*Some Hope to Cling To

I talked with our agency today, just clarifying more about the closure, and our options. I was pretty discouraged reading blogs of others and finding that most have dropped out of the Vietnam program, and that their agencies haven't been as positive as ours.

Our agency is encouraging families to start concurrent adoptions if they would like, but are not recommending dropping Vietnam. Only one family out of over 30 waiting families has dropped out. They do remain hopeful that adoptions will reopen soon, as Vietnam has taken significant steps and negotiations have begun. Our agency believes that as long as there are no unpredictable issues that arise, adoptions would likely begin again by the end of the year, or early 2009.

I can do that. I can wait an extra 6 months or so. One day at a time.

Some of our other options through our agency are going with China special needs (which we would be interested in), or Nepal. Nepal has been closed for some time and should reopen this month, but there are already many families waiting. If we were to do a concurrent adoption, we would not have to pay our agency fees again, but would need to pay any country specific fees. We would also need to do the paper chase again and submit a whole new dossier, with an updated home study. It would likely take several months to compile and then we would join a waiting list again, and be on two waiting lists at once. Since we want to adopt more than one down the road, this may be a good option for us, but we're not ready to make any decisions yet.

At the same time, our interest in Africa is growing. Our agency, however, does not have any programs in Africa, so we would be starting at ground zero and loose the money we've put into Vietnam (if it remains closed).

Lots of "ifs." We will keep praying.

Koen was a terror this evening, so it's hard to imagine having more than one tonight. But, maybe he's a terror because he needs a sibling to learn he's not the center of the universe.