Adoption: Nightmare or Dream come True?
I haven't talked about our adoption process in quite awhile. It's been such an emotional roller coaster. It has almost been exactly a year since we began. A year since we were told that it was a speedy process and that they had children in adoptive homes within six months.
From what we understand our case went before the adoptions comittee sometime in August 09. We had a positive report from the social worker and her homes study, a positive return on our psycological reviews, but the psycologist herself decided she didn't recomend us becoming adoptive parents because she considered we were just looking for "an experience in adoption". We believe she came to this conclusion after learning we already have two biological children.
We recieved a rejection letter on Dec. 23rd 09, based on the psycologist's personal opinion. This was greatly upsetting as you could imagine. How could we "pass" all the psychological and home study exams, and then be rejected because of one person's opinion of us. An opinion she developed on the very few and limited conversations we had while appearing for our psychological exams. Those conversations were basicly, "Hello, my name is _____________. My husband's name is _______________. We live in ____________. We have 2 children..." Another was basicly "Hello, today you will fill out this exam." or "Hello, today I need you to draw a picture of a family." Now, how she could decide we were just wanting an experience in adoption from that, I will never know. Even our social worker was shocked to hear we were rejected.
We immediatly wrote a letter of appeal (and a bit of frustration) to the adoption comittee and I basicly put the whole thing in the very back of my mind.
Sometime in April we recieved an unexpected letter. It seems our appeal was approved and we are given the opportunity to re-take the psycological exam. We immediatly went in to talk the adoption's lawyer. She said that there were discrepancies in the psychologial exams of a couple of their cases, and she wanted us to meet with her and the head phsycologist who was out of the office that day. We called another day, and he was out again. We dropped in last Thursday and guess what?! He was out again! I guess they are working out of two offices right now since their main office is being remodeled or something.
What our lawyer DID tell us, is that we should attend the Parent's School that the psychologist hold's every month. These are classes for adopting parents. We asked if we should try to catch the psycologist beforehand, but she said no, it would just be better to show up at the class now, since the next group will not begin until July.
I hate to get my hopes up, but the fact that we are going to be taking these classes that are for accepted adopting parents makes me wonder. Since we passed the psycological exam, it makes me think that we may just need to talk to the head psychologist, and maybe not even re-take the exams.
The hard thing is to know how to prepare for what comes next. Do we begin getting the kids thinking more serously about a new sibling, or should we hang on just in case things don't go as we hope.
What about our summer plans? Do we go ahead and plan our trip out this summer?
I know that God is in control, and I prefer to think that all this delay is because the Lord has the indicated child being prepared for the moment we are through with all the red tape. I hope in God that everything turns out to be a dream come true.
From what we understand our case went before the adoptions comittee sometime in August 09. We had a positive report from the social worker and her homes study, a positive return on our psycological reviews, but the psycologist herself decided she didn't recomend us becoming adoptive parents because she considered we were just looking for "an experience in adoption". We believe she came to this conclusion after learning we already have two biological children.
We recieved a rejection letter on Dec. 23rd 09, based on the psycologist's personal opinion. This was greatly upsetting as you could imagine. How could we "pass" all the psychological and home study exams, and then be rejected because of one person's opinion of us. An opinion she developed on the very few and limited conversations we had while appearing for our psychological exams. Those conversations were basicly, "Hello, my name is _____________. My husband's name is _______________. We live in ____________. We have 2 children..." Another was basicly "Hello, today you will fill out this exam." or "Hello, today I need you to draw a picture of a family." Now, how she could decide we were just wanting an experience in adoption from that, I will never know. Even our social worker was shocked to hear we were rejected.
We immediatly wrote a letter of appeal (and a bit of frustration) to the adoption comittee and I basicly put the whole thing in the very back of my mind.
Sometime in April we recieved an unexpected letter. It seems our appeal was approved and we are given the opportunity to re-take the psycological exam. We immediatly went in to talk the adoption's lawyer. She said that there were discrepancies in the psychologial exams of a couple of their cases, and she wanted us to meet with her and the head phsycologist who was out of the office that day. We called another day, and he was out again. We dropped in last Thursday and guess what?! He was out again! I guess they are working out of two offices right now since their main office is being remodeled or something.
What our lawyer DID tell us, is that we should attend the Parent's School that the psychologist hold's every month. These are classes for adopting parents. We asked if we should try to catch the psycologist beforehand, but she said no, it would just be better to show up at the class now, since the next group will not begin until July.
I hate to get my hopes up, but the fact that we are going to be taking these classes that are for accepted adopting parents makes me wonder. Since we passed the psycological exam, it makes me think that we may just need to talk to the head psychologist, and maybe not even re-take the exams.
The hard thing is to know how to prepare for what comes next. Do we begin getting the kids thinking more serously about a new sibling, or should we hang on just in case things don't go as we hope.
What about our summer plans? Do we go ahead and plan our trip out this summer?
I know that God is in control, and I prefer to think that all this delay is because the Lord has the indicated child being prepared for the moment we are through with all the red tape. I hope in God that everything turns out to be a dream come true.
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