Referral gained then lost

Well these past two weeks have been very exciting. We received a referral from Russia on the 26th of January. Then we submitted some follow up questions to make our decision whether to travel to Russia or not. However, instead of getting any follow-up information, they told us about a week later that the child was adopted out by a Russian family. So at least the child has found a good home. Now we are back in the waiting game, and hopefully we will hear back soon with another referral. Of course that means that we are back to not being able to plan anything more than 2 weeks out. So we are still waiting to travel to Perm. Hopefully soon though.

[This is Ange, adding some thoughts.] I'm not sure I would have described that week as "exciting" so much as incredibly stressful. When I first saw that photo, my gut instinct told me there was something wrong. I wondered why we were being shown a special needs child when we had said that we were not able to care for a child with extreme special needs. It was with some shock to realize that they were claiming that the child was normal/healthy. I feared that I had discovered a deep buried racial prejudice -- The features that I saw as indicating problems might just be the way children of his ethnic background are supposed to look. I tried to find other pictures of people with that heritage. But none of them gave me that gut feeling of "something is wrong" like that child's photo did. Besides, we had gotten absolutely NO medical information on the child. Fortunately, Dr. G was available to provide a worksheet of medical & milestone information to request they fill out for us. That helped somewhat, to know that we would not commit until we had more information to work with.

Still, I was miserable in those following days. While we waited for the worksheets, I tried to get my head around the whole idea. Suppose the information came back that he was perfectly normal? It still felt wrong. My heart was telling me that this child is not the right one for us. I had good wishes for him, but I knew he was not meant to be ours. My intuition also whispered that everything was going to be ok, but it was hard to believe that. Finally, 8 days after we got the initial call, we got another call from our social worker. She was terribly apologetic, fearing that we were going to be devastated, but she had to tell us that he was being adopted by a Russian family. It happens sometimes that an extended member of the birth family steps up to take the child when they hear that they are being considered for adoption by someone else. I'm sorry for the child that it took such an extreme step for the family member to come forward (if that is what happened). But I'm happy for him that he will have his forever family. As for us, even though it was a little sad to have to go back to the waiting game, I was just filled with relief. He wasn't the right child for us, and we weren't the right family for him. I don't know if there was some unseen reason why the whole thing happened. Regardless, it's done & over with now and out of our hands.

In the aftermath, I have had some lingering worries. Will I get that same "bad feeling" when we see the next child? Will it happen to us again, that we'll be offered a referral and then told "oops, not available"? Another possibility occurred to me -- Given that I had such a powerful sense of Wrongness about that referral, will I feel an equally strong a sense of Rightness when we finally see The One?