18 Days

There are a couple of adoption forums where I lurk. Mostly I enjoy watching other people work their way through the process. I find it helpful to know that there are other people out there who are experiencing the same ups and downs that we are. It makes me feel a little more normal and a little less selfish for being as frustrated with the excessive slowness of the process.

And then there are the days where you have posts from a new person to the forum who just signed up with an agency 18 days ago, doesn't have their homestudy completely finished yet, and who just got selected by a birthmom who's in labor as they're posting. And I really wonder what I'm lacking that I can't just be happy for this random person who I will probably never meet who is taking nothing from me by being incredibly lucky that way. But I just don't seem to have it in me.

I'm just so tired of these little fist shaking it's-not-fair tantrums that I throw before I realize it's what I'm doing. Mentally I realize that life's not fair -- I just wish I could remind my heart that it's not supposed to be.

Finally there are the people using MySpace to find a birthmom who got mentioned on CNN (why?). I have no problem on that score, where I do start to choke a little is that they have three sons already and now they're out specifically asking to adopt a girl. And I kind of wonder what happens if someone chooses them and then finds out that she's really having a boy.