I'll take your baby

I am amazing at being able to say things to stop a conversation in it's tracks. Sometimes my enthusiasm gets the best of me.
The thing is, being a lesbian and wanting a family is difficult. Unless you have money to spend on invitro or on adoption the options available to have a family are very limited.

We have been able to adopt through the foster care system, but I have mentioned before that the system is severely flawed, and the children that come available generally have some problems, be it medical, emotional, mental or a combination of all three. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my boys. Does it sound selfish to say that even though I love my boys I wish there was a way to have a healthy child without spending a boat load of money which we don't have?

 I know a couple who went though an adoption agency to have a child. They built their profile and they had severe anxiety that potential birth mothers would be comparing them to other potential parents - which they would - and that they would not measure up. How do you make yourself so attractive to someone that you don't know so that they will like you enough to raise their child? The pressure is intense. They went through the process of being selected by someone, following through the pregnancy and birth, only to have the person change their mind after the baby was born. They were devastated. They went through the process again, were selected again, and were in the hospital when the baby was born. The young mother asked them if they had any names chosen for the baby - she wanted her own name to be given to the infant. When they mentioned the name they had selected her response to them was " Oh, I HATE that name, I knew a girl in high school with that name and I hated her." They left the hospital that night and lamented all night long what would happen as a reult of them sharing the name with this young woman. It WAS enough for her to change her mind.
Could I live through that? And before even contemplating if I could live though it, could I find an adoption agency that would accept a lesbian couple as potential adoptive parents?

I have had instances on two different occasions where someone I know personally has said to me that they are pregnant and that they didn't want to be pregnant or raise a child. In both cases after I listened to the person complain, I offered to adopt the child they did not want. In both cases the conversation became very awkward - why wouldn't it? In both cases the person went on to full term, and to keep their child.
Is saying you don't want your kid something straight people do for conversation sake? Is it something straight women do to bond?
I wish our culture was set up differently so that people who didn't want to have the child they were carrying felt no shame or guilt in saying - you know what - you CAN have my kid.  It would even be cool if gay men and women could get together and make arrangements like - We'll take sperm from you and I'll carry a kid for you and then a kid for me.

There are just so many beliefs and emotions about pregnancy.
I asked a friend once if he would give us sperm. He said no because it would be too emotional for him to have a child with me (ok - maybe he was a little attached to me?) but I never understood how guys can watch their seed wash down the drain in the shower or wherever it goes when they "spill it" and not want to give it to someone for free who wants it!
Either way - here's some advise... If you want to end a conversation with someone who is pregnant and doesn't want to be - offer to take the kid, or ask your best friend for sperm.

How's THAT for Timing?!

Literally the MINUTE I posted my entry about waiting for paperwork my spouse and kids dropped into the office bearing gifts in the shape of brown envelopes from the Court.
THE PAPERWORK has arrived.
We are absolutely thrilled beyond words.
Tonight we will celebrate at the Santa Claus Parade in town followed by photos with Santa!

Waiting for paperwork

We know the adoptions are final because we got the call from our adoption worker on November 19th. We are now (still) waiting for the official paperwork to come in the mail so we can get working on ordering new birth certificates (which I kind of don't like the idea of - but it's what happens so we will do it) and getting the boys passports so we can TRAVEL.
We have been telling the boys that we will go on a vacation once the adoptions are final because up until now we have not been able to leave the country with them to visit cousins and grandparents in the USA. Max has decided he wants to go NOW and he asks us every day if he can go on a plane and stay in a hotel. Poor kid doesn't get the concept that we still have to WAIT.
Shel thinks we should just go and stay with them in a hotel which is not a bad idea, but I have a hard time doing ANYTHING in the winter months. (This is bad considering we live in Canada!)
I can't wait for the paperwork to arrive so we can get started on preparing for a "real" vacation in the summer of 2011. The reality of the adoption completion is sinking in SLOWLY.

Another meeting

We had yet ANOTHER meeting today related to the adoption of our boys. The last few weeks have been a journey through many layers of hell. More layers than I knew existed.

