The List

Let me let you in on a little piece of our waiting journey... our agency hosts a forum. It's not "official", and the views expressed on it are not necessarily the views of the agency....you get the point. It's full of disclaimers ~ only run by volunteers...not part of the agency...only as accurate as the people reporting the info...and on and on the disclaimers go. Not everyone using the agency registers on the forums. They figure about half the people do. But in the waiting stage, it's all we've got. All that to tell you about "The List".

Every week, a dear woman (only known to us as "carrieoutwest") compiles all the names of every registered person, when their dossier was accepted, how long they've been waiting for, and what age and sex they are waiting for. Then, when you accept a referral, you move to the next List, which tells how long you've been waiting to travel (notice a theme on these lists...?). And then, the glorious day arrives, and you finally get to permanently move all your information to the final list that shows your whole journey (in wait time increments), including how long you've been home with your child.

So, every week, sometimes more than once (yes, we get anal), we check "The List" to see if there have been any changes. I actually just checked it right now. We started out at #78 on the list. We have moved down the list in tiny increments. Once we even moved back up the list. But for today, we are sitting at #64. That means there are approximately 128 people in front of us waiting for a referral and picture of their child. On the surface, that feels like we might actually get her home before Caia graduates from college. But, then you consider that they've already placed 287 children this year, and you feel like it might actually happen sometime in this decade.

So in a time of no action, no news, and nothing new to tell you about, we turn to "The List". We'll keep you posted.