Ok, enough with the damn snow already! It looks really pretty, but I am tired of driving in it. I talked to a guy in Hawaii today for work, and he said they're wearing shorts. I had to keep myself from swearing. Lucy is having trouble going out for her potty breaks since she is up past her armpits (legpits?) in the snow...it's gotta be hard to do the ol' squat n' pee when you can't squat. Jeremy is going to go out and mash the snow down when he gets home from work. Only the best for our little dog :)

We had some interesting news from a friend of ours who is going through another agency. She told me that their agency had 5 African American birthmoms who were in various stages of late pregnancy, and no people to adopt the babies. Since she knows we are interested, she told me to check out what we would need to get on their waiting parents list. She said that she didn't think it would be a big deal, maybe an extra thousand (which in the big scheme of things is no big) for program fees. It turned out to be a much bigger deal than either of us imagined. Basically, we would have had to take a few steps back and jump through a few hoops...something Jeremy and I have no desire to do.

The issue that makes me really angry is that the agency doesn't work with other agencies - if there is no one to adopt a child and the birthmom signs the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR), the baby goes into interim care...basically foster care through the agency. This could lead to attachment disorders for the baby, because it would have attached to the birthmom, then the foster family, and then would be expected to attach to adoptive parents. In a world where the rights of the child are supposed to be first and foremost and money is supposed to be last on the list, it sure seems like the opposite. It seems to me that if there are relinquished babies needing placements, and home study ready parents needing placements, that money and red tape shouldn't stand in the way of those babies and those parents becoming families. It sure angries up the blood!

Jeremy and I discussed it last night and decided that we would talk to our counselor and see if they know about this situation, and why the agencies don't work together...it would make me really sad if our agency (which has a stellar reputation in the adoption world) made use of the same practices.