In a nutshell - the adoption has not happened. It has been pushed back now to OCTOBER. I know. I simply do not know how it is possible.

We wait.

Resistance is futile.

Where are we in the adoption process?

Oh Wow...
What Can I Say...
The adoptions are not final yet but we have reached a HUGE milestone.
As of July 21, 2o10 the boys have officially been "permanently placed with us pending adoption".
What does this mean to us - especially since we have had both boys since birth? It means they are no longer "foster kids".
1. It means we have registered them for Alberta Health Care cards. (done today)
2. It means we have registered them on my benefits plan at work. (done today)
3. It means we have completed all the paperwork we possibly can and now all we do is wait for a court date - which we have been given as August 6th. (We signed the very last piece of paper yesterday.)
I thought we would go to court, sit in front of a judge and all that good stuff, but we don't.
The judge comes to the north once a month and apparently sits in a room and goes through all the documentation. We never see the judge, but when all is said and done we get a phone call and in a few weeks we get documentation saying the boys are 'OURS'.
We have letters which state that the boys have been placed with us and that we can place adoption announcements in our church papers (don't have one) or in the newspaper (I called them but I need to call next week!)
I cannot believe it is here. The first 24 hours after we got the letters I was numb, I didn't believe it was really here. Now that I have spent the morning calling and getting all this other stuff done I am so excited I can barely stand myself. My hands are shaking.
I have wanted for this moment to come so that I could spill all the gory details this journey has taken us through, but now I just want the court date to come and go and I want to move ON!
Perhaps one day I will come back and share sordid details. The trip has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least and I was never sure this day would actually come. we have been to hell and back - but here we are..... and I am more thrilled than I have words to express.
WOOT WOOT!

Adapting

Shel and I were talking the other night about how different our lives are now from what we have envisioned for ourselves growing up. Though we both wanted children, neither of us ever really "saw" ourselves parenting because of the difficulty it is to have children when you are lesbian.

Now that we have children we have to adapt again, this time because we have two boys with special needs.

One of the issues with both our boys involves sensory integration disorder. Sensory integration disorder is a neurological disorder that affects the ability to organize sensory information for use by the brain. Someone with S.I.D. has an inability to organize sensory information as it comes in through the senses. This is expressed differently for every person with the disorder. Our youngest has Oral Input Dysfunction (among others). What this means for him is that he is hypersensitive to oral input. He has difficulty chewing and even though he just turned two he still only eat "soft" or pureed foods. He gags with textured foods - and sometimes he gags for what appears to be "no" reason. He is highly resistant to having any dental work done - or to using a toothbrush. He LOVES toothbrushes though, but mostly uses them to clean the sink!

Yesterday was his birthday and his brother and I made him a "happy cake". When I got home from work we iced it and covered it with teeny tiny multi coloured sprinkles. Then we sang happy birthday to him and ate cake. I should say "tried to eat cake".

Part of S.I.D. is constantly finding new things about your child. I discovered yesterday that those tiny sprinkles make my baby gag. I will admit, it was kind of funny because he wanted SO much to eat the icing, but every time he put his finger into the icing and into his mouth - he gagged.

I have to separate myself a little from this whole thing because it can be easy to start to feel defeated by it. I wanted to do something special for him and it turned out it wasn't so special after all. We adapted, we took the sprinkles off and he ate some happy cake. It just wasn't what I thought it would be for him. I have to look at it as a learning experience and in the future we will have happy cake sans sprinkles!

I think what I fear the most is that if I spend so much time "learning", will my boys have wonderful childhoods or just feel like experiments?

this whole adoption "thing"

One of the reasons I wanted to blog was to write about the process of adoption and the journey for our family.
What I learned rapidly was that we have pretty much given up a whole lot of control and that blogging as we go through the process is not something we are able to do for all different legal reasons. I cannot WAIT until the journey has come to a close and I can speak freely about what we have gone through. Yesterday we heard (again) that we may be complete in 2-6 months on one (or both) of the adoptions. It seems like we have been hearing that since March of 2007. Lets hope this time it is true and we can get on with our lives!

