A word at the right time

I talked to Melonie last night, who is in the process of adopting her 4th Estonian child in 2 years. I have talked to her before by email and on the message board, but I had a few questions for her so we talked on the phone this time. We talked for over an hour and she settled our minds on so many uncertainties that have gone through our minds over the last nearly 4 months. Mostly on what the kids would be like when we see them again, how quickly they will grow up, what the court hearing is like, and when our court date will probably be. She said the magic number is 4 months from dossier submission and asked when we submitted our dossier. I told her 5/13. She said we will be getting the kids home VERY SOON then. She said she talked to Diana yesterday and Diana said that in the beginning of Sept. she's convinced that the courts will start passing out court dates. Melonie said that when they get back from summer holiday, they don't mess around. They get stuff done. So she thinks that we'll hear our court date by the middle of Sept. and it will probably occur toward the end of Sept., which is what I was thinking all along. Diana always says that the time line other people experienced offers no guarantee of what will happen for the next person, but the last several people who got court dates for Tallinn kids got them in about 4 months. Two were right at 134 days. (Trust me, at this point we are so obsessed with getting any clue about when it will be that we've scoured the message board, calendar in hand.)

Jason would know for sure, but I think we are at 109 now. He was convinced, before I shared with him what Mel said, that 2 months off for the courts means 2 months added to our wait. He didn't think so before, but now that we're getting so close to 4 months and haven't heard anything (since it's still August!), he started convincing himself it's not coming for awhile.

Part of the biggest trouble we've had with the wait is that we know how they were when we were there, and now we're missing it. Them being exactly the way we want them to be, and not knowing how long they will be this way. They will grow up, after all.

Mel says (and she is also a social worker in addition to a mom of 5 bio kids and working on her 5th total adoption!!!) that the kids are going to be young for a lot longer than American kids their age. Not only because of missing out on so much, not having been in a family, but because of their culture. Eastern Europeans let kids be kids a lot longer than we tend to here. Then there are the developmental stages they probably haven't reached because of the emotional inexperience they've had. She said by next summer we will probably want a vacation FROM them because they will probably be so joined to our hips.

I've also recently read on the Russian adoption message board that parents of adopted older kids from E.Europe often find that the kids are much more affectionate with their parents, even in front of their peers or in public, than their peers are, because of these very things.

I think it probably sounds silly that these are the things that we even think about. But you don't know what it does to you to have exactly what you want for 3 days, then have it taken away. Having them returned to people you don't know after you feel completely responsible for them, and fly across an ocean away from them. And then wonder what they'll think or feel or how they'll act when you finally (after an uncertain amount of time) see them again.

It's terrible. But, as I remind myself and Mel reminded me... It's worth it.

Always keeping you posted...
Love,
Molly

PS - No recent contact from the kids. They must be back in school now.