "Why can't we just be dog people?" I replied, "I am happy with you and our cat and our puppies. But I want a baby and I refuse to accept defeat as an option." I am trying very, very hard to remain resilient and optimistic and I have been withholding a lot of these feelings and bad news from people because I am tired of sharing bad news. I think I am overdosing on sympathy. I'm happy to have it and feel grateful when people provide it, but I'm tired of having to accept it. Its like eating pizza every single day. Its nice and warm and yummy, but after awhile, it gets old. I want to share some real good news for once. Not just short-lived happy notifications of papers received.

So, I have no idea how or where we will proceed and I'm open to suggestions. All I know is that our papers were ready to be sent to the Department of State in Oklahoma  and I didn't send them. Because I'm not sure if I should.