Adoption frustration (still)

I know I have blogged about this in the past and yet here I am again. Same topic, still frustrated. It appears nothing has changed but a whole lot of time has passed.

We have an adoption worker (I am fairly sure it is number 7 or 8 which I have mentioned before).

We pressed the issue of how ridiculous it was that we still hadn't adopted in a meeting for foster parents a little over a month ago and it seemed as though things from that meeting put a bee in someones bonnet because it APPEARED as though things were moving forward. There has been a horrible shortage of workers in our region and so there was no-one to work on our file. After we voiced some complaints a supervisor called and said she would be working on our file herself so that we could move forward. I have started to ask SPECIFICS from the workers so we can have an idea of what we are looking at in terms of timelines. I asked when we could expect to become permanent guardians of our man. This is a step that has to be completed before we can become legal parents. I was told by the supervisor that we could look at being permanent guardians by the end of December. At the time she told us there were some things missing from our file. Of the things that were "missing", a copy of my Spousal Units Driver's license and an ORIGINAL copy of our marriage certificate was needed. Now I know we have given copies of this stuff before, because LAST year at the foster parent Christmas party we took copies of all this stuff and gave it to the person who was then working on our file. I don't understand exactly how this stuff goes "missing" from files. I have many files in my office. Things have never gone "missing" from them unless #1 I didn't put it into the file in the first place or #2 I didn't put it into the file in the first place. So I can only assume that it was never put into our file. It makes me wonder where a copy of my spouses driver's licence and a copy of our marriage certificate got to. Whatever the case, we need to supply them with this info again. I am a little confused, because I have NEVER been asked to give an ORIGINAL copy of my marriage certificate to any agency for any reason. Why do they need an original?

After she worked on our file, a new, full time, adoption worker was hired in the office and our file was transferred to her. She had an appointment to meet with us last week, which she had to cancel. It has now been rescheduled for the end of December. This means it is unlikely that we will be permanent guardians of our man before January or later.

Meanwhile I have been working on some assignments for my social movements class and came across an article about a gay couple in Edmonton who had some trouble adopting their son. In their story which you can link to here, they faced a number of obstacles in their adoption and it sounds too familiar.

In the meantime, we are still "ONLY" foster parents to our son and while he doesn't know the difference I certainly do. Until he is "ours" he is NOT ours - and while that may seem like a silly thing to say, another couple who we know personally recently had a child in their home for over 5 years had that child removed by foster care ... they were also "working" on adopting her.

Until the papers are in our hands that say our boy is our family, he COULD BE taken at any time.

