Questions..

Things have changed so much in the 19 months since we first contacted our LA to start this adoption application. Looking back (hindsight is so great lol) I'm wondering if knowing what we know now, we would have followed this same path? Probably not. That doesn't mean I'm dissatisfied with the path we are following to adopt from China, just acknowledging that if we had known what was happening in the China adoption process our decision to persue this route might have been different.

There are many reasons we chose to apply to adopt from China, and there are many reasons that, looked at in the light of the fact that we will probably wait 3-4 years for our referral, might have pushed us in a different direction.

These are our thoughts at the start of all of this, and my current thoughts - your mileage may vary, but this is our family and our thought process!

THEN - We thought it could help Little Prince adjust better if the new child was a girl not a boy - as two boys close in age could make for a lot of sibling rivalry. China primarily refers girls (most estimates I've seen say 95% of referrals are girls).
NOW - The age difference between Little Prince and MeiMei (or DeDe) is going to be so big that this isn't as big a deal as it was, and maybe he'd bond better with another little boy rather than a girl so much younger than he is?

THEN - Little Prince is transracially adopted. Despite extensive searching and networking I had been unable to find other adopted children with anything even close to his specific ethnic mix. We feel it is important he isn't the only non-white member of the family, and rather than wait, for goodness knows how long for UK sws, to find an exact match, we thought it would be better to adopt a child of a different non-white ethnicity.
NOW - Late last year and early this year there were three separate children with very similar ethnicity that sws were family finding for. Would it have been better for both Little Prince and our future little one to have someone in the family who more closely resembles them, rather than looking completely different from each other?

THEN - The matching process for a domestic adoption can be quick or it can take ages and you never know. We waited for 13 months after Approval Panel to be matched with Little Prince. I found the open ended 'how long is a piece of string?' type wait to be exceedingly stressful. The timeline for an adoption from China was much more clear cut and having that knowledge (this part of the process takes X amount of time etc) was very very appealing.
NOW - The wait for a referral from the CCAA has grown and grown and grown, virtually since we contacted our LA (is the universe trying to tell me something!?!). The last few referral batches have covered only 7 days worth of LIDs from 2005!!! Our wait could be anything from 3-10 years at this rate!! Makes 13 months seem like a walk in the park!!!

THEN - We thought that a child in China was in more 'need' of us as a family than a child in the UK LAC system. Because of the UK guidelines about age gaps, when we started we were looking to adopt the most sought after age range (0-2yrs). We felt that as older parents, with three children already in the family that we wouldn't be looked on that favourably by family finding sws. We thought that if they were looking to place a baby, they would look much more favourably on a childless couple who could give the child all their time and attention, rather than place the child as the youngest of four! We also didn't want to end up in competition with so many other domestic prospective adopters, and in China the process is simple - queue up and when you reach the top of the pile you are matched with a child (no competing).
NOW - The age difference isn't as critical now as Little Prince is growing older, and expanding the age range we could be considered for if we were following the domestic route. There are 30,000 families in the queue in front of us waiting for a referral from China - if we dropped out now there would be many many families ready and willing to take our place. We aren't as needed in China as we thought, in fact we aren't needed at all!!

So here we are ghoulishly waiting for a child that hasn't even been born yet, for her parent's to be unable to keep her and be forced (for whatever reason we will probably never know) to abandon her. Its not exactly the joyous occasion I thought finally being DTC would be :-( Yet I can't give up or stop the process either - how would I feel once 'my LID' was being referred?? I feel that we would make a good family for a child from China and that we have a fair knowledge of the issues we could encounter and a willingness and ability to learn and ask for help if we or our child needs it. I'm not sure I even know how I'm feeling - trapped by circumstances, but a willing captive, is about as close as I can get.