Questions

What do we do?

Rumours have it that the wait will extend to 36 months for those LID April 2006. That leaves another six months until our Oct 2006 LID for the wait to extend beyond that. We could be looking at 4 years or more.

Four years from our LID is October 2010.
Jack will be 8, Elliot will be 6 and PJ will be turning 5.
We'll have three kids out of diapers, into elementary school.
Three kids active in extra-curricular activities, social groups, play dates.
Three kids with 5 years of being together, growing sibling bonds, establishing family dynamic.

Is bringing a 12 month old into that mix do-able? is it fair?

The crux of the problem is, we don't KNOW that's how it'll play out. We don't KNOW it'll get that long. We have to wait and see... but the longer we wait, the further into this programme we get, the harder it is to switch to another option.

Options are:

Switch countries? not really. We've invested a lot of money into this process, and can't really afford to re-spend that money to change our minds. Sucks that money has to decide, but it does.

Adopt domestically? That scares me more than the IA adoption - At least with China we see progress, we know when our turn is and can watch it move closer, even if it goes at the pace of an invalid snail. We could apply to adopt domestically, jump through all the hoops and never receive a baby in the end.

Change the age on our application to China? We could request an older child, so she's closer in age to the other three... would it help? Would they consider that request?

Give up and stick with three? Three's perfect. Right now... my heart is really set on that little girl in China. How will we feel when Oct 2006 is referred and we're not included b/c we gave up? We can pull out any time before referral, and it doesn't cost us to stay in line... but is that the attitude I should have in adopting a child?

Yesterday I posted that I felt okay about the wait. I did. But that was a 2-2.5 year wait. This is 4-5 years. I'm not okay with that. It makes me queasy to think of the consequences of that wait. I want to convince myself that it's okay either way - that if we wait too long and decide not to adopt, or if they close down the programme before it's our turn, that's okay. We could just go about our lives, forget we're even waiting, and maybe one day we'll have a pleasant surprize in a phone call... and if not, we're fine, we've moved on, we're content with the life we have. I can't do it though.

I don't like how this feels... I'm scared and angry and jealous and guilty... I'm regretful. I'm regretful we didn't pay more attention to the Waiting Child program (special needs). Some days I'm regretful we even had this idea - I mean, you can't miss what you haven't dreamt of, right? Without the dream, there is no disappointment. We rolled the dice. Maybe the gamble wasn't in receiving another child, it was in wanting one.

N :(

*PS* Please ignore the mood swing from last post to this... perhaps a paper pregnancy is closer to a physical one than I thought?