Not good.

Well I spent the morning almost sick with anxiety about whether or not we'd get a call about a match. Jack was in school so Elliot, Paxten and I kept ourselves busy running errands to the bank and the pet food store. When legitimate errands were finished, we went over to Toys R Us to itemize what they wanted for their birthdays.

By 1pm I could stand it no longer and I called the provincial gov't official to see what the story was. I'm not decided as to whether I'm glad I did or not - I think I was in a better place not knowing.

I am told there is in fact a match for us, but that the gov't is not going to approve it at this point. Apparently there is a note in her medical file that states she has a mild delay in motor and communication skills (I think, though at that point in the conversation my mind went awol so I'm missing some detais). The form went on to say the delay may be something that disappears once the child is out of the institutional setting, or it may be something that remains or worsens. Of course, this document is written with the idea that the worst case scenario must be expressed if not emphasized. Since we did not have developmental delay in our approval letter, she is not going to allow the match at this time. She went on to mention things like seeking updates from the orphanage, and adjusting our application to the gov't to include developmental delay, but as I said, my mind was missing for much of those parts and I don't really know what our real options are or how it will play out. She is waiting to talk to Children's Bridge to ask them questions, but I'm not sure what answers that will provide.

Some important points of information: MOST if not all of the children coming from China demonstrate some delay, some more serious than others. It's a natural and ugly response to living in an institution where there's not enough food or attention to meet the needs of all the children. I'm confused as to how the delay identified in this file compares or relates to that typical delay.

The Children's Bridge programme is designed to make sure parents are not making emotional, impulsive choices. We discussed our limits with respect to special needs at length with our agency contact, and from that discussion (and the ones she had with other waiting families) our contact matches children to families based on identified needs. As mentioned, we were approved for cl/cp, club foot, and digit differences. We were told this list was extensive enough to allow us to be matched within a reasonable length of time. So my first question is why we were matched to a child that, according to the gov't, did not fall within our profile. I'm confident enough in our agency's process and experience to think there is a reason or explanation for this seeming mismatch - maybe the gov't is reading more into it than it deserves.

What do we do? I don't know. I'm hoping to talk to our agency in the next few days and get to the bottom of the whole ugly story. One possibility is we don't accept this match, and ask our agency to match us to another child who better suits our profile. That means waiting until the next batch. Not the end of the world, but incredibly disheartening at this time. Another possibility is that we decide to proceed with this match and need to reapply to the gov't to include whatever they need on the approval letter. Seems a little rediculous to me as a process as we'd be asking the same person to approve us, THEN asking if we can have the child. This will probably include social worker attention, which means time and money. My pie in the sky option is that discussion with the agency and/or updates from the orphange reveals that the delay is no more than expected of an institutionalized child and we just proceed as normal. Not putting a whole lot of hope in that one at this point.

I'm absolutely beat. I've written before that every step of this journey has been harder than anticipated, but for some reason I thought this one would be different. With the specific expectations outlined through the gov't steps, and through discussion with CB, I didn't anticipate any challenge. That said, in hindsight I can't understand why I didn't see this possibility. I mean why not, really? I've spent the greater part of the afternoon crying and I am at a loss as to where we go from here. I really have no idea how this will play out. I'm sooo tired of this uphill climb.

N