A few more steps...

1) I made the corrections to our homestudy (12 major errors, too many typos to count, two pages in all) and signed the new Certified copy last Tuesday.

2) The Adoption Laison and Adoption worker came over last Thursday for the Presentation of the child (which really ought to have its own blog it was so great)

3) Today, I got an email with an Adoption Application attached, and I forwarded to Mike. Then he proceeded to improve the form so that he can type into it and then email it back! We will likely fill it out and return it so fast their heads will spin.

So, we're still waiting on something called the Subsidy Packet, which we will also fill out and return in record time.

The thing is that I thought perhaps we were moving quickly toward a year-end or first-of-the-year Hearing, but the Laison said "It will probably be about three more months at this point." Yet another waiting period. You all know how I feel about that by now, so need to flog a dead blog.

Is anyone even reading this anymore? Not that it matters, because it makes a great dairy/journal/writer's guidebook...but just curious.

Anything you'd like to know? Not know? See? if you were reading this as a book, what have I not discussed or touched on that you wish you knew more about?

Also, please let me know if any of you would be willing to read (and especially, to PROOFread) first drafts of my book. I will be self-publishing it.

Thanks in advance for your time, thoughts and ideas.

The Latest Bureaucratic B.S.

I don't want to get my big girl panties all in a bunch today, but I do want to blog about "where we are" (social workers love to use that phrase) in the adoption process...for my book if nothing else. I will often post in my Facebook Status Updates about the daily happenings, but I don't want to neglect to come here and flesh it out a bit before I forget all of the inane details of the bureaucratic purgatory in which we've found ourselves.

We had a Team Decision-Making, or TDM, meeting here at our home last month. Present were Mike and I, the kids, our Ariel Case Manager Michelle and the Adoption Worker Donna. It was a caomedy of errors with the Adoption Worker telling us all abouthte adoption process and what she has "just found out" that she has to do: The Presentation of the Child. This is a meeting in which she will present to us the child's history, including abuse/neglect, foster placement(s) and the long-term financial, medical, physical and social needs of the child including any referrals for therapy.

Can you imagine a relative stranger telling you all about your two-year-old's infancy and the current as well as future needs (which you have already thoroughly considered)? And this is yet another meeting that can be postponed, especially because it is on their turf. I don't know if kids are welcome but we plan on bringing all three of ours just to liven things up. Ought to be funny.

Anyway, back to the meeting. The topic that we spent the most time discussing at the TDM meeting was our Home Study. The Case Manager from Ariel had brought a copy for us to read and sign. Mike read it, laughing out loud at one point*, and then signed it. But when it came my turn to read it, I was astonished at how many factual errors were contained in the first paragraph about me alone, so I refused to sign it (and asked who I ought to speak with about the fact that it was so inaccurate and poorly written on top of that). So now, another meeting this Friday. I LOATHE how they like to have meetings about every.little.thing. Why couldn't I simply submit my issues with the home study in writing? I've just this moment decided I will, and I am going to tell them I am not going to drive an hour in traffic Friday morning with my three children for *their* incompetency. Their mistakes should not inconvenience us.

*What Mike had laughed out loud about was that the person who wrote the homestudy wrote, "Michael's father has decreased his drinking." And you could say that he's decreased his drinking, since he is DEAD.

I'm so riled up about this right now that I can't blog about it any further. I took detailed notes while reading the home study, because we are not allowed to have a copy, so I have a written list of the numerous errors (I stopped at two pages). I'l share them here when I've been able to put enough distance and/or time between myself and the gross errors to calmly type!

Today was supposed to be our big day.

Or maybe not...

I've been crying on and off since I realized it's the 20th today. I pushed hard for us to be able to adopt Princess Tomorrow today, but came up against the brick wall of bureaucracy that is Denver Human Services. We're falling through a crack here~ in between a county Case Worker who quit to move back to North Carolina and an Adoption Worker just back from "maternity leave me alone" who is part-time and just learning her job. I've bent over backwards with appointments, calls, emails, paperwork and visits in order to keep keep the ball in the air on my side of the net, but I can only do so much. It feels like my teammates don't want to win this one.

When I read an email reminder about the event this morning, it was like a punch in the stomach. It seriously felt like a loss. I'm really trying to be positive and take on Mike's attitude of "We'll just keep taking their money as long as they want to give it to us-- especially with the holidays coming up" but it's hard. *Especially with the holidays coming up* if that makes sense.

I remember baby grrl laying under our little fake tree at the end of the sleigh bed in our room (because we were too exhausted to go get a real tree) and how she batted at a pretty glass and lace ornament from my mother-in-law, and cooed at the lights. I hoped then that she would be part of our "forever family" by the next Christmas, but it came and went without termination of her biological parent's rights. So this will be our third Thanksgiving/Solstice/New Year with our sweet daughter, but we still don't have that security of knowing we will celebrate many more holidays with her. It's a precarious feeling and I don't like heights or depths. I just want to move on. I want us to be a normal family, and I want to stop writing this blog (as soon as I finish making it into a book). I want to be so busy driving around to ballet, dance classes, gymnastics, soccer, and slumber parties that I ask myself why I wanted a little princess anyway!

So this is what we won't get to participate in tomorrow:
http://www.nationaladoptionday.org/2009/events/state_details.asp?Event1State=COLORADO&Submit=Go

I am happy beyond expression for the families who will adopt tomorrow, especially the kids.

I'm finding small comfort in the idea that we will have a day of our very own that'll be really special because it will be just us at the courthouse (and anyone who wants to come witness our adoption). Maybe I ought to start planning an after-adoption party?

I just really want today to be over so I can stop ruminating! I've been on and off Facebook all day trying not to overeat or smoke. My pity party will officially end at midnight.

