Wednesday, June 20, 2012

One More Time...

And so the saga continues...

Today Carla had knee surgery. I was sitting in the waiting room and my cell phone rang. I let it go through to voicemail as I wasn't too keen on dealing with anything until Carla was out of surgery. However, as soon as I listened to the voicemail and heard that it was from our adoption counselor, I knew I had to call her immediately. I felt like if I didn't call soon, who knows when I would next be able to get a hold of her.

So I went outside and called her back. I should have known to expect something, but this (on top of the fact that I was in the middle of waiting for Carla to finish surgery) almost pushed me over the edge. Our counselor went on to tell me that she still was not finished with our home study report and because she had not finished it within thirty days of the home visit, she was going to have to do ANOTHER home visit. No apology. No real taking of responsibility. She just told me that she would have to come back to the house, because she didn't finish the home study report in time.

Then, to top it off, she told me that since we still weren't done with our profile, this would be a good time to sit down and go over it. So clearly, she had NOT read the email that I sent her which explained that we were indeed finished. So, I explained to her that we were, in fact, done with our profile and that our books would be arriving today (which they did!). I was so happy that we had made the decision to just be done, because I truly believe that at this point, she is just using our unfinished letter to make it okay that she hasn't finished her stuff yet. I couldn't imagine now waiting for her to give us even more feedback and then making more changes.

So, we now have another home visit scheduled for early Monday morning. Now as Carla recovers from knee surgery, we have to worry about getting the house ready for another visit. Now that we are so ready to be finished with all of this, we have to wait for another home visit. It is getting harder to accept this as just part of the process. But we feel so stuck because we don't want to say anything that will make her think poorly of us and we don't want to do anything that will make this process take any longer.

I managed to sound upbeat on the phone and I believe that I was able to hide much of my frustration from her. Part of me wants her to know how frustrated I am, but the other part of me just wants to be done and I feel like if I can just keep us moving, that will be the fastest way to get done with this part of the process. I then walked back into the waiting room, texted my sister, and sat alone stewing over the conversation.

I told myself that I couldn't bother Carla with this right away. She was coming out of surgery and anesthetic after all. But, in typical Jess fashion, as soon as they let me back to see her and I saw that she was still in one piece, I tried to tell her about the conversation I had with our counselor. There she is, under heavy medication, with an IV still in her arm, and I am trying to explain to her my newest frustration. After listening the best she could and trying to tell me it would be okay, she said, "Jess, they are monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure, I don't think I can talk about this anymore." Point well taken.

So we are now back home. Carla is doing well. I am a bit calmer. Our new home visit is scheduled. My plan is to have EVERYTHING ready to give to our counselor when we see her on Monday. I will have our final check ready, the books with our long profile, the shorter letters, and all the stuff for the online profile. I will hand it all to her and hopefully, hopefully, soon we will be on the wait list.

5 comments:

  1. Ugh. what awful timing, and how shitty to not even apologize for putting you through all of this. Fingers crossed that she comes out, sees that everything is done, and actually does her job.

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  2. Are you sure you wanna stick with this agency??

    Also, don't worry so much about "getting the house ready" -- she's not there to inspect the house. :)

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  3. I would recommend calling her supervisor after the home inspection on Monday and very nicely telling her what happened so that other couples do not have to go through it. I would not view it as a complaint call but more of a call for the agency to improve their service to couples.

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  4. As a Mommy of 2 adopted children, my advice is to take on the mantra "OK, no problem" until your adoption is finalized. Jumping through the hoops can be very frustrating at times, but once you have your baby, you will not even remember the drama and frustration you felt. Hope this helps!

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    1. I just wanted to let you know that your comment came in right as we were waiting for our adoption counselor to arrive. Reading your words brought a sense of calm and acceptance to both Carla and me. Thank you so much for sharing the sentiment, it truly made a big difference for us!

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