[ophelia72]

I pray to God that this does not happen, BUT has anyone out there received a refferral and then the family has gone to visit and you lose it? My Agency has gone over this and it seems devastating to me how do you recover? how do you go on? Since I am waiting I want to prepare myself for these worse case senerios? any suggestions.

[kretzklan]

It happens and it happened to us. We received referals in April - visited in July and spent 7 days with the two children. We found out in September, while waiting for court, that they were no longer available for IA (a family member was unwilling to sign the papers). It was devastating...feels like a death - in our case - two deaths. We wanted to quit...really thought we would quit. Then a friend asked me, "can you only be a mom to those children or do you have room in your heart and home for the children that are waiting for you?" Honestly, that haunted me for awhile. There were other children waiting - not just for us - but for a family. We were so prepared, could we just think about ourselves only and stop? In the end, we decided to move forward. It was all very fast - new referals in October and court in November (our first visit was waived by an incredibly kind judge and VERY good in-country agency folks). Do we still think of them? Yes. We celebrate their lives and where we hope they are now - safe with their family in Russia. We remember their birthdays - we look at their pictures - we include them in prayer. They are part of our children's adoption stories. Not a scary part, but a truthful part. They are the ghost siblings that our youngest kids don't know...our oldest remembers them and we laugh about the funny things they did and said.
What do you do to move past it? I don't have a hard and fast answer. It depends on you and how you believe in handling things. I can say that sadly, my attachment to my children was a very tough struggle and I have wondered if my grieving for the first kiddos added to that struggle. I'll never know.
We try to keep track of them and we think that we would still adopt them if that situation arose. But, you can never really know!
There are others here who have lived through this (and worse). It can be done!

[proudmommyof 2]

I was worried about this, too. In fact, I was pretty sure that someone would show up at court and stop us. We had received both boys' referrals before their first birthday, and they both spent their birthdays in Russia. I had a picture in my head of biomom kind of raising her head, realizing what day it was, and running to claim the boys.

The truth is, it happens, but it doesn't happen often.

I'm not going to tell you not to worry, because you probably won't relax until the sweet one is home!

[Jessi_76]

Hi Ophelia,

I worry about this every single day! You are not alone. I have fallen SO absolutely head-over-heals in love with our son just through his picture (I even imagine what his personality is like). It would be heartbreaking...devastating to lose him. Although we haven't yet seen a picture of our daughter, I probably worrry even more about her because of the incidence of Russian families adopting so many of the healthy girls. I fear that she, especially because she's so young, will be adopted by a Russian family before we ever have our day in court. I understand the fear, and although I have no first-hand experience, our agency has also talked extensively to us about this possibility as well. I can't imagine. My heart goes out to the women here who have gone through this.

It did happen to our dossier specialist...they met their daughter, fell in love with her, and then a member of her birth family came and showed interest. There were given the choice to immediately be given another referral or wait it out - six long months - to see if the birth family made a move to bring the child home. They chose to wait, and eight long months after first meeting their daughter, they were back for their court date. Heartbreaking, yes, but even in these instances, there isn't always a sad ending. There are happy endings, even when the birth family becomes involved.

[Shark01]

We've lost 2 referrals, one to a Russian family and one we had to give back due to a rapidly deteriorating mental state.

The first one we felt powerless about, but we made a first trip in June 2006, the next week the agencys accreditation lapsed and after a year of waiting, a Russian family adopted (or agreed to foster....its not clear) her.

We visited the 2nd one in February, an 8 mo old girl. I was numb through the whole thing, never excited at all, my wife felt the same. We thought the girl was fine, but her mental state rapidly deteriorated over the next 3 months, and we decided to give her up.

Now we have a new referral, and we feel much emotionally excited about this one.

[Karen in MT]

We commited to a 10 yr old girl that we were told would probably not be adopted in Russia due to her race. She was adopted by a Russian family even after the orphanage was notified that we had commited to her. I think this is just one of the many chances of heart-break when opening your heart to children. There is always risk with love. It is better to take the chances than not! Best wishes to you....
-Karen

[votemom]

yes we did. we went on trip one and fell in love and signed all the papers and flew home.

he was chosen by a russian family.

it was gut-wrenching and heart-breaking.

i never expected it and had not even prepared myself for the possibility, so it hit me especially hard.

i definitely SHOULD have prepared myself for the possibility. it still would have broken my heart, but perhaps i would have recovered more easily..? i dunno.

you can't let it stop you from moving forward though.
that would be like never getting pregnant for fear of a miscarriage.

any loss is so terribly sad and hard.

we DID recover with time. but a day rarely goes by that i do not think of him.

[mommyto4]

It happens more than we would like to think,unfortunately Happened to us on our court trip. How we coped was faith and prayer, it was God's plan, not ours. Just remember when God closes a window he opens a door. We did bring home our children just not the one we originally had thought would be ours. Best wishes you will bring home the children that are meant to be yours!