[leenie71]

Hi there,
We were approved to adopt in March 2008...and still we wait. We first signed with a facilitator in early '08 with little to no action on our profile. We signed with a consultant this past July and have seen a bit more action with our profile going out, but still not much.

All in all, we've been waiting for almost 10 years for a child. After several failed IF treatments and now with the much longer than anticipated adoption wait, it's taking it's toll lately. I feel surrounded by pregnancy and birth announcements as well as matches and placements lately. The anger, frustration, bitterness for myself are rearing their ugly heads...once again in our journey.

I blog and many of the women I met through there are now matched, some who have not been waiting nearly as long as we have. It makes me think sometimes that dh and I should just wave the white flag and say 'uncle'.

Sorry for the vent. I thought that maybe someone else was in a similar long wait and we could commiserate. But maybe not! I feel alone in this frustratingly long wait for our child. 10 years is a long time to wait for anything....

[vernellinnj]

My foster child has been with me for well over 3 years and the courts have not yet determined that the case can go to TPR. I have been holding my breath for well over 2 years at the fear of losing this child. So I, too, am waiting to adopt but my agony is of a different sort.

Hang in there. Your child will find you.

[sewminky]

Hi Leenie,
While we haven't been waiting as long, given my age and being childless I am really ancy to get a match soon. We've been active several months and no bites yet. You are certainly not alone in seeing others get matches much more quickly!

Susan

[SupaModel]

Oh sweetie (((HUGS))) I remember when we first came on these boards. Can't imagine how you feel because waiting 4 mos almost killed and now looking back that was soooo fast. You baby will come. Dont give up!!

Baby dust your way

[srhbj]

Leenie as you can see we have been waiting a very long time for our baby as well. We've been with our facilitator for over 2 years now, and while we have had a few possibilities, nothing has worked out yet.

I can relate to the feelings of frustration. We just had to update all of our FBI and state clearances, etc. again for the 3rd time. Each time gets even more difficult.
Sometimes I'm not sure we can even continue this journey. Some days I wonder if we are supposed to.....if maybe this is God's way of saying to let it go. But somehow, we manage to gather up the strength to update again and make it through another day.

Unfortunately, we are committed to this facilitator, as they required payment up front. If we had it to do again, I would not have paid upfront monies and would have gone with more than one facilitator, agency, etc. But we can't go back, so we keep trying to move forward.

Please know that you are not alone. There are still some of us that are still waiting and praying that our babies find us soon.

Giving you big hugs and well wishes this evening. Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone.

[loubielou]

Hi and hugs to you in your grief. Our situation is different because I am not in America, but I do understand what it feels like to wait for what seems like forever! We tried unsuccessfully for about 7 years to concieve and then went through a process that lasted about 10months before being accepted into an adoption pool.
We have been over 4 years waiting. It can be so hard to take some days. There is no guarantee that we will ever be chosen as a-parents, as the number of potential parents far outweighs the number of babies that ever come up for adoption here. I always have some hope though.

Sending you positive thoughts today that you have some good news very soon.
x

[KarenInCa]

We're in a similar situation. Our first daughter was in our arms after waiting 10 months. We've been waiting for our second daughter now for 28 months. Both from China, but both under different circumstances for international adoption from China.
We're probably going to have to wait another 2-3 years before we're matched. It's hard on DH and myself, but I think it's more difficult for my DD, who's been waiting for a baby sister for more than 2 years now. She still talks about her baby sister as if we're going to China next month. It breaks my heart.

[sugarmuffin]

I haven't been waiting for a baby for over ten years but I have been waiting to find my "mate" for many, many years. So in a way i relate to most of you. May we all find the peace and patience needed.

[sugarandspice697]

I'm not currently waiting but when I was adopting Julia, I waited two years and four months!! For the first few months, everytime the phone rang I ran to answer it and I started to become very anxious. However, one thing that helped me get through the wait was finding other things to do. Around the wait time, I started dating DP more seriously, got more involved with the community, took clases and read books about natural parenting, and I also traveled a bit too.

[Daisy1339]

Oh, Leenie, I can relate!

We've been waiting for a little over 9 months, but if you count the fertility treatment it's been almost 5 years.

I have those same feelings rear their ugly heads! Lately, it's been very discouraging and making me think of "raising the white flag", too. There's no joy of anticipation, like a pregnant woman experiences. Instead we have to trust that it MIGHT happen for us one day.