Adoption Frustration

My spouse and I tried for years to have a child of our "own". When we were unsuccessful and we moved to Canada we decided that we would foster children as a way to impact the lives of children locally in a positive light. This process of fostering has been a frustrating one. The children that have come into our home have all made an impact on us and we hope we have made an impact on them. Some of them we have been lucky enough to keep in contact with after they have been removed from our home and others we know nothing about, nor can we "ask" about because of privacy laws.
The politics of fostering is frustrating. The "perception" which others have of foster parents has been an interesting one to encounter and not always positive. I think after having worked within this system for almost five years my spouse and I are ready to be "done" with the process.
We have been blessed through this experience to have our son. We call him "Max" but that is not his legal name.
Max has been with us since he was one month old. We picked him up the day he was released from the hospital and he knows no other family or parents than us. When he was a few months old he became "legally adoptable" and my spouse and I decided to adopt him ourselves. From that moment the process has been EXTREMELY frustrating. The only thing that keeps us "going" is the knowledge that this little dude is WITH us. I have a friend who is adopting from Ethiopia and she and her husband are still waiting to hear that they have a child and can go to pick it up. I am grateful every day that we have Max with us, however the fact that his adoption has not happened and he is now over two years old is increasingly frustrating.
In our "region" of fostering we know of at least three other families who are facing the same opposition as they try to adopt children who have been placed with them on a long term basis. We discovered this week that a family close to us, who has been fostering a child since the child was less than one year old had now had that child (at age 6) removed from their home because of other political reasons. It BLOWS my mind. It absolutely terrifies me. The truth of the matter remains that we are still "ONLY" foster parents. We have loved and cared for and worked towards adopting our boy for over a year and a half, but the reality remains that we are not entitled to him in any way and he COULD be removed from us at any time. It kills me. The system is SOOOO screwed up.
We have done everything we can possibly do and we now wait for social workers and permanency workers and case workers and others to process files and make things happen on our behalf. The reality is that they don't care about "US" and they have no motivation to do anything to move our file forward. On the day that our little man became legally "adoptable" his file needed to be transferred from a social worker to a permanency worker who worked in the SAME office building. It has taken more than 18 months for that transfer to happen. There is no legitimate reason for the file to NOT move.
My partner and I have been so very careful to "keep our mouths shut" simply because if we anger the wrong person we could lose our son. We were completely frustrated at one point and asked to meet with the supervisor to check on the status of our file. We made an appointment. She cancelled. We made another appointment, she postponed it. When we finally met we arrived in the meeting with a list of concerns and we enumerated them to the supervisor. We met with her for close to an hour when it became obvious she was ready to end the meeting. As we concluded she made the comment "well I haven't looked at your file yet so I can't tell you what the status is...." I was shocked and I think I didn't hide my surprise very well. She hadn't even LOOKED at our file? She knew what we were coming to meet about, she knew what our concerns were, she had delayed the meeting repeatedly, and yet she didn't even look at our file.
A few months ago (6), we met with a permanency worker who was transferring our file to another worker who was hired to work in our immediate community. At that meeting we were told that in two weeks the file would be transferred to our town. We waited, and we waited, and we waited. I called the new worker to find the status of our file after three months and she hadn't even seen it yet. She called last week to say she had some good news and some bad news. The good news was the file had arrived in her office. The bad news was she was leaving the office and the file was being transferred BACK OUT of our home community because there is no longer an adoption worker here since she is being transferred. The file now goes BACK to the other community and there is no worker assigned.
I think we are now looking at adoption worker number 6 or number 7.
I have been reluctant to post about this - because I fear some kind of repercussion and the possible loss of our little man. I think that people's fear stops things from ever changing. I know that I have decided to be more vocal in the fight for my family. This is my first "action" but I will keep you posted on other decisions we make and carry out as a family in our quest to permanently "bring Max home".

A Cause: Molly Bam

Well Folks. I have decided that I am adopting a cause.

I know that there are all kinds of people "in need" in this world, locally and overseas. My spousal unit and I are foster parents which is a small way we feel we can make a difference.

My mom lives in South Africa and she has come across an orphanage close to where she lives. I have a special place in my heart for Africa and the plight of the people living there. That is why I have decided to try to make a difference in this small way.

As I find ways to raise money and send things to them I will update you on this blog.

Here is the letter my mom wrote after visiting Molly Bam for the first time:

