23 or 16

Sorry your wait has been so hard and the expenses for this adoption keep rising. I know what you mean about the wait being even harder when it becomes longer than you were told it "should" be. Lifetime told us our wait would likely be 9 months or less but no more than 2 years but in fact even after 3 years we were never presented with a possible match, and with Ukraine we were told our dossier would definitely be submitted by June (2007) but then it expired before it was submitted. Waiting while ttc or trying to adopt is hard enough but then when you're told your wait will be xyz long and it's longer than that...Not Fun. Maybe that's one of the reasons God sent you Evan? Although you've had to wait longer than expected for your girl from China, you had an unexpected adoption take place in between Ethiopia and China. Not many people experience what you did with that adoption given you weren't (I don't think) actually trying to adopt from Guatemala or actually I guess I should say within the US.

I agree that sometimes there are statements made which are not true at least not for everyone. The one that bugs me is "adoption is only a matter of when not if". That wasn't true for us and we pursued adoption in the US through several different avenues (the "system", a lawyer, a facilitator, etc.) as well as tried to adopt 2 children from Ukraine (3 1/2 years and over $20K spent trying to adopt w/o any success). As far as the long wait being forgotten, for me the pain of it has GREATLY diminished. When I look in Nadia's eyes I rarely ever contemplate that it took 6 years for her to come into our arms. The main time that pain comes back to me is when I am reminded how easy it can be for some people and then there is still some hurt involved....and the other time I still feel an "ouch" is when I think of #2 and am not sure what to do/which way to go and although the result is wonderful I don't find the process of ivf or adoption very pleasant so I am not looking forward to trying again although I do want her to have a brother or sister and if adoption or IVF works in the future I know I'll be very glad we did it. I don't know how the people do it who go into an adoption situtaion being told their wait will be say 5 years. If I was told that, I wouldn't pick that option. I think I would have lost my mind 6 years ago when we started ttc if someone told us we wouldn't become parents for 6 more years. So maybe sometimes it's better not to know how long the wait will be?? Maybe it's different for everyone... sorry for rambling on so much. I hope you get your referral ASAP and the costs don't go up any more!!! It's absurd that it costs so much to adopt but that's another topic, LOL!