You would think being a seven and a half year veteran of the adoption wars I might have some sort of handle on things. You would think that, somehow, my hide would have grown that little bit thicker and I would have learnt to be a bit tougher, more mentally disciplined.

After all, we had survived our first adoption which involved:

* Being sent to the marriage counsellor by our social worker who claimed we had "communication issues" (but then didn't ask us how it had gone or anything about it??).
* Crying myself to sleep at night feeling certain we would fail the adoption process and be "rejected".
* Feeling the most incredible joy at being allocated our son and then the incredible misery, confusion and frustration at having to wait for 11 months until we could bring him home.
* Learning that DoCS, who were charged with processing and co-ordinating our adoption, knew nothing about how the Guatemalan adoption process worked and were willing to do nothing to learn more about it.

You would think after all that I would be able to cope with whatever frustrations our second adoption was going to throw at us.

Well, if you thought that you would be wrong, oh so very wrong, my friend.

Over the last forty-eight hours I have experienced so many up and down feelings I feel like I'm on a runaway rollercoaster. Why am I feeling so crap? Well, it's hard to explain really. I guess I could sum it up by calling it the "unknown" - for me that is the scariest thing in the world. For when you have a "known" problem you can stare it in the eye, grapple with it, attack it from all sides, pit your (superior) wit and skill against it and ultimately come up victorious. But when you are staring at a great big vat of nothingness, a giant void in the microcosm where your life should be, it's very hard to know how to fight it or what to even fight.

The "unknown" in this case is how much longer we may have to wait until we are allocated a child. We were initially told that the wait would be 12-18 months but we took that as the very outside, something would need to go wrong for this to be the case. Most of the people we were friends with who had adopted children from Colombia in recent times had waited much less than that, sometimes as few as four months.

We had also not stipulated sex or race, figuring that would increase our chances of a speedy allocation (not to mention that we didn't really care whether we got a boy or a girl and whether they were blue, green or pink with yellow polka dots).

However, we chose the orphanage with which there was very little track history. Only one other Sydney couple had adopted from there and that was in about 2000. Another couple had their file there waiting for an allocation when we sent our file. They were allocated in March 2004 - after a wait of no more than 12 months. So these were our only "guiding lights" and they were fairly dim.

Add to this couldron of non-information the fact that ICBF (the Colombian equivalent of DoCS) decided to change the adoption goalposts in 2004. They clamped down on private orphanages, putting pressure on them to give preference to Colombian couples wishing to adopt (which we would have assumed would already be the case). Other changes were made and a type of payment was introduced whereby the families of single mothers were given a small amount of money for six months to encourage them to keep the child. How all these changes affected intercountry adoptions it's hard to say. All we know is that things slowed down immensely all around. There was only one other allocation to a Sydney family in 2004 from a different orphanage. Now it is mid August 2005 and there have been no allocations so far (except for a mysterious sibling allocation which was announced only yesterday).

So my brain runs around looking for answers and there are no answers to be had. Then yesterday, on one of my email lists (what did my life look like before email lists???) a well-meaning adoptive mum from the US who is currently in Colombia sent a post which sent a shiver down my spine. Because of the unfortunate way in which it was written and because of my bleak outlook I interpreted in the worst possible way - private orphanages in Colombia were no longer allowed to do intercountry adoption and we would need to start from scratch - i.e. send our file to another country. While this vague concept had been starting to surface as an option in my weary mind anyway I wasn't quite prepared for the shockwave this sent through my entire being. I was devestated and totally shocked. Yesterday was one terrible afternoon.

A few phone calls and emails later things didn't look so bleak. Within a few hours I had hid rock bottom and bounced back somewhat. But I was still back at square one - facing the endless abyss and not having a clue how much longer we may need to wait for our allocation.

Imagine this: You get a phone call saying you have won a million dollars (or insert something else which represents your greatest dream) however you are told that you will need to pick up the money from an undisclosed place at an undisclosed time. To just sit tight and a phone call we be made to you to tell you when to collect your prize. You are so excited, you plan what you are going to do with your winnings, you ring all your friends and family. Then some time passes and still there is no phone call. You try to get on with your life but the news is still ringing in your ears, it's always at the back of your mind. Then more time passes, you start to get anxious, you can't go far from home because you are waiting for "the call". You can't make plans too far in advance. People start asking you "so, when are you getting your prize". Then the real anxiety sets in: what if it's a hoax? what if there is no prize? what if "the call" never comes? You start to resent the very idea of the prize. You want to ring and say "forget about the prize... I don't want it... I just want my old life back". But you can't. You keep thinking that despite everything "the call" is going to come later today or tomorrow or next week. You jump every time the phone rings...

Are you starting to get a picture? This is pretty much how I feel. I am fully aware that there is a flip side to my story and that the flip side is not a happy one. That for me to get "the call", to finally hold my "prize", another woman on the other side of the world is going to have to experience the sort of trauma I can not even imagine. I live with that thought every minute of every day and yet it does not take away from my own selfish misery, it only helps to put it into some sort of perspective (but only on my "better" days).

I'm sorry. I really just needed to get that out. I know that I will feel better tomorrow or the next day or next week and that I needed to make an effort to record my really bad days because they will one day be forgotten or will at least fade into the vagueness of time. Of course I want to stop feeling this way and forget these awful feelings but I also want to acknowledge them and to be able to touch them again one day on one of the many days in my future life when I will need to regain a sense of pespective - which for me is essential to holding onto my sanity.