I have now met Molly Bam!! I am amazed and almost speechless at what this wonderful woman is doing! I am not sure what religion she is but it is one of the Born Again Christian groups. She is an absolute testament to the fact that God blesses whoever is willing to help Him take care of His children here on the earth! I asked her loads of questions and I took a lot of pictures. I also told her I would be telling my friends about her work. She says this is not just a part of her life – it is her life. By the way she is 53 years old.
She is not registered and cannot register as an orphanage because her home is too old. She also does not have any built in cupboards in her home – so there is a LOT of stuff piled up on top of cupboards etc –at first it seems to be utter chaos, but it all appears to have some kind of order - yes, I would definitely say it is "organized chaos!". For instance in the “baby room” there were about four or five of those nappy bags on a hanger (that I remember making and seeing when I was young) hanging up on the walls with all the nappies in them. I saw school uniforms hanging on hangers on the end of bunk beds in the “little girls room.”
The walls were also COVERED in photo’s of and “works of art” done by the children that have passed through and those that are there.
Molly has a younger sister who she raised from 4 years old when her mom died – who lives close by, and she has a son and daughter of her own – and five “blood” grandchildren.
She decided 15 years ago that this is what God wanted her to do. She had married a street child and so her husband – Neels - is fully supportive and even passionate about these orphans.
They have 50 right now. It has gone down – they had 70 at Christmastime.
The name of their home – which is painted on the outside wall is Jehovah Jirah – which means “God Provides our every need according to His riches in Heaven.” There is a scripture painted on the wall (I believe it is from Isaiah – she quotes one in there quite a bit but I have forgotten which one.) and a picture of Jesus with some children also painted on the outside wall.
It is just an ordinary looking house – it has a very big yard which is divided into sections with fences (the different age groups have different area's to play in ) and an old swimming pool. But wow!
Molly gives the children all Hebrew names because the Hebrew language is one that praises God – so when they say any of their names they think about God and are praising God and speak as God did and it gives Satan less power over the children when there is so much of “God” going on.
She had them all outside (except the really big ones who were still at school sports) and they were singing some songs for us (all Christian songs which they do SO well) – she has 11 children at the moment under the age of 3 and I was going to say they were all over the place – but it was fun to watch them. Some were dancing and swaying to the songs and some of them were singing! There was a little 3 year old girl who was born deformed – her legs just curl under her and she “walks” on her hands – she was sitting in a plastic milk carton – but she was singing along with them, bless her little heart! Molly’s husband came home (he has a small panel beating shop in the village) and she pulled out the guitar and asked him to sing a few songs with the kids before he left again – which he did. Oh course as they sang “alleluia” and lines like “ God bless the c hild who suffers, bless our mothers, bless our brothers” they did the actions with them – very, very sweet. They apparently sing in churches round about quite a bit.
Molly and Neels goal is to bring the children in off the streets and to put them into school, get them an education, and to feed them and love them. We were there on a swimming day so they were mostly in their under clothes in and out of the pool. I asked her how they managed to feed them all and she said “God provides”. When she told me some of the stories I had no question in my mind that God does provide for them!
These orphans have fetal alcohol syndrome, they are abused, street kids, and some are HIV positive. She said all they want is “a mom and dad”. When they come to her they are sometimes unrecognizable and they have coughed and spit out worms, they have lice, festering sores – just about anything.
They have very strict rules. The big boys are not allowed to pick up the children AT ALL and they are not allowed near the girls. They lock the security doors on their rooms at night. The girls rooms and boys rooms are all separate. They have separate play area’s for them all. There is no sitting under blankets, no sitting on laps etc. She said “we do everything we can, we pray harder than we can and we leave the rest to God. We cannot put anyone out. In fact we promised the Lord that if He provides we will never shut our door.” In the “baby room” there were 12 little cots lined up on the walls! (The room was approximately 9 feet by about 14 or 15feet.)
She said they talk to them very openly and strongly. They explain that they are either going to stand still, go forward or backward. I asked if any had gone backward and she said yes, quite a few. When it becomes too hard they run away and then when the street life becomes too hard they run back. She will give them three chances in her home she said (although she said the door will actually never close in the end. They will find a way to help anyone who really wants to be helped.)
The bigger kids help the little ones with homework. She has 6 African women helping her. They are all alcoholics and all trying to straighten out their lives too. They also sometimes slip up. One had come back that thursday and asked if she could come back again. Molly said she would have to think about it, come and see her on Monday. The nanny said "no please, mama, I have to come back TODAY" - The weekend is the drinking time and she knew she would slip again if she was out on the weekend. Shame. Your heart just goes out to them. They are REALLY trying to break old, bad traditions.
