On Again -- But Off Again

A few days ago, I told you that I had talked with our S/W at our adoption agency who had given us the go-ahead to go to Taiwan to adopt. We were in the process of seeing if we could get a loan to fund a second adoption. Ironically, I said to someone, when giving them an update, "Well, they'll probably call back in a couple of days and say they changed their minds."

AND, that they did. I came home to find a message on the answering machine from our S/W. It as just after 5:00 when I got it, but I took the chance that she might still be in. And she was. She apologized and said that the agency had a policy on "double-tracking" and that we would not be allowed to pursue an adoption from Taiwan. She said the main office indicated to her that it was against CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) (see website at www.china-ccaa.org) policy to allow double-tracking and that agencies who were caught allowing it would have that dossier pulled and they would be suspended.

Well, let me humbly say that this is just not what I have found to be true. I have read EXTENSIVELY online about CCAA policy, other agencies' policies, the US Governments' interpretation of CCAA's policies, other adoptive families' experiences and about concurrent adoptions in general. I have spent more hours than I care to admit researching and reading forums and laws with regard to this subject. I cannot find ANYWHERE that it says this. I told our S/W this. She sounded surprised. I gave her the links to the websites and told her to read for herself. I told her that unless I were able to see this policy (provided from the main office) on CCAA letterhead I could not believe it was true. There is a policy that states the youngest child in your home must be 12 months old. That is it.

We discussed the fact that we do not have a signed contract with the agency. Somewhere along the lines of our multiple processes, this got left out. We have never received receipts stating what we have paid for. This new "policy" came out (or, at least it was distributed) SEVEN months after we had submitted our dossier to the agency. We were not notified about this rule when we paid our fees so we were not given the opportunity to make our decision about going with this agency based on refund policy or concurrent adoption policies. I think there is a problem with all of this. I used the example with her that if I had paid a company to buy windows in my home, but did not get any type of contract stipulating what I could or couldn't do, and then decided since it was taking so long to get the windows that I'd go out and get doors and was told I couldn't until the windows came, I would tell them that I could do this because I didn't have a contract that said I couldn't. If they continued to say I couldn't, I would have a right to a full refund since I still didn't have any windows. Replace windows with the words "Child from China" and the word doors with "Child from Taiwan" and you'll see where I am. We also talked about the fact that I was very bothered that we felt led by God to do this, but our agency, a Christian-based agency, was standing in the way of our providing a family for another child because it "might" be too close to an adoption we have currently waiting in China. This month, again, they only referred one week of babies -- the week of Nov. 15-Nov. 21. November WAS a huge month for dossiers but still, I can't see a fast enough increase happening after November to get us a referral in 2008, or possibly in 2009.

So, now we wait -- again. I'm getting good at this waiting stuff. We wait to see if our S/W does read the information I shared with her and if she DOES ask the questions of the main office about whether this is possibly an incorrect interpretation. I don't expect them to change their minds in our favor -- but who knows what God's up to?? "His ways are not our ways."