In the spirit of fun, I'd like to share ten ways to spend the time while waiting for your child to come home. I am not going to admit to having done ALL of them...well, not all on the same day anyway....
1.) Put your social worker's phone number on speed dial. Call her every week without fail during the entire process, even when she warns you the wait will still be months. Email her for reassurance on all 'difficult' waiting days, such as those containing the letter S. After all, if she hears from you often, she won't 'forget' about you.
2.) Sign up on every email list that is remotely applicable to your situation. Check for new email at least once per hour all day long. Post on each group at least 3 times a day. For the most pressing questions, use all caps.
3.) Ask often if anyone has news about the next step in your process, whether it be referrals or court dates or travel dates. Complain bitterly if anyone for any reason seems to get 'ahead' of you in the process.
4.) Collect waiting information on every family you have contact with. Use this data to spend hours each day making elaborate time lines, guesstimating:
a. best case scenario
b. most likely scenario, and
c. longest likely wait for each step of the process.
5.) Get very bent out of shape if any stage of your process exceeds the 'best case scenario' timeline. After all, your adoption is special.
6.) Google all Ethiopian holidays, mark them on your calendar and worry about how these holidays might slow your process down. Save your angriest thoughts for judges who take days to get back to court after the Ethiopian New Year. After all, we are Americans. We should not have to wait on Ethiopian holidays.
7.) When you finally get your referral, print out dozens of pictures of your child and give them to anyone and everyone, including that nice checker at the grocery store. Then when you see anyone, talk about nothing but every nuance of your adoption.
8.) Ask every traveling family to get pictures of your child, specifying preferred poses and outfits to be worn. Mark their 'return-home' dates on your calendar so that you can email them demanding news within 5 minutes of their scheduled homecoming.
9.) Leap out of the bushes at your mail carrier every day, desperately hoping he/she is bearing news from your agency. Consider installing an alarm that rings indoors when your mailbox is opened in the unlikely chance that the mail carrier arrives while you are in the restroom.
10.) Go into a depression at the end of every week, because the arrival of Friday means another weekend to survive till Monday when you can once again hover near the phone/computer/mailbox waiting for news.
Doing all these things without fail will ensure that your adoption will feel like the slowest adoption in history.
