The waiting list.....

I caved in this morning and asked our agency for a waiting list update. The thought of doing so hadn't even crossed my mind until I talked with our social worker yesterday. Our conversation got me thinking and I decided that I just had to know. Now I wish I had never asked because our number on the waiting list....are you ready for this...is big, fat 48. Yep, you read that right 48...4 dozen, almost half way to 100, any way you look at that number, it's pretty big. For a few minutes after I heard that number I allowed my thoughts to wander. I wondered how much ice cream working our way to #1 (and still arriving with sanity) it was going to take. Then I began to do the math and attempt to figure out how many referrals our agency needs to get each month in order for us to receive our referral within our projected year. Then, before I let my mind race any longer, I made a good decision and called Jeff at work. Thank goodness I called him when I did, because he reminded me of something very important regarding the waiting list that immediately put my mind at ease. Let me explain...

When you're waiting for a baby from Korea, you can request to wait for a boy, a girl, or "either". If you have no children, you are automatically waiting for "either". The thing is though, there isn't actually an "either" list. There is a boy list and a girl list, and if you're waiting for "either" your name is actually on both lists. For example, when we were waiting for Graham, since we had no children, we were on both the girl list and the boy list. As soon as we accepted Graham's referral we were crossed off both lists. The majority of the time, if a family is waiting for "either" they'll receive a boy which will take their name off the girl list.

So, I can rest assured that there truly aren't 47 people ahead of us waiting specifically for little girls. I'm going to assume that maybe close to half of them are actually waiting for "either" which means when they receive their boy referrals, we'll actually move up the list. We'll also obviously move up the list each time a girl referral is handed out. Basically, at least until all the "either" people have their referrals, we'll move up the list twice as fast because any referrals means movement up the list for us.

If I've confused you with my waiting list logic, I'm sorry. The whole point of my rambling is to remind myself and all those waiting for Princess Olson that being #48 isn't as bad as it may seem.