I am a “seasoned” international adopter.  Meaning I have been through the process once and it was wrought with many ups and a huge number of downs and am almost done with our second adoption.  I will not relive the drama that was our first adoption–it is in the August 06 and a post or two into September archives for those of you who are interested.  I feel a little bad, as I haven’t blogged much about this adoption and my feelings about it our my tremendous and instantaneous love for our little Peepers.  I wrote about our first adoption at length as the process was new, the feelings and emotions news, and well parenthood was new. 

Last time around–I learned faith, patience and calm as we waited through PCR test shortage crisis.  It happened near the time we were due to get our referral and it was a huge scare.  Our agency does not refer babies until they have had a PCR HIV test (this tests the babies DNA and is very accurate).  In hindsight it wasn’t that big of a deal as our referral did not come until a few weeks later and all was rectified by then.  But just as with pregnancy (I can only imagine), every little twitter, ache, weird pain sends one into a frenzy of needless worry and causes one to eat pints of Ben and Jerry’s or drink too much (for those of us who are only “pregnant” with paper). 

So what might you ask is causes us to gulp multiple bottles of wine at a time?  Let see…There is power rationing going on in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia’s captial for those of you unfamiliar with Ethiopia).  Every three days Addis has no power from 7am to 9pm.  So that is twice a week for those of us who are mathematically challenged (I mean ME).  Because of this power rationing it is taking longer for all things to get done, as the adoption system relies on computers, etc.  This causes cases–a huge percentage of cases–to fail court because documents don’t get printed, signed, copied in time–due to these outages.  Then on top of that the Department of Homeland Security created a National Visa Center who now has the responsibility of processing and sending out all I171-H forms to the appropriate places.  This is the approval us adoptive parents need in order to bring our children into the United States as Immigrants.  This centralization has not made everything better, forms are lost or misplaced and this adds time onto the process and lots and lots of stress, worry, anxiety.  I am trying to exercise more as opposed to eating Ben and Jerry’s to alleviate the stress. 

There is nothing more frustrating than not having any control over a situation that impacts your life on this level.  Our baby is there growing up and waiting for Mommy and Daddy to bring her home and love her forever.  I knew going in that this process was unpredictable and it makes me understand the fragile nature of the world and how much I take for granted. 

Our court date is next Tuesday (I am assuming they will have power that day).  I am anxious and worry that this time around will be just as stressful and unpredictable as the last time.  I made it through that dark and confusing time a stronger and better woman and I hope the same will happen this time.  Otherwise I just might eat my weight in Ben and Jerry’s and need to be airlifted out of my house to Ethiopia.