Thanks for listening.

Social Workers are neither social nor workers: discuss.

I'm so fed up with Ariel Clinical Services~ our CPA (Child Protective Agency)~ and the Denver DHS (Department of Human Services). They are NEITHER protective nor service-oriented.

The first time the Adoption Worker came over to visit, she asked me at the end of the visit, if I had any questions. I said, "Yes, just one: WHEN can we ADOPT our daughter?"

Specifically, I asked if it would be possible for us to adopt her on National Adoption Day, November 21. I waited a week for her to get back to me. When I called her she said she didn't know about it but she would "look into it" (I think that means blink and then forget I asked about it).

So I called the Case Manager at our CPA, Ariel. I asked her what is the holdup, what do we have to do? Where are we at in this process? And did someone drop a ball somewhere? So she said she would "look into it" and get back to me. I waited a week for HER to call me. Then I called both of them and tried to get them to talk to each other in a 3-way call. Oh no, they are too busy right now, one of them will call me when she in the office in two days, and the other one doesn't have the paperwork in front of her right now, so she will have to look at it and see "where we are at".

Finally about TWO WEEKS LATER, I find out that agency #1 has done the Certified Adoptive Homestudy, and agency #2 has done the Presentation of the Child, so the only thing left to do is "Subsidy Paperwork". THEN the two of them argue about whose job it is to do the paperwork. "Normally, the county does it" one says, and the other says exactly the opposite! "Normally the CPA does it, whoever you get your monthly check from, but I am not sure..." (she says she is "not really sure" way too often if you ask me~ and while I appreciate her honesty, maybe she could call a superior and LEARN HOW TO DO HER JOB!)

What is this subsidy anyway, and can we just decline it? I ask. It's money the state will continue giving us each month after we adopt her. I didn't know we would get another dime after adopting her. It's not as much as your foster care stipend, they tell me, but it's something. Because by adopting her we are taking the burden of her care off of the state.

So for that, you might think they would bend over backwards to push paperwork through as soon as possible, so kids can be adopted as quickly as possible and they can save more money. That's what I thought anyway. We would like to adopt her on National Adoption Day, which is November 21. (Well, for some reason it's on November 20 here in Denver).

Then the Adoption Worker says in order for us to be able to adopt her on National Adoption day November 20, we would have to have our paperwork done by this week, as in by October 30. OKAY NO PROBLEM! If I was her I would find out what was needed and not rest until it was completed and submitted to whatever person higher up the food chain has to sign it or approve it or whatever.

HOW HARD CAN IT BE FOR THEM TO DETERMINE WHAT THE STATE IS GOING TO PAY US AFTER WE ADOPT HER?! Certainly there is a formula or something that they use to figure this out? I am sure it depends on her age at adoption, diagnoses/diseases/ medications, what they perceive to be her ongoing needs (we've got it covered) and any therapeutic services that she currently utilizes (NONE).

So the Adoption Worker comes over for a visit today. Did she bring any subsidy paperwork for us to fill out or sign? Nope. Just a big, dopey grin and about a dozen questions for my kids about homeschooling including "Do you like it?"

I AM SO DONE HAVING THESE AUTOMATONS "VISIT" OUR HOME.

I AM SO SICK OF THEIR BLANK STARES WHEN I ASK THEM SPECIFIC QUESTIONS.

I AM SO ANNOYED WITH "I WILL HAVE TO GET BACK TO YOU" AND "I WILL HAVE TO LOOK INTO IT AND SEE WHAT I CAN FIND OUT".

I AM SO DISGUSTED BY SO-CALLED SOCIAL WORKERS WHO CANNOT COMMUNICATE WITH OTHER MEMBERS OF OUR DAUGHTER'S TEAM.

I AM SO TIRED OF THINKING FOR THESE PEOPLE.

I AM SO FED UP WITH REMINDING PEOPLE TO DO THEIR JOBS.

I AM SO PISSED THAT THEY ARE GETTING PAID TO COME OVER TO OUR HOUSE, ASK US RUDE QUESTIONS AND THEN SIGN A PIECE OF PAPER.

THEY DO NOTHING TO HELP ANYONE!

I could go on and on but I'm so angsty from thinking about it that I could explode.

Going for a walk in the snow now, to cry and clear my head...

This just in!

Got a call from the Adoption Worker (just back from maternity leave, new to her part-time job, doesn't seem to know what she is doing yet...) and there is a remote possibility that we might be able to adopt Mara in November for National Adoption Day. Don't get too excited as it would depend on one case manager completing paperwork and communicating with another, but the Adoption Worker just told me if we could push it through this week, there is a chance we could adopt her then.

This is the first time anyone has told me exactly what we are waiting on: Subsidy Paperwork. Like we care how much money they are going to give us! It won't be anywhere near the monthly stipend (that they cut every six months or so when she is doing well) so who cares? Why does it even matter. Isn't it a detail that can be finalized afterward? And is that really all that holds up adoptions like ours? One person calling another person and telling them what they need? This is just more proof that these "Social Workers" know damn good and well that there jobs depend on the system crawling due to lost paperwork and postponed court dates and meetings, et cetera. I know that probably sounds very cynical, but I have seen it firsthand and it is more common than not. I wish it weren't true and I doubt it will ever change.

We would gladly forego getting another dime for fostering or adopting her if it meant we could adopt her "free and clear". I hope it doesn't sound like I am talking about anything less than taking on the emotional, financial and physical responsibility for a person. This isn't just a "hoop to jump through" as the worker said, this is nothing less than a soul we want to save. We desperately need to be deemed her forever family, for the safety and well-being of our daughter. Because she is already our daughter, whether the state recognizes it or not, but it will feel really good for it to be official.

That's all I have.