They do not have Valentine day (she doesn't agree with "days made up to make someone money") –but it is a love day so they call it “Jesus day” and it is to be as much like Jesus as they can be in serving and loving and helping others. Molly and her husband agreed 15 years ago that they would not ever buy anything for each other again – they try to save all they possibly can through the year and in December they get sweets and a hat and whistle for each of the kids. Over the years people have been good to them and they now have loads of toys and loads of clothes she said. In fact a huge big old 20 foot freezer on the front porch is her “toddler cupboard” and it was full of folded toddler clothes.
The things they need all the time and that cost them a lot are things like toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, nappies (diapers) and so on. The bakery in town gives them all the two day old bread and various people make donations of various items. I asked her how she fed all the children and she said that God provides. If a day comes when there is no food she reminds God in her prayers that she would be faithful, she would keep her doors open as long as He would provide. She says “I tell Him I am doing my part and I ask Him to do His. Someone always comes with a donation.” I asked where they eat – and she said they love to eat outside. If it is raining they have a huge shed at the back – they have braai’s in there – it has no sides – just a roof – but they can all fit under it and they love going there.
I think it was last January that they received a summons for 13000 Rand for school fees from the high school. She went to the school and tried to explain what she was doing and how many children she had and that they had NO money. The principal would have none of it. She tried several times. They went to a lawyer and told him they couldn’t pay him either, but didn’t know what to do. The lawyer apparently also talked to the principle but to no avail, this was going to go to court. So she said she just asked God to remove that principle and get a better one – and He did! She went to the school for something a month later or so and was introduced to the new principle! He was a jolly, large, happy, man and when she explained everything to him he said “Leave this with me and God bless you Mrs Bam.” And she has heard nothing more abou t the unpaid school fees!
In between all the talk, Molly is picking up, kissing better, putting down, moving here, answering questions there, there are babies crying, nappies to be changed. She uses 1700 nappies a month. The social services gives her 700 and they have to buy the others. They buy cheap not so good ones – but better than nothing. She cheerfully takes a baby from me (who just wet all over me) and says with a smile “here, give her to me. I always smell like sewage and I get so used to it I don’t even notice! I have become immune!” Only the two Aids babies have proper, good quality nappies because they chaff badly and get sores.
The reason the social services will not provide money or anything for these children is because she cannot produce any birth certificates. They do not have any. If she could produce a birth certificate they would give her 200 Rand per child per month. Actually peanuts!
Several of the children have died. One 8 month old baby – Ezekiel - that was a very cheerful happy boy – Molly goes around at night with a torch to check on them or see who is crying etc – and he would wait until he saw the torch light and then start to laugh. She said he was a joy - he drew people to him with his sweet and cheerful nature- and he was starting to sit up and was eating – so they had no reason to suspect that he had Aids. He just suddenly died – which was a nightmare for her and she blew and blew into his mouth and called on God with all her heart – but he was dead. She found the 100 Rand to have a post mortem because she was worried he had been dropped, or suffocated or something that she could have prevented. But he had full blown aids and it had burst in his brain. It has broken her heart that he never had a birth certificate – only a death certificate - because she demanded one.
Molly says “Don’t ever say to the Lord I do not want – because He will give you!” She did NOT want children who were HIV – but she has them. She has adopted 8 children so far and 2 more are in the pipeline – because that way they can apply for social help. But she says she loves every single one of them – totally unconditionally – and it breaks her heart, obviously, if they die.
The little house has two bathrooms. Her bedroom has several beds in it – the smaller ones and the sick ones come in with them. The babies – except for the smallest two – know their special colour. They have a special colour bottle and when the bottles are all ready they bring them out and each one will go and take their own. She gives them the same colour face cloth and tries hard to give them the same colour blanket so there is no confusion. (There is a picture of all the face cloths hanging up in the bathroom)
She has a lot of wet beds to deal with – so uses a lot of bedding, towels etc.
Molly talks to the children in a certain way – for instance she said to the little one next to her “ag naa – if you want to be big in Gods Kingdom then you need to be a servant. Please do not give those cups to me, please take them to the kitchen” And he picked them up and took them! I saw her hugging and kissing and rubbing and helping as she talked - she said to me “I love them all. If I ever have a problem with a certain child I always hear a voice in my mind saying “Molly, look through my eyes” and when I do I don’t have a problem any more.”
Her motto is “Let Go and Let God” and she says she is not fantastic or amazing. The calling – which she is positive the Lord gave her – is awesome. “You never know what is going to happen next!”
I was amazed! What a wonderful woman – and her husband too!

