Wednesday, May 11, 2011

(Yet another) setback

Okay, this is never going to happen. I have to prepare myself for the fact that this is never going to happen. But I'm unsure how, when now we're supposed to be sending care packages every month to a son who lives overseas who we have never met, and who we may never meet.

We've had yet another setback. I won't get into describing how the Korean International Adoption system works, because we'd be here all day and I write about technical and boring subjects for a living, but suffice to say, the Ministry will this year quit processing exit visas for children whose referrals were received before December 2010. Ours was received (we were matched with a child) in January 2011. So when the Ministry opens in January, it'll start processing December 2010 visas, then ours. They take about four to eight weeks to process, each.

So yeah, we're looking at April travel. Maybe.

I haven't been this unaccountably depressed about a delay or setback since we began the process in February 2008. This one feels like the end game. I can't seem to process it. I know we're matched, I know we're just waiting for an exit visa, but it really really really feels like something else is going to go wrong, and I'm guessing that thing is going to be aging out of the program or Korea shutting down all adoptions that are to take place in 2012, even if the child is already matched.

 Maybe tomorrow I'll have a more upbeat post, but I'm not feeling it now.