Post-Placement Report

In my last post I mentioned that the social worker was coming on Thursday night for our final post-placement report to Russia. This is our third social worker since we started the adoption process about 4 years ago. The first one was (in retrospect) completely incompetent. The second one was better. It took us four years to get a social worker who actually knew what she was doing. Pathetic.

She pretty much admitted that there was a huge group of people adopting from Russia at the same time we did, and that the agency hired all sorts of semi-qualified social workers to handle the homestudies. Just another piece of info to add to my "angry file". I'll put it next to the part about the doctor who was supposed to be an expert in internationally adopted children but missed the fact that my son has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Would have been nice to start working on that issue, say, three years ago.

And the fact that I had to answer three pages of questions regarding J-Man's development and growth, and turn in ten photos showing our "happy family" so that the Russian authorities can be assured that we're doing a good job just ticks me off to no end. We have these problems because of the pervasive poverty and acceptance of alcoholism in the Russian culture, and the flawed orphanage system where unwanted children are warehoused. And they want to make sure that I'm doing a good job? How dare they.

Usually the anger isn't so near the surface anymore, but this report just brought it all bubbling back up again. I wish that one of the someones who caused the problems was the one sitting in waiting rooms and going broke from out-of-pocket expenses. I wish that same someone had to suffer the frustration of a perpetual toddler in a growing body who will never live up to the potential that, at the very beginning of his life, he had. All because a woman didn't care about taking care of her child and a culture didn't care enough to help her. The unfairness of it all is just overwhelming. Sad. Frustrating. Heartbreaking.