Justify This

We had our homestudy approved by AAI back in October.

Our social worker (from Catholic Charities) gave us our DCFS physical forms, asked for a copy of our tax return and pet innoculations and told us to get those back to her at our convenience.

Eventually, mid-March , we collected all those supposedly "extra" papers and called our case worker. She came at the end of March to pick them up.

When we found out about our baby girl (about 8 mos. now at Wanna with some special needs) we were smitten. We told AAI we were interested and we asked for our dossier paperwork. We completed it quickly, sent it back and called to ask about the next steps (as baby girl's referral has a statement from the doctor in Ethiopia saying "to save her (baby girl's) life the adoptive parents should be allowed to expedite her coming to the US".

We were told by AAI that Catholic Charities had only just then submitted our homestudy to DCFS in Illinois for approval--and they had sent it back UN-approved.

First, we were told there were "issues" with the wording and it shouldn't take long to fix.

Then, after a string of nasty email/phone calls between Catholic Charities, AAI, and DCFS--AAI ended up getting a slap on the wrist because they had "jumped the gun" in giving us a referral before DCFS had put its golden seal of approval on it!

Trying desperately to keep the process moving and to get things going over here, we did what they asked. Suddenly, however, MORE information was needed:

• Someone conveniently "forgot" that our son had turned 13 and needed a background check run.
  
• Nowhere was the information containing the bedroom sizes or which bedroom belonged to which child. I provided that information and was told that DCFS should have had my homestudy this past Monday.

All week, we waited for news and now, today, my social worker (now on bedrest in the last few weeks of her pregnancy) called with a list of questions a mile long (things that I KNOW we have answered before like---how would you handle a special needs child, what is your family's daily schedule, do you have a support network in place, and on and on) supposedly because "well, you DO already have six kids, and DCFS really wants you to *justify* wanting more!(that's what was actually said to me--can you believe that?)

I am just sickened for our (hopefully) daughter who is the real casualty in this hideous territorial paperwork war. And I am simply shocked and appalled that any agency that would align themselves with the Catholic Church (whose teachings on openness to life are crystal clear) would question our motives for wanting more children---especially a child, who this very night, had no one to snuggle her, to wrap her blankie tightly around her, to pick her up and tell her how precious and important she is; how very much God loves her. And how someone's belief in the overriding importance of a list of rules was keeping those very things from her.