Adoption is all about “hurry up and wait”. The activity in the adoption process happens in spurts. You hurry and get your homestudy completed, and then you hurry and get your dossier turned in, and then comes the wait for a referral (unless you are adopting a waiting child).

Waiting for a referral is difficult. You have put in tons of time on adoption education and researching your transracial adoption options, you have (hopefully) carefully chosen an agency, you have put lots of time in on the paperwork for the homestudy process and the dossier (or profile) and you have usually invested a decent amount of money at this point, too.

I have heard many adoptive parents say that until they got a referral, the whole adoption thing did not really feel “real”. For many, it all becomes “real” when there is an actual child assigned, a name to say over and over and a picture to stare at all day and night. The adoption becomes “real” when there is a real child involved, and not just a child that is hoped for and imagined.

I know that we when were doing our first adoption and were waiting for a referral, it was really tough. I waited and wondered what our daughter would look like. We guessed at how old she would be. I wanted to know her Vietnamese name so I could look up the meaning. I worried about how long we would wait. I wanted there to be a baby for us.

But as hard as it is to wait for a referral, I can promise you that somewhere in the first week or two after getting your referral the euphoria wears off somewhat, and you are slapped in the face with the agony of “the wait to travel.”

There is not much more difficult than loving a child that is far, far away. You worry if they are getting fed, you worry if they are being stimulated enough, you worry if they are getting love and attention, you worry if they are sick, you worry if they are warm enough, and on and on and on.

The ache to hold the child in the photo is one of the toughest parts of the wait.

So how do you survive it??

See my next post for tips on how to survive the dreaded adoption waiting. :)