Turning Down a Referral :-(

I've just been reading of a family who were unexpectedly referred a boy from China and who have turned down this referral and are going to wait and hope their agency can advocate for a girl referral. Reading this made me feel so sad for the little boy who has been refused, I wonder how quickly he will be re-referred?? Will he have to wait longer in a SWI because of this? Will he be re-referred at all?? Poor little mite :-(

It also makes me wonder about how prospective adopter's expectations are managed in other countries? In the UK we would NOT be allowed to turn down a referral based solely on gender, or on age grounds. We are warned by our LAs and support groups that we REQUEST a match from the CCAA, but that ultimately the choice is theirs. If we refuse a child based on gender or age, we would not get another chance. Our LA has to approve our match with our referred child, and if they feel we are being overly fussy (ie refusing an 18 mth old because we asked for under 12 mths) they would question our commitment to adopting at all, and would refuse to support us getting another match. Similarly our govt agency that acts as our 'agency' and deals with the CCAA for us, would not let us refuse a child for gender or age reasons, and go on to ask for another different match. But we are told this from the start - there is no expectation that we will automatically get a child that matches perfectly what we requested. We have to be prepared and able to accept a child (boy or girl) up to the age of 24 months (what CCAA considers an infant) - if we cannot accept this then we are advised to find another route to adoption or not to adopt.

We, like the majority of prospective adopters from China I presume, have requested a girl under 12 months old. We have a girl name chosen, we've bought some outfits, dolls and girlie stuff for her room. I've planned how I want to redecorate her room and its very girlie!! But if we unexpectedly are referred a boy - we would give away the girl clothes, redecorate the room and rejoice in our new son :-)

Central to my thoughts is how would it make Little Prince feel? How valued as our son would he feel, if we turned down a referral for a brother, because we want another daughter?? It would take a bit of getting used to and adjusting of dreams, but it is doable. We've done it before when we first applied to adopt from China and were turned down - we fought the decision as hard as we could, but ultimately came to a point when we had to think what it was we wanted? Did we want to adopt from China? Or did we want to adopt? Or did we want to try for another birth child? After lots and lots of discussion we came to the conclusion that we wanted to adopt - from where wasn't important. And that decision led us to our FABULOUS toddler son - which was a big change from the baby Chinese daughter we had originally thought we wanted. But change is GOOD and parenting a son is different but such a fantastic adventure, I wouldn't change him for the world :-)