Clarification:
Thank you to everyone for all your kind words of support. We have been quite literally through hell and back, with some good old torture thrown in just to make sure that we were completely done in. We could not have made it through the past 4 months without you all being there, and listening to us, and being as angry and frustrated as we have been.
A few people have asked what happened and what will happen now: the highlights of our latest meeting are that she asked us clarification questions for 1 hour. Questions about me and my upbringing, my relationships, the kids SNs, Greg's friends and what we do in our free time (what free time, I said, chuckling... nothing from her). Then she changed her tone, and Greg thought she was going to convene our next meeting with the kids... but she let it out finally that she had spoken directly with Darth Sidious and her young apprenctice, Darth Maul (I would like to choose a more powerful name, but I don't think my MIL would necessarily approve... so I will stick to Star Wars moniquers) and they had all confirmed that our project of adoption, for a 6 to 8 year old, was refused. The reasons given: we are a healthy family, but the risks are too great to all of the children; and, they would want to evaluate the child to see if she actually wants to be adopted, among other questions they would have for her. As you can see, an impossible situation- they can't assess her, she is overseas! Also, the risk to our family in their eyes was great but they could not quantify it (for instance, we have been told a few times that there is a greater risk for interruption of adoption and that this happens all the time... well, they can't produce any stats to back this up whenever we have asked. I did some digging on my own, and in the past 3-4 years, there has only been 1 known case of a Chinese older child going through an interrupted adoption. While just one child going through this is very sad, to give you an idea, in 2003-2004, there were 300 cases of child abandonned which accounted for 1% of all the cases that Social Services has dealt with in that time period. Factor in that perhaps that 1 interrupted adoption is among that 300... you get less than 0.004%... my risk factor for Zach's pregnancy was in the neighbourhood of 15%... if I am given a risk factor of 0.004%, I'll take that!). Greg was in shock and I remained tight-lipped (I expected this at some point in the meeting, thanks to an angel at our agency who prepared me for this possibility). We asked for our written report and when it would be delivered (in 1 month). We left shortly after that (she asked us another loaded question, which I refused to answer... Greg likened it to my being in the Batmobile and the protective defensive grid going up and around the car).
What does all this mean for our adopting in China? We still have a file Logged In (LID Jan 30 07) which is what the ticker up top is tracking. We also have an SN addendum, which allows us to adopt a child from 0-24 months with an SN (special needs) - this is a slightly different track, because our agency receives the files and if our list of SNs match her SN, then they would give us a call.) So yes, we can still adopt... just not a child between 6-8 yrs old. Are we devastated? Yes, we are. I have been crying buckets since Tuesday's meeting, and took yesterday off cause I was not sure if I was coming or going. We really tried very hard, and I think you all know this, but we have gone as far as we can go. We won't get the Senate's support (again, Star Wars) for sure, as another family has tried this route only to be shot down. Greg does not want to go to the Press, and neither do I. That leaves the Human Rights Commission and that could take a very long time... a very long time... and we are not prepared to go to the Commission. We had hoped for a miracle from the meeting that was supposed to have been held yesterday between Darth Sidious's boss and our agency's rep, but that was canceled due to illness.
I have started looking into the possibility of us either fostering our little angel or at least sending her care packages once a month, so that she knows that somewhere someone really does care about her.
We have trust in a higher power that He knows what he is doing with us.
