Did you see this?

The little girl at the end sounded like Ingrid. It's not, though. I know it's not.

My own kind of Adoption Amnesia

I just went through my old e-mails. I started with my referral, October 16, 2005. After reliving that excitement, the paperchase, the "Woohoo I'm done with Family Court" surprise conversation on Valentines Day, the visit trip, the DNA wait, The Lie, the requests for medical reports, the cedula explanations, the bmom interview, hiring AS, asking for a new referral, and the accusations, I gave up. I got tired of reliving it.

The good thing is, you DO forget. Even my nightmare. There were parts of it that I forgot myself. Not the big stuff, I remembered all that. But I forgot some of the times the agency director accused me of lying or fabricating things (and of course I had back-up documentation to show that I was NOT the one lying). I forgot some timeline things, too. Like I thought I asked for a new referral (I knew I did that on July 3) AFTER I found out that Thanassis was involved in the case, but it turns out that I didn't know about his involvement for another 12 days. So the really good thing is, someday I'll forget just how horrible this has all been! (See, I told you I'm not always negative.)

I still have six months of e-mails to go through. From memory, I have at least one more time when the agency brags about being able to bribe in PGN (I have several other references to that). I don't have much from the agency, since the director stopped talking to me when I stopped being so darned afraid of her. I know that I also have the negativa from AS saying that my POA was never filed, and I have an e-mail from the agency promising the POA had indeed been filed. (I already have another e-mail from AS saying that Thanassis admitted my paperwork was never registered, and that was within the first two weeks of hiring AS.)

And I know I have that whole thing from December-January. Where I was promised a refund, then a referral, then a refund, then a referral but only through Thanassis, then a refund, then IGNORING ME. I know I haven't gotten to the REALLY good stuff. The stuff where I'm told the agency doesn't have to do the job I hired them to do, and the part where they remind me the contract doesn't guarantee me a child.

I DO STAND BY MY ORIGINAL LINE - The contract doesn't guarantee me a child. I didn't set out to buy a child. I did, however, hire an adoption agency to help me facilitate an adoption. And since I never started an adoption process, they did not do the job I paid them to do. Guarantee of a child is NOT what I was looking for - ATTEMPTING to adopt a child is what I was looking for, and the agency DID NOT do this for me.

Do you know anyone who tried to adopt a child from Guatemala but the child never came home? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave your e-mail in the comments! Or e-mail me at janedoeguatemala@yahoo.com. PLEASE! Or if anyone you know of tried to adopt, paid money and never brought their child home, PLEASE let me know. PLEASE!!!! I even have an e-mail from my agency director who said this happened to two other families through my same attorney, so I'd LOVE to find them...

Why I'm negative

1. Ingrid isn't home with me.
2. I don't know where Ingrid is. If I know FOR SURE that she is FOREVER in a safe and loving family, I can rest a little easier.
3. I cannot afford to try adopting again. My agency STOLE my money and NEVER EVEN FILED A POWER OF ATTORNEY! I was waiting for fourteen months, but I was NEVER in the process to adopt a child.
4. I trusted. I believed. I waited. I was patient. I tried to believe G-d's plan. But I'm ALL ALONE, no child at home despite my waiting.

Please don't tell me to be positive. Please don't tell me it's all in His timing. Please don't tell me it's because of His plan for me. Because to someone who's tried to adopt and FAILED TWICE, it sounds like He doesn't believe I'm capable of being a parent. When you tell me that it's all the power of my thinking, it sounds like I did something wrong. And I did NOTHING WRONG, except (1)accept Grisha's referral when he wasn't the "child of my dreams," because I wanted to help HIM find a family; (2) trust the references for this agency; (3) sign with this agency; and (4) agree last April that Ingrid was so special she was worth waiting an extra month or so for.

In LIFE, I'm not so negative. About my adoption experience, there's NOTHING BUT NEGATIVE. So please don't make me feel worse.

The researcher in me

OK, this is where I show what a geek I truly am. I just got these numbers from Guatadopt:
DESTINED TO THE US:
Statistics-
Total number of adoption cases for 2006-2007=5,024
Total number of that went to the US 2006-07 =4,757

Assuming the number of adoptions that were started in 05 but completed in 06 is statistically equal to the number of adoptions that were started in 06 but not completed yet, that means only 267 cases did not go to the US. I'm assuming that number refers to cases that got to PGN but were kicked out for some reason, or ones that went to investigations for more than the mere look-see (AKA, the longtimers).

267 cases out of 5024. That means about 5% of the cases were not approved. Again, that assumes the "total number of adoption cases" refers to those that made it to PGN.

If, however, the "total number of adoption cases" refers to those that began the process, then we must include the children who were returned to their bparent. I remember reading that number is something like 2 or 3 out of 100. In that case, 2-3% of cases that were started did NOT result in coming to the US.

Ingrid is not one of those, since her case was never started anywhere (I know you're sick of me pointing it out). Either is her bsister, since her sister's case started in 2005. Her first KO from PGN was in 2005, also.