Playing Catch-Up
Everyday for the past week or two I’ve mentally cataloged the list of things I needed to blog about. But one thing or another keeps getting in my way: work, freelancing, sleep, a good book….so forgive this rather disjointed round-up (again!).
First off, a huge welcome to the world to Coleman, PeeSticksandStone’s son who was born a week ago today. Mother, baby, and father too! are doing great and I can’t wait to meet the baby when I’m in New York next month on business. Please stop by her site and offer your congrats and read about her surprisingly easy birth story.
Another welcome to….our new kitten. When I got my first cat, in 1988, it was after YEARS of wishing for a pet. I set out deliberately that day to choose a kitten and got a best friend, Nym, who lived to be 17. I got our current cat in 2006 when hubby was still living in the UK and we were waiting for immigration to work it’s magic. We wandered into a store that was holding an adoption fare and the cat, Willow, chose him and that was that. And she’s a great and constantly entertaining cat. But she isn’t a lap cat and I missed that about my old cat.
We’d thrown the idea around about getting a 2nd cat. Willow is extremely attached to our dog and I thought some feline company would be good for her when we take the dog away hiking for the weekend. And I really wanted another fluffy thing that wanted to be curled up beside me. And seeing Calliope’s post on her lost cat made me yearn for one – and a longhair this time. We visited a pet store that was having an adoption fare. We went for corn to feed the squirrels. I played with 2 kittens. Both were nice and sweet but neither was THE ONE.
I remembered that there was another store around the corner that fosters rescued cats. We peeked in. And I narrowed it down to 3. One, a silver tabby was beautiful and sweet but neither a total lapcat nor totally playful like Willow is. One, a pure white cat, came and sat on my lap the minute I sat on the floor. There was a “meant to be” quality to it but…she just wasn’t what I was looking for. All the while, a little grey ball of tribble-like fur with four white paws was darting around the store. She’d come close enough to say hello and would be off like a shot. The more time we spent there, the more she ventured out. And I knew we’d found our kitty.
First day home
Hubby has been tolerant enough to let me name her Dindi (pronounced Jinji) after one of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs. It’s a bit of homage to my dad who is the world’s biggest Sinatra fan and the name suits her.
She’s made friends with the dog. Willow….well, the hissing is getting less. We’ll see what happens. At the moment, Dindi is curled up behind me on my chair so I guess I was right about her being fine once she was out of the store and used to us! 
Like most people, I spent the rest of the weekend watching coverage of the Michael Jackson situation. I’d wanted to write about it but…..I couldn’t put what I was thinking into words. I wasn’t the hugest fan in the world but I respected the hell out of him as a musician. I’m grateful that Becky at MommyWantsVodka wrote this post. Yes, this is what I wanted to say. We’re all guilty. And it’s sad.
On the adoption front….I have my 2-hour individual interview with our SW on Thursday. I’m trying to go in with an open mind but she has a very defensive manner that puts me off. She’ll say that there are no right or no wrong answers but then act differently when I answer her questions. I’m going to do a LOT of deep breathing before I go to see her. I need to be calm, and pleasant and tell her what she wants to hear without denying the truth. Can I do it? I’ll have to. But I’m not looking forward to it.
There’s more, I’m sure but I’m also crunched at work. Another post in and of itself but first I need to do it and then I can blog about it!
Q&A
Since I got my daily video workout in early today and know already that tomorrow is going to be a heavy work-day, I thought I’d give a quick update on the adoption thing.
First off…Bulgaria has just passed official legislation whereby parental rights are automatically