I can never believe it when ICLW rolls around again. It's like it was just last week! New to my page? My history is linked on the left side but the short of it is that we are about 2 months into waiting for a domestic infant match & placement after over 3 years of IF that included a lot of clo.mid, some IUIs and 3 full IVFs, none of which did anything but make me fat, cranky, tired and pissed off most days. Now we are waiting for our family to grow via adoption. Thanks for stopping by!
I'll throw this out there, since I have come to learn that it is more common than you would think and it is way less professional than you think it should be.
Since our agency blind-matches (we don't get a call for every situation, only once we've been matched), we have limited contact with our SW. We knew this when we contracted with them and they make it very clear that they will not be checking in with us on a regular basis, BUT we were encouraged to call/email our SW maybe every 4-6 weeks if we wanted a status report (ie, how often we've been shown that month, agency activity, etc).
We are approaching our 8-week mark and despite 2 phone calls with detailed voice messages left on our SW cell phone over a 10 or 12 day period, we have yet to hear a PEEP from her. As noted above, this is more common than I thought (both with our agency & as antecdotes from other adoptive families while they wait or were waiting). So here's my dilemma...do we (A) call again, leave another message and hope she calls; (B) call again, leave a message and then keep calling every other day or so until we hear back; (C) email her (which I just got her address from another adoptive parent) and wait to hear from her via email; (D) email her and beg her to call us; (E) call her, email her and repeat until we hear something; (F) call the agency director to ask why we haven't heard back from her despite being encouraged to check in and it has now been 8 weeks for us without any contact from her, and then ask him to have her call us; (G) do nothing and just wait.
Ridiculous, right? But BigTex and I feel like we are deserving of some respect and some professionalism on their part. The least somebody could do is pick up the phone, tell me nothing is happening and thank us for checking in, then I'd be fine. We are asked as adoptive parents to commit time, energy, money, our HEARTS to this process--and all along the way we are reminded that this is a difficult and uncertain road, especially for the first families. Confidentiality is of the highest priority for birthmothers, they are in the driver's seat for nearly the entire way (as it should be). We are asked to respect them, their emotions, their wishes as they select which of us families should raise their child. AND, without question, WE DO & WE WILL! But I honestly feel that for us, as prospective adoptive parents, the least the agency could do is pick up the phone and not leave us out to pasture while we sit blindly waiting for OUR miracle to happen.
Am I way off-base here? I don't need my hand held. I don't need to be coddled. I just want to know our status and what has been happening at the agency. Is this too much to ask?
6 comments:
I would do all of the above. An un-returned phone call is the rudest thing ever, I don't care how busy she is! You have the right to a 5 minute check in phone call every 6-8 weeks and they need to provide that to you! That's just my two cents.
This has been the most frustrating part of our wait, as well. I find it hard to believe that the SW have no idea that we are all waiting on pins and needles to hear from them. We have had pretty much NO correspondence with ours either and when I finally talked to her the other day, it was a MAJOR relief. Keep trying and maybe be a bit of a squeaky wheel if you need to. I'll be praying for y'all.
I say as long as you're not being rude, keep calling. You have rights too, and as the adoptive parent, you're FINANCING their system. Everything else aside, you're paying for their agency to operate. You deserve the courtesy of a prompt response to your queries. And if they are not responding, then you have every right to make a nuisance of yourself until they do respond.
Hoping they get in touch with you soon - and with good news.
I agree with Kellie. that is so frustrating that they are not communicating with you. I hope they hurry up and get in contact with you soon.
You are not off-base at all. With the exception of the last option (do nothing), I would do everything you have mentioned...call, email, contact the director, all of it. Good luck and I hope this is not indicative of how things are going to go.
~ICLW
Hello! Stopping by from ICLW. How frustrating! I read your follow up post above and I'm glad you finally got a response!
I'm glad I found a new story to follow! It's remarkable how different each of our experiences are!
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