I'm still telling people

Before the comp exams last July, my cohort met every week, sometimes twice a week and even more over the summer. I knew so much about these people. It got to the point when we'd get a new professor and we'd have to do the "tell us a little something about yourself" speech, we could guess what everyone else would say.

Since the comps, we're only together once a month. And some months we don't have to meet at all, provided we still meet with our individual advisor. Even when we meet, it's more of a "this is what you still have to do for this part of your dissertation" kind of thing. We show up, say how much progress we've made, complain that we're never going to finish, and then leave. No chit-chat time.

This summer class has more down time, even though it seems like more work. (It's not really more work, it's just that we're doing a complete course in ten days with all of the required readings and assignments for the full course. Plus, my commute is 1.5 hours instead of just 45 minutes, each way. Over the summer, when "teachers are on vacation." Plus the dissertation.) And since there's the down time, we have a chance to catch up on our lives.

One of the girls in my cohort adopted twins from Russia in 2001. She's a single mom, also. She was a lifeline to me during my early research on adoption. She gave me the book "Toddler Adoption," which kind of led me to older children. I had found some Russia things still laying around my house, a tiny doll in a Russian outfit and a Christmas ornament with a matrioshka (nesting doll) inside it. I gave them to her today for the girls.

A little later, she asked me what was going on with my process. "Is the little girl home with you now?" I said no, she's never coming home to me. She smiled one of those, "It will all work out" kind of smiles. The ones I got sick of seeing last spring when I was waiting for DNA authorization that just didn't seem to ever come. I said, "No, really. She's never coming home. AS told me in October and the agency admitted it in December. Then in January they promised me a new referral or a refund and I haven't heard from them since. They didn't even answer the complaint I filed at the Better Business Bureau." She was shocked. She asked what would happen to Ingrid now, I told her that I'm choosing to believe she really IS with her bio family. And then we talked about how in addition to all of the money I lost, it's also the heartbreak. I said, "It's ALL the heartbreak." ALL of it. Every bit. I planned on spending over $30,000 on an adoption. I also planned on being a MOM which basically means never having fun-money again. The money is only important because I have NONE left, and without money I can't pay fees for an adoption of a child I actually CAN be a mom to.

More than anything else, it's the heartbreak. If I got my refund, I'd still have the heartbreak. Even if I got a new referral, I'd still have the broken heart for Ingrid (although I know that actually having a child to be a mom to would help in healing my heart).