We have to be checked and cross checked. Educated and re educated on being a good adoptive parent. Write seemingly endless amounts of checks as our nest egg dwindles.

Then, if we do get matched, we have to stay guarded just in case things don't work out. Keeping it in the forefront of our minds that it could all be taken away as quickly as it came. Doesn't feel very joyful. Even if things do work out, we still have to worry about keeping a good relationship with everyone involved. Remembering what you've learned in the countless classes. Remember to use the correct terminology. And always temper your joy out of respect for those who gave you your blessing.

I'm hoping that those who might be reading this, who might want to be quick to remind me of the pain of the other members of the triad, will remember that this is the Adoptive Parent support thread.

[my someone]

My heartfelt concern goes out to you. I remember feeling the pain that you are expressing vividly. Hugs to you.

We adopted our first after 20 months of waiting (and after "trying" via various other means for 8 yrs). The agency chose us for him because we had the "honor" of being the couple who had been waiting the longest. He is a handsome, curly hair athlete. In retrospect, I would have waited 20 months longer for him.

We were sure #2 would come quicker, since the agency recruited us back into the waiting family pool, saying they had more expectant mothers than families to place their babies with. That got our hopes up for a quick match...and we waited 23 months for our placement. We were ONE MONTH away from our "deadline" of stopping the process. Again, our son is such a dear that we would have waited as long as it had taken if I knew him ahead of time.

Here's my point: don't take the duration of your wait as ANY kind of sign that you shouldn't adopt. Take it as a sign that the child you are meant to parent just isn't "ready" for you yet. Please hang in there. You never know, by the time the weekend is over you may be matched, or even parenting (we got the call for #1 on a Tuesday and had him home on Wednesday afternoon)!

[soonersfan]

Hang in there. I know it is tough. We waited a little over a year for our first, and it was extrememly hard. We had been married over 8 years when we finally became parents, and we had hoped and wanted it to be much sooner than that. I can definitley understand where you are coming from.

[nurse_reedle]

We have been waiting for 15 months so far for this baby. I wanted my kids 2-3 years apart. My husband wasn't ready when Isaac was 2. At 3 he was ready....we all were...and it looks like he could easily be 5 before we are matched...he is past 4 now.

[loveajax]

To Leenie and to others who have been waiting so long to become moms, I am so sorry!! It is really, really disheartening. My DD was born just before my husband and my fifth year "anniversary" of trying to have a baby and those were five of the hardest and saddest years of my life. I know it's easy to be on the other side and say, "Wait! It will happen!" and I always wanted to say, "yeah, right!" So I won't blow smoke up your butt, but just say I understand how sad and frustrating it can all be. Hang in there!

[4everwaiting]

I read this post and all the bad memories of waiting came flooding back, as my eyes were filled with tears knowing how you feel right now.

My Dh and I tried to conceive for years, fertily drugs, surgeries and nothing worked. We decided we were ok just being us, no kids would be fine. Then when i turned 40 years old I said, I want kids, dh did too so we decided to adopt. Naive as I was in the adoption front I thought, nothing to it, at most a year and we would have our child- well two and a half years later and still waiting with no baby. There were a few ups and many many downs. I was sad, angry and resentful of all those that seemed to have a baby fall in their laps or pregnant by simply breathing the air...

Like Ajax, I continued to hear it will happen- I thought "yea right". I couldn't help to wonder what was the secret code or rules that no one was telling me, what are we not doing that everyone else is? Is there something wrong with us? Is it just a fairytale that you always hear about but never happens to you? I assure you I asked them all!!!

Every year when it was time to renew our paper work for homestudy and write another check, we would say this is it our last renewal, baby or not next year we will not go through this again... But every year we said it only takes one phone call, lets try it one more year...

Then one day out of the blue we did get that phone call (from another agency that we weren't even signed with) that we'd been waiting on. I was kind of excited but too afraid to let go, i was VERY guarded as we were driving to be with our daughter as bmom was being induced and we only had a couple of days to be there... My husband just knew from the momnet of the phone call, he knew it was meant to be. I thought if nothing else we can say we had a nice drive and a little vacation if anything went wrong.
After she was born i continued to think, this can't be happening- something will happen. After the bmom signed and 72 hours later could I finally wrap my head around it, for 15 years we had been looking for her and finally we found her- the stork was blown of track by about 1400 miles!!

Hang in there guys!!! (((HUGS))))

Know there are many of us who have BTDT, you are not alone although it feels like it at times.