Monday, November 12, 2007

A gathering for waiting adoptive parents

So last weekend we attended a reception for "waiting" adoptive parents in the Washington DC area hosted by one of the Gladney board memebers that lives in the area. By the way, Gladney Center for Adoption is the adoption agency we choose to help us find a birth mother. Anyway, we had received several invitations for social events hosted by Gladney but we had declined them because we didn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of happy parents that already had adopted thief children. However, this was the first event for "waiting" parents, so we decided to go, thinking it would be a good idea to share our stories and share in the anxiousness. Before attending the event, we told a friend about it and they gave us a completely different perspective. She said to us, "Ah, you get to meet the competition?" Good point Erin. These are the people that are standing in our way, preventing us from brining home our first child! Might as well do something about this! So at the reception, I got as many names and numbers as I could and immediately phoned them into my friend at the FBI and had him start writing up a bunch of citations! Just kidding. The reception was very good, and we met a bunch of really nice people. It's good to know there are a number of people out there in the same exact position as we are, we are just better looking: ) The reality is that even though there is a pool of waiting adoptive parents, they all have unique wants and needs. So that, hopefully, there isn't too many couples that are truly competing for the same potential birth mother. Or at least that's what they told us.

So what does that mean for us? No new news. We have been in the waiting pool since August of 2007. They tell us the average wait time is 12 months after being placed in the pool. What that really means is that 50% of the people are matched before 12 months and 50% of the people are matched after 12 months. There's no magic 12 month marker. We just hope, for whatever reason, we fall in the pre-12 month category.

Joel

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Joel, You crack me up! Of course you were the best looking people there! You guys are the best. This will happen soon. We love you guys. Love, Beth and Sean

joelio said...

Thanks Beth. What can I say, it's not our fault we are really really really good looking.

Kara said...

At least the waiting hasn't stolen your sense of humor. Thanks for the update. By the way, do you refer to the others as "theif" children or am I just catching a typo!

joelio said...

Total typo. ...people and THEIR children. Referring to them as Thief children would be bad. Which gives me a good idea for my next topic for the blog...

The PC terms and not so PC terms when talking about adoption. Stay tuned...

The Bush Family said...

I'm cracking up at Kara's comment..... Just wanted you to know.

We in PA are rooting for you guys to hear sooner rather than later!

Can't wait for the next blog item!

Thanks for sending...

LFAR said...

I just read this post today on the first day of Advent, also a season of waiting and anticipation. Thinking about you guys & hoping the other adoptive parents aren't sending the FBI to your house for your holiday party... ;-) Could be a bit crazy if the same cast of characters is there from last year! Lots of love, Lis