A difficult issue for me, at least

I might have mentioned I live in South Carolina: Charleston specifically. This is the city of my dreams, after living for 13 years in my other favorite city in the USA: NYC. I spent summer vacations in an around Charleston through all of my formative years, I have always loved the romance and beauty of the city, and eventually I got myself here permanently.

The thing is, while I did all this adoptive imagining in NYC, where resources and options are more than plentiful - bountiful - Charleston, as lovely and sophisticated as it is, isn't on par population or multi-culturalness as places in the north east.

Of course in picking my placement agency that wasn't an issue - I had them all the choose from. Unfortunately, my home study agency has to come from South Carolina....and due to mileage considerations, the closer to Charleston, the better.

Anyone who has been watching the adoption headlines knows that several of the South Carolina adoption agencies have not had the greatest track record. Not all of them, of course, but hmmmmm. I have to say too that those that I have attempted to contact regarding my homestudy have been less than impressive. And this, my dears, is scary. I mean, even the evil scary ones are supposed to lull you into submitting that first payment to them. But nothing. They don't even want to email or call me back. Its ridiculous:

me: dear agency, I need a homestudy and I will pay you money. I live in Charleston. I understand we share a state.
agency: zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
me: I'm sorry, here is an email/phone message I thought I sent/left, but I must have messed up. Please contact me regarding my questions about your home study process, fees and timeframe.
agency: (2 weeks pass by) Please fill out this application form, pay x dollars and we will be in touch.
me: (to myself) FU.

So here I sit, with no home study agency, which is a major issue, as this is the very first big step. argh.

Fortunately, my placement agency heard my thinly veiled email complaints and basically bent over backwards to supply me with every name of every agency that could possible work (I need one with Hague accreditation). Now I've just got to make some more phone calls.

argh. I am disgusted.