The Sound of Two Hearts Broken, or, Badly Bruised

When the phone rang at 7:00 PM last night my heart jumped into my throat. And when a sad voice on the other side of the continent told me that, 'unfortunately, the committee matched him to another family,' I felt like someone had kicked me in the teeth.

I feel like my heart is broken. Well, maybe badly bruised... Can a heart have a hairline fracture? And as much as it hurt to feel my own pain, the look on my husband's face just before he buried his head in his hands made me ache.

A.S. (the waiting child coordinator) was very kind and I could tell she felt awful telling us that they had chosen another family. She said it was a matter of timing and where we were in the process and that we were a qualified family and that she hoped that we felt like we could keep working with the adoption agency.

I felt like an idiot because I started to cry and had to hand the phone to my husband.

She repeated to him that she knew this was painful, and that it was a loss for us, and that she hated having to tell a qualified family that a child went to another qualified family.

He asked her about another waiting child on the waiting child photolisting, and he said, 'it is worth our time to ask for that file or should we just wait until our social worker sends you our completed homestudy?

A.S. said that she could send us his (the other child's) file but that three other families had already asked for him and then she said, "maybe you don't want to put yourself through this again, and, if you wait until the homestudy is done, and I get a waiting child I think would fit your family, I will call you FIRST, before their picture goes on the website, and you will have about 7 days to decide if you are interested in the child. If you are, the child doesn't get presented to any other family."

So, that's what we decided to do. We aren't going to look at any more children until our homestudy is in L.A.'s (the coordinator of the Vietnam program) hands.

I am trying to tell myself that this is for the best Dung and that it is such a lucky day for that little boy, because he is going to family who will love him.

And I am trying to tell myself that this just means that there is another child who is meant to come home to my husband and I and Gabe, and that our agency will eventually find him/her for us.

I did tell her that we are definitely going with the Vietnam program, but, she said if she had a waiting child from a country other than Vietnam she would still present that child to us if she thought it would be a good match...

Feeling sad,
Law Mommy