Agency Research and More Awful Truths

OK. There are a LOT of adoption agencies. A LOT. What I need is to suddenly discover that I know someone really well who is either in the middle of this process or just starting it who can just tell me what to do. I'm a big piggy-backer. That's invariably how I find my doctors. I choose a friend I know will overthink and just generally beat the hell out of the horse, and then I do what they do. Worked with pregnancy stuff too--I didn't even have to read any books (not that I didn't--I have two books on adoption already--I love books.)

There are so many decisions to make here--and they affect who our child is. I mean, it could be child A if we go with this agency, or child B if this one--it's terrifying. Like having the option to change flights at the last minute. But what if this one crashes? What if that one crashes? AAAH! Forks in the road!! AAAH!

We are talking hundreds of agencies. Hundreds. Thousands even. Probably the more I overthink, the worse it is. We need a good agency. We need one we like. We need one who will bring us Four. The other terrifying thing is: Four may already have been born. She may be out there, right now. Without us.

So this is freaky. How am I going to do this? Find the ones on Yahoo's Adoption Agency Research group that no one can find anything bad about (WACAP, for example). Narrow it down, I guess. Then figure out if we want a baby or a "waiting child: and go from there.

Which brings me to Awful Truths part 2: Defects I consider acceptable for Four. There are checklists for this. Heart condition? Club foot? Unpronounceable Mystery Disease? I mean, this is the kind of thing that forces you to really look yourself in the face.I would love and care for Bart, Gertie or Beau no matter what happened to them or what they look like. Without a doubt or fraction of hesitation. Poptart too. But to ask for it? To say, Problems? Bring 'em on, baby! Well there's a limit to how much we can do that. Financial resources--we've got 'em. Emotional Resources? Time? Can't buy those.

So there are limits. But an "sn" (that's special needs to the uninitiated, like me 24 hours ago) really needs us. Part of me remains unconvinced that any of these other babies does. There are lines, queues, lists of people clamoring to take them on. Scandals about whether they've really been willingly given up, about whether people in their own country might not be more than willing to adopt them but less able to pay, like those raised at (China-Research.org.

But what can we cope with? Correctable heart condition? Open heart surgery, wow, whoa, wow...Ptosis? Well, that turned out to be droopy eyelids. Sure--but can that really be a problem for anyone? Who ARE these people? Same with "port wine stains". Extra toes. I can't believe those really count. Aren't they just what people are trolling the waiting child lists looking for--this one's a little damaged but completely fixable, and I can get it faster! And isn't that really what I'm thinking? I don't want to wait 3 years for Four. Beau will be 5 by then. She'll have missed the chance to be part of the pack. It's valid, it's a good reason to make this happen sometime in the next eighteen months...but cruising the "photolists" looking for one who isn't too bad makes me feel weird. And here's a big one: cleft lip and palate. OH, dear. I mean, assuming that the child could eat ok--that it has been cared for and as well nourished as possible given the circs--this is just cosmetic, right? And largely fixable...but it's weird. And kids who look weird have it rough. Can I cope with that? Or does it get pretty much all the way fixed? I mean, everyone I know who had it, I know because you can still tell. But those are adults. OOH, how shallow am I? Don't comment and curse me for being unsure about this. Educate me. Seriously. Because I know a pediatric plastic surgeon well and I'm really thinking about this, because he could help and we could get Four right when she'd fit in and really be getting Four, not a baby who would have gone to the next couple on the list.