Last night, a few people from my agency chatted for awhile via the internet. Several of us were furiously comparing notes on our super secret referral waiting lists. Almost all of us who are on the list have one. Some are more organized than others. Some are more complete than others. And some are more accurate. Mine is a nice, organized yet not complete or accurate spreadsheet. I inherited it from another agency client and I have apparently failed miserably at updating it. I thought we were #5 or 6 on The List. Turns out we are more like #8 or 9. There were a few people who received their 171h’s this week and are in a higher priority class than us (open to gender or have opposite gender children at home already) and therefore they jump ahead of us on the list. The longer we chatted, the further we fell on the list. Maybe I should go back to not paying attention to The List. Maybe ignorance really is bliss.

One downside of paying attention to The List and everyone’s place on it is that I have conflicting feelings when reading the agency message board. I am truly happy when I see someone finally received that 171h she has been waiting for for months. I celebrate with her because this is a hard process and we really do need to support one another. But there is a little voice in the back of my head saying “Chickenbus! Another person who will go ahead of us on The List.” It’s weird to have that voice there…it hadn’t been there prior to my being aware of The List.

The positive thing about paying attention to The List (or at least how I rationalize it) is that I’m not waiting by the phone for our referral. I’m not obsessively charging my cell phone. I’m not deluding myself into thinking our call will come next weekend.

My thoughts go out to Heather and Angie who are entering week 7 or 8 of their waits for baby girls. I’m getting a little nuts after 4 weeks so my heart goes out to you two!