Adoption frustration.... beware of rambling rant

We were hoping to finalize Mikey's adoption on March 24th or the 31st at the latest.  But time and time again in this process, what I thought was the plan was actually not the plan.  You would think by this time I would stop even trying to make any plans.  

Anyway, the judge who is doing our adoption goes to our church and she said we could tentatively set a date and then nail that down once the 90 day waiting period is over.  But the agency we're going through needs more time get all of their stupid ducks in a row so it could take a few weeks longer than I thought.  So maybe we'll be shooting for the first or second week in April.  And to further complicate things, Mikey's CPS worker has dropped off the face of the planet and we don't know when she'll be back and who (if anybody) is handling her cases.

Is a few weeks a big deal?  Maybe not to anyone but us, but we've had this baby for 14 months and we're ready to be done with this process.  I'm tired of filling out the daily paperwork and having to constantly fax stuff to our agency.  I'm tired of people dropping in unannounced to "visit" my child.  I'm tired of kissing up to these people so I don't rock the boat.  I'm SICK of my son being referred to by his birth name at doctor visits and CPS visits.  Is it all worth it to have Mikey in our lives?  Absolutely!  And I would go through all of it and more again if I had to just to keep him in our lives.  

Our situation with Mikey has gone very smoothly compared to many other cases we've heard about.  I know we should just consider ourselves lucky.  And we do feel very fortunate that we got him from birth and that we didn't have to go through several other babies before we got to him.  Even so, this has been a very frustrating process.  We will not keep up our foster home license once he's adopted.  And we will not try to get anymore children through the foster care system.  And I think it's really a shame that the process, the paperwork, and the red tape keep solid families from even stepping foot into this circus.  There are hundreds, probably thousands of kids in Texas alone who need to be adopted.  I can pretty much guarantee that the process to adopt these kids is much more of a pain in the butt than the kids themselves.  And that says a lot, trust me.

So once we finally have a date that works for everybody and their mother, I'll let everyone know.