One step forward, three steps back

About the time we felt like we were making progress, we've come to somewhat of a halt. I have to stop myself before I get angry, but I keep thinking how unfair it is that we have to try so hard just to have a child. We might not ever get the joy of having a baby and might have to bypass all the firsts and go right to a 6 or 7 year old child with "problems." It's awful for me to think this way, but I guess our only option might be an older child with disabilities. I wonder how many people we know that would choose that option? And to add salt to the wound, we know 12 women who are pregnant and 7 who have recently had babies. We don't know anyone else who is infertile...

So after talking with the attorney who we were considering using, we're slowing down the adoption process. He told us to contact his secretary who was currently trying to adopt and could answer questions. She is in the process of adopting a child from foster care and has been waiting a few months for a placement. Her friend, who is also adopting, is going through a large agency and has already paid $22,000, and was recently told they would have to pay additional fees because the agencies rates had gone up. Not to mention, the couple has been waiting for over a year for a placement.

The major difference between the two cases is the type of adoption. The attorney's secretary is adopting through social services and will end up only paying around $300, but she will adopt a child between the ages of 3 and 9 and the child will have special needs of some kind. Her friend is trying to adopt a domestic infant, which is the route we were planning on going down.

I have always been open to fostering to adopt, whereas Kyle hasn't. After talking to the secretary he seemed more open to the idea, but still wasn't ready to commit. So for now, we plan to forgo an agency and stick with using an attorney. We will request a home study to be completed through the social services in our home state. After that we will eventually move forward with foster to adopting a younger child, preferably 2 to 5 years of age, through the foster care system. We know that at this time, we would like to find a child that doesn't have major emotional, mental, or physical disabilities. We need some time to learn and understand the disability before we were to adopt a child with one. However, we are open to a child with minor physical and/or mental disabilities. Maybe at some point down the road, we will look into adopting a child with a lot of special needs.

After we do the home study, we will eventually place an ad in the paper and see what happens. There are several local OBGYNs that are looking out for a potential birth mother making an adoption plan, so the sooner we complete the home study, the better. We aren't giving up on adopting an infant, just exploring other routes first. We didn't realize just how difficult adopting an infant would be, so we want to try a few more things one last time before we commit to years of waiting for a match and being unable to continue infertility treatments.

We still are preparing for an donor IUI in the next few months and plan to do the transfer early next year if the IUI fails. We have also reopened the idea of doing another IVF sometime next year assuming the IUI and FET fail. Somewhere in there we will get the home study completed too.

And I spoke to the surrogate and let her know our decision. She didn't seem very pleased, but maybe another couple will be successful with her.

Taking it one day at a time...