adoption meeting

I posted a few weeks ago about a meeting with our adoption worker that we were not really happy with. Well we made an appointment to talk to the supervisor (who cancelled one meeting, and rescheduled for today) and we went this morning to another town to talk to her.
Well, this meeting was as frustrating as the first one. We knew before we went in that the supervisor was likely to defend her employee - as a supervisor that's what I would have done - but we certainly didn't expect what we got.
I think, in their defense, that social workers tend to be listeners. It takes a certain kind of person to be a social worker. I am not criticizing people who listen, however when I want solutions and answers, talking to a listener is not likely to produce the kind of results I am looking for.
One of the first things she said to us was "I haven't looked at your file." I wish I would have clued in at that minute and said, "Ok, CAN you look at our file please?" It doesn't make any sense to me that when a family calls to say they have a problem that you wouldn't pull the file and look at it.
The meeting did not unfold as we expected. The supervisor DID defend the new worker and say she was overworked and had too many files and that some things were being done to eliminate the burden she is under. She didn't do anything or offer any suggestion as to why the worker didn't ask us for the paperwork that was missing (that we found out from a foster worker). She didn't offer us any idea on when things would be moving forward on our file.
She listened.
I've been to training sessions over my years in youth work and in the position I hold currently that teach the importance of listening. I think it is a valuable skill. I didn't want to be "listened to" today. I wanted some solutions, some information, some idea of what was happening to move our file forwad. We got nothing.
This process is HUGELY frustrating.

Adoption frustration

I have not posted many things about our journey to adoption but this past week has frustrated me so much I am writing about it here today to vent. This process is so scary and at every step we are so concerned with saying everything "right" and not making waves because we want everything to go smoothly, and this week I have had enough.
We are foster parents. We have had Max (not his given name (yet) for anyone concerned with privacy issues) since he was released from the hospital at one month of age. He is 18 months old. When he was 6 months old his parents rights were terminated by the court and he became a permanent ward of the province and able to be adopted. Since we were his foster parents at the time we asked if we might adopt him. We were told that we could, but that we needed to be approved as an adoptive home first.
We met with the adoption worker. (Please note here that the SAME office with the SAME supervisor operates in our region as the foster AND permanency placement.) In order to be foster parents we have to go through a process of becoming certified and maintaining that certification on a yearly basis. We have to have medical records, police checks, home inspections and everything for foster care EVERY year. Well apparently this is not enough for the permanency workers, so we have to do ALL of this again. OK. So we do it. All of it. All over again.
And we get approval to be an adoptive family.
While all this is happening we go through three, yes THREE permanency workers. And while I am sure they are all very nice individuals, the first was pregnant and getting ready to go on maternity leave and did..... oh right NOTHING on our file. The second ROCKED and in the SHORT time that she was assigned to our case we met with her a number of times, she kept us informed with emails regarding what she needed, what she was working on, what to expect etc. When the first worker didn't return from maternity leave and the position opened for a full time position we hoped against hope that the lady filling in would be selected. Much to our chagrin, she was not.
We are now on permanency worker number three. Last week she came to our home to meet with us. She sat, took notes, and asked us all kinds of questions about how Max was doing. We updated her on speech therapy issues and other events and asked her how our file was progressing. She did what we know her to do (from past experience) - evaded the question - and said only "your file is progressing." What does that mean? She said she didn't have the complete file from the last worker, but the last worker was waiting on info from HER for the file. Huh? Confused yet? Us too.
After she left and Shel and I were able to process this information we decided that the LACK of information was a problem for us and we called our foster worker to let her know of our frustration. She passed the message on to their supervisor (again, SAME supervisor) and the supervisor called us. First of all our foster worker said that there was a piece of documentation that they still needed from me. Fine. Why didn't the worker tell us that when she was IN our home and could have taken it with her? Has she even opened our file? If we had not called to check the status when would she have asked for it? The supervisor left a message to say she had reviewed with the permanency worker what was on her plate and if we wanted to meet to discuss the priorities (blah blah blah) to call her on her direct line. Now tell me this. What good is a direct line if you don't answer your phone? This is where we sit. I have called that number - enough to be a tad irritating if she is checking her caller id - I have left my name and number and she has not called me back.
I know that the journey to adoption is long and filled with red tape for everyone who tries to navigate it. Somehow I thought since everything was being done in the same office it would somehow be easier. I was deluding myself.
Ai ai ai ai ai.