Benefit of the doubt?

It has been about 2 1/2 months since we have heard anything from our adoption agency. I was led to believe that this was the norm....that waiting was expected and it was inappropriate to ask for updates. Therefore, I considered this long, awkward wait as typical and I felt foolish and impatient for expecting updates or any information during this waiting period. However, with each passing week, we receive questions from family, friends, coworkers, supervisors, and my students about where we stand in the adoption and when we should expect a baby. What usually follows is a brief explanation that we are (im)patiently waiting and that we could be waiting for 1 day or 1 year. I wanted to give our agency the benefit of the doubt. We haven't received word from them because there is nothing to share. We're just waiting. We haven't found a match yet. There aren't enough birth moms or babies. However, in the past week, I have been increasingly frustrated with the lack of communication and sent an email to the agency. By the end of the day, I did not receive a response and began to wonder.... Is this really normal? I then wrote a message to an adoption forum, asking if it was common to hear nothing for so long. Apparently, it is not. According to other ladies who have adopted, it is not surprising that we have not been matched yet. However, it is quite odd that we do not receive weekly or at least monthly updates.

I feel incredibly frustrated with the process and I feel like the agency is being somewhat dishonest with us. We joined the domestic program in early November. At that time, we were told that we would be one of the first couples to enroll and that we would likely be matched quickly. I believe she said that there were 16 moms in the program, but we had to wait until the 3rd trimester for match. We then sent in our profile information and photos, but we were not notified until one month later that the pictures were too small. My borderline paranoid brain then suspected that they did not have a graphic designer ready to create the profile books. We had completed our requirements faster than expected and they were not prepared for us to be ready so quickly. They may have not hired the graphic designer until December and she was the one who noticed the problems with our pictures. Our profile book was completed before Christmas and we expected a quick referral. However, we are approaching the three month mark. Part of me wonders if we were too quick for them again. Are they actually working on our adoption as they promised? If they were working on it, why couldn't they give us the update? Is it because they were actually doing nothing?

Late tonight, I finally received a response and was completely unsatisfied with the anticlimax: "I just sent a new set of profile books out so I am hopeful we will have a match very soon.  I'll keep you posted as soon as we hear anything."

So, again, we are waiting. I am finding that my patience for this adoption is quickly growing short and I can feel myself becoming tired and annoyed. Little things are annoying me. I have noticed that the annoying advice has returned. When experiencing infertility, everyone seems to have advice and input about what you can do to conceive. Put a pillow under you! Use this position! Pray! Get drunk! Since we have abandoned the idea of biological children, we had hoped that the unsolicited advice had stopped. However, it seems that everyone (including people who have never adopted or known anyone who has adopted) is an expert on adoption. You should try this agency! I knew a cousin who had a friend and her coworker adopted a baby from DHS and they were only on the list for a week! Why don't you try using a lawyer instead of an agency? You should try this country! Did you place an ad in the Penny Saver? (Okay, that last one is a nod to Juno. No one has actually said that to me.) I understand that the advice is intended to allow others feel like they are helping. However, listening helps a lot more than the advice and as you can see, I can vent like nobody's business.

On an unrelated note, I have talked about my love of music several times in this blog. I have become entertained by the new NBC show, Smash. It isn't just the peppy and pretty musical numbers (because I may be the only one on this earth who doesn't adore Marilyn Monroe). There is an adoption side story with Debra Messing's character adopting a girl from China. There's a scene in the 2nd episode where the characters are in the social worker's office, talking about notarizing and authenticating paperwork and the 3-4 months it takes to translate and send the dossier. Then the social worker mentions, "And then the waiting begins." The couple seems surprised, "Begins? We've been at this for 10 months." They are then informed that the adoption can take up to two years. In TV land, adoptions tend to occur quite quickly. I'm now in a mental race. Can we complete an adoption faster than a fictional television couple?