“THE WAIT” (Dateline August, 2004)

Okay, Ladies...let’s discuss “THE WAIT”. You know - THE WAIT...as opposed to just “the wait”. It’s what every adopting parent finds out about and is never prepared for, regardless of how much pre-adoptive training your agency gives you. There’s no cure for it. It’s just something you live through, which eventually makes you a stronger, better parent when you survive it. It’s the time period about one to two months before you should receive your referral (or maybe three to four months before, depending on your psychic makeup).

THE WAIT usually starts about 6 weeks prior to the day you are supposed to get your referral. For us, it was month 6.5 of an 8 month wait for our first daughter from China. As first time parents who were “older” we thought we were prepared for parenthood. We had both been involved in parenting to one degree or another (me with my nephew and my husband with his first daughter). But no one ever told us about the effects of “THE WAIT” on a normal person.

It starts out like this:

About 6 weeks before you are expecting “The Call” you start checking your voice mail for messages. Then you start calling the adoption agency when you leave home, even if it’s just to the grocery store, to ensure they have your cell phone number (they do - it’s in your paperwork). Then you start checking your adoption group web page every two hours (if you are adopting from China like we were, it’s the APC group, or your agency group - where ever the news would hit first.) Then you start finding increasingly devious ways to track the FedEx plane from China that may (or may not) be carrying your referral.

By Referral (R) minus 4 weeks you start feeling like you’ve had too much caffeine (even before you get out of bed). A ringing phone makes you jump at least a foot, and you begin answering the phone in a low, breathy voice that keeps the telemarketers calling you back over and over. (The think you’re running a home based ‘business’, when all you’ve been doing is dashing from the back forty to the phone in ten seconds or less...)

By R minus 2 weeks you start getting physical. Sitting still is no longer an option. You have gone over your packing list to the point you can recite it in your sleep. You have packed, repacked and unpacked at least sixty times. When your spouse sees “the look” in your eye now he just dives behind his paper as you remote-control your way to the bedroom to stare at the suitcases, sure that you have forgotten something, such as the kitchen sink.

By R minus 1 week you start cleaning. Not only can you not sit still, but your adoption agency is threatening you with a protection order if you call more than 3 times/day. You start with the bathrooms...then the windows...then the hall closet...then the front stoop. You clean everything down to the bare bedrock.. Then your fevered glance spots the yard and your fingers start to twitch.

By R minus 4 days you have finished half the yard with a pair of lawn sheers, as the lawn mower has mysteriously disappeared. The police report says the tractor was last seen in a pack of about twenty-five other lawn-tractors heading to the neighborhood bar at a reckless 15 mph. (The police think they’ve found your husband’s tractor parked in back, but are too afraid to go inside to check. There are too many reports of manic laughter coming from the place and too many reports of pre-adoptive dads drinking white wine sprintzers and reciting packing lists Did I mention you have spread the word about how great adoption is to sooo many neighbors that you infected the whole neighborhood?)

By R plus 1 week you are now almost totally bald. Sleeping is for weenies, coffee is no longer required for that jittery feeling, and your adoption agency no longer takes your call. Somewhere in one of the 150 adoption groups you now belong to you someone has posted that referrals are slowing down (probably because someone has told the world about how great adopting from China is.) Referrals are now taking 9-10 months, and you are only ½ way through month 9.

The day finally comes. It’s probably raining. Or not. You don’t notice anymore. You have started at the phone so long it’s broken (or so you think). You no longer take a shower “just in case”. You haven’t left the house in six weeks for fear that your agency really doesn’t have your cell phone number. You have called in sick to work so often that they think you’re terminal.

Then the phone rings. You answer with a dispirited “hello”, as you just don’t the energy for anything else. It’s your agency. You have been assigned a perfect little girl, 9 months old, a cutie pattootie so wonderful that all the stars in the sky dim in comparison. You stand there in stupefaction, and the only words out of your mouth are “What?” “What?” “What?” Then it hits you. You scream. You dance. You run out into the street to join your neighbors who also got the call and are dancing in the street in their nighties too! Then you rush back into the house and pick up the dropped phone to get the rest of the information. Don’t worry - your agency is used to it. They’re still on the phone, patiently waiting for you to come back, calm down and take down the particulars; which you do, eventually...when you realize you ran out of the house in your towel and not much else.

Congratulations! You’re a mom!

Now the real worrying begins! How are you going to find your husband amongst all the other adoptive fathers at the local bar and grill (where he’s been receiving his mail for the last two months)...

Don’t worry - this is where the laws of nature kick in. By sheer osmosis (remember all those new mommy hormones wafting over the neighborhood like a pink fog the men are notified. Soon the streets are clogged with riding lawnmowers - the men are coming home. Let the packing begin!