Starting Over?

Look around. If you have a calendar on your wall, glance in its direction. Does it have 4 very large numbers on it? Perhaps 2-0-1-2? That's because it is now the year 2012! Seriously, it really is!

The new year was the time frame Alan and I gave each other to start talking about adopting again. If I'm being honest, I hadn't hoped it would come to this point. I know it's wrong, but that doesn't stop me from wishing that Charlotte's birthparents would have another baby; if they did, the state would step in and, theoretically, we would get the call to foster and eventually adopt the baby. And since Charlotte is INCREDIBLE, soooooooo much of the unknowns would be... less unknown. And less scary.

BUT it didn't happen that way. And Charlotte turns 3 this year and we turn 37. Which is OLD, dammit! Twenty years ago, you know, more than half my life ago (!!!!!), I really believed I would have my first child LONG before I was 30, if not be done having kids by then. At the very latest, I wanted to be done having kids by 35. I also felt like I was meant to have a lot of kids, and there was NO WAY I was going to have an only child. Well, tell the universe your plans and it laughs in your face. In my case, the universe spit on my plans.

At some point, I have to feel done. And honestly I'm getting closer to the point of being okay with the idea of "one and done". I'm not saying I'm there, but I don't think it would feel like a tragedy. It would have been tragic to me to live without kids at all, but having an only child is less tragic and more mildly disappointing.

Anyway, Alan and I are starting to research domestic adoption. Foster adoption was so difficult with the state that we don't really want to go that way again (unless a biological sibling of Charlotte's does pop up), and international adoption has never really felt right to us. So we're investigating domestic adoption. Back before the state approved us, when we briefly looked into DA, I felt drawn to either private adoption with an attorney or Catholic Charities. As luck would have it, Catholic Charities has an info session on the 23rd. If I remember correctly from 3 years ago, they only accept a certain number of potential adopters into their pool at a time and let them get matched with birthparents and adopt babies until there are only a few couples left before they add people. So (since I know their fees are reasonable, they are very ethical, and we should qualify) the big question will be when can we expect to be in the program and ready to be shown to expectant parents?

Internally, I need a limit. And I think that limit is 2012. If we can start the process in 2012, and by start the process, I mean start the homestudy (which should only take a few months for a private adoption, at most) and be ready to be shown to birthparents within or shortly after 2012, then I feel like I want to start down the road. If there's a 2 year wait to get in the program, though, I feel like this may not be the path for us, and perhaps we'll have a meeting with an adoption attorney in the area (who charges $250/hour to meet with her even the first time, so we'll definitely wait until after the Catholic Charities info session).

But... I'm still holding out hope of a phone call... (Can the easy thing EVER happen for us?)