[jennifervan]

I am sorry that you are sad and concerned at this time about having a young baby. When we started this process we decided to adopt from Guatemala to bring home a very young baby. We had lost our 5 day old son to anencephaly and we wanted to have an infant in our home again. We thought of China but that was "too old" for us (now looking at our situation we will hopefully be bringing a baby home before her 1st birthday but only if we are really luckly).

If you look at our timeline you will see two years worth of attempts to bring a young baby into our family. The frist referral we found out at five months old that she had severe disablities. Our family was still healing from the loss of our son and not prepared for this. But another family who was ready to adopt a special needs child adopted her right away. Legally, at five months into the process neither DNA or family court had been done.

SO even though I was sad about the loss, a part of me thought "o.k. here is another chance to get a 4 month old baby home". I kept thinking that we needed this and actually we deserved this since we had mourned both a son and our first referral. Well Gabbie, our second referral, is now 9 mo. old and stuck in a PGN investigation which could take months to years and maybe not come home.

Because of some of the issues in our case and the PGN investigation I could possibly walk away from her and get a third baby referral and try to hit the 4-6 mo mark. This has been an option for us. However, Gabbie would possibly go to an orphanage. We could not do this. In fact, we are in love with her and will wait for her. We have also visited her once. We just feel God brought her into our lives. For now, unless Gabbie's case turns into an abandonment case and/or our agency recommends otherwise and/or her mother changes her mind about the adoption, we will continue to try to bring her home. I am thinking of praying4rlittl1 in this and how hard she fought and what she has been through.

Through all of this I realized that it was not about "us" or "me" but about providing a home for her. Even if she comes to us as a toddler or child. The joke in our house has become "she is the most expensive compassion international child". This comment is made with love, saddness, and some bitter undertones. But we are literally paying for her to be well taken care of by a foster family, who she has known since she was 2 days old and may know till she is 2 years old. Anyway...I had to switch my heart in this...it is about her not me.

Blah Blah...if you can't tell I ramble and I know my situation is different but I was given the circumstances to start over with a new referral 2 weeks ago. I had to switch my thinking.

My points:
1.I am sorry about your pain I have been there and my arms still ache to hold an infant, especially my Tobie.
2.You may catch up or start with a new referral and end up with a hang up somewhere else along the way. We did not get DNA and family court with second referral till almost 6 months. HOWEVER, because of the problems with the Embassy in the Fall we caught up to alot of people who had passeded us months earlier (there was a small break of time from Nov. till Dec/Jan where the Embassy was running very smoothly and we hit that window). The people before us got caught while we were waiting for DNA/Family court....so we caught up.
3.It sounds like you have a very respectable agency and if you Lawyer/facilitator is too, than you are set.
4. I thought for sure things would go smoother legally with the second referral, starting with a clean slate, and it did not. In fact, the legal processes in this case is worse off than our first referral.
5. It, obviously, is your decision to make. If this is not something you want to pursue do not. We will be here for you. I know that pain. But for me, and I am just talking about me, at this point, this is not God's plan.

LONG WINDED AS ALWAYS AND FULL OF OPINIONS
COULD I EVER BE QUICK AND CONCISE?
Jennifer