For those of you who get the ACC newsletter here is a sneak preview of the upcoming "Kathy's Korner"; for those of you who don't ... I am the editor of the aforementioned newsletter and write a regular column as per above.

WARNING: The subject of this column is our adoption "wait" so if you are heartily sick of the entire topic (as I am) please skip this blog installment and come visit again soon.

Kathy's Korner

After surviving our first adoption I thought the second time around would be a walk in the park. I mean we no longer feared our social worker, were reasonably confident that we would be approved (after all we had managed to love, nurture and generally care for our son for over two years by the time we commenced our second adoption) and thought we were well prepared for the vagaries of the adoption process.

As always, when you are too smug, life has a way of turning around and biting you on the bottom. Our first “bite” came when it became clear that we would not be able to adopt our second child from Guatemala (where our son was born). Despite numerous assurances from the powers that be (or “those whose names should not be mentioned” for the Harry Potter fans) when it came down to the crunch we were railroaded into choosing another program.

To be honest, part of me was somewhat relieved. It was such a tough and anxiety-ridden slog battling through the unknowns of the Guatemalan adoption process that it felt good to be going with a well-established, running-like-a-well-oiled-machine program. This is when “bite” number two came up. Little did we know that as we were choosing to go with the Colombian program, the Colombian government were choosing to introduce reforms which were to result in uncertainty for adoptive families and much greater waiting times.

We went from the frypan and into the fire.

Which brings me to another lesson from my favourite book – “Adoption for Dummies” – waiting does not get easier the second (or subsequent) time around.

At first the idea of “waiting” didn’t seem frightening at all. After all, we were expecting a reasonably short wait and having got through an eleven month wait AFTER allocation the first time, I really didn’t think there would be much to phase us this time.

“Bite” number three! It turns out that I wasn’t immune to the anxieties, worries and nail-biting the second time around. After what I considered “the expected” waiting time the doubts and niggles started setting in. The little voices started whispering:

“What if our papers never arrived?”
“What if the program closes altogether?”
“What if it takes 2, 3, 5… years for the allocation… how long can we wait?”
“Should we cut our losses and move to another program?”
“What if…”

It was endless, annoying and insomnia-inspiring… just going around and around in my mind, like a broken record.

This mental state leads to what I like to call chronic tea leaf reading. This is a state where I would try to make some semblance of sense out of the wait by trying to pinpoint how much longer the wait would be. Since this is impossible and akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack it is really an exercise in futility but one that is hard to refrain from when you are a half-crazed, expectant adoptive parent.

For me tea leaf reading involves scouring every source I can find in order to get hints as to how long other families, wherever in the world they may be, have waited for their allocations. I would read all the Colombian email lists, question my friends who had completed their Colombian adoptions and attempt to coax clues from our faithful adoption coordinator. This is a process which generally meant I would put two and two together and end up with five (numerous panic attacks ensued). The information which I would glean from all these sources meant nothing – because each adoption story is different and individual, no two are alike. When it’s your turn it’s your turn and there’s nothing that can be done to predict or control this process.

For a control freak like me this is a terrible state of affairs. It goes against every fibre of my being to leave my life to the universe, to sit back and allow fate to do its work. Quite literally every atom in my body fights to find some means of controlling what is essentially an uncontrollable situation.

You might think that I would learn something, become somewhat philosophical but the truth is being aware of my “disease” does not allow me to “control” it. If anything, being “aware” just adds to my frustration.

My thought process also leads me to sadness. For while I grapple pointlessly to control this situation I think about the other people involved and I realise how little control they have. No matter how bad I feel I know that there is a birthmother out there who must feel a million times worse; a woman whose life situation has forced her to make one of the most difficult choices a person ever has to make. While I sit in my comfortable home, drive my nearly new car and work at a well-paid, white collar job, knowing that my family is well fed and that my son is getting the best education possible, I can only dare to imagine the life situation of a woman in far away Colombia who believes that relinquishing her child for adoption is the best gift she can ever give that baby.

These thoughts break my heart. They make me feel spoilt and selfish and unbelievably self-absorbed. They make me think that my desire to “control” the situation comes from a lifetime of finding ways to control whatever situation I find myself in and that there are many, many people in the world who struggle to find any sort of control in their day to day life.

I want to appreciate my luck, my privileged position, the incredible twist of fate which has brought me from a young life of near poverty in the former USSR to a cushioned, middle-class existence in the paradise we call our home, Australia. I desperately need to keep perspective and to understand that my “needs” are so very different to the real, life-threatening needs of the majority of the world’s population.

But all these philosophical, dare I say “noble” thoughts do little to help in the long run. I want to get “the call”. I want to know that our baby is a boy or a girl, how old they are and their name. I want to look at their photo and imagine holding them in my arms. I want the materialistic pleasure of shopping for my new child and preparing our home for their arrival. I want to plan our trip and talk happily with my husband about the details as we lay in bed at night. I want to ring our friends and family and tell them the exciting news and email our baby’s photo far and wide. I want to get on the plane and daydream about our first meeting, about our baby’s personality (will they like us? will we “gel” as quickly as we did with Will? or will this child take us down a different road?) and about our adventures in Colombia. I want to bring our baby home and watch them sleep in their cosy cot for the very first time.

These are the realities of my life. These are the things I yearn for. I think about and “feel” the other side of this coin but I can not change that. I want our life back. I want to stop jumping each time the phone rings. I want to regain my equilibrium and the joyous optimism with which I used to tackle each day and each project.

But I am, quite necessarily, the most insignificant of the adoption triad members, and I know that my “wants” count for absolutely nothing in the scheme of things. I will continue to wait and hope, for hope is what keeps us all taking the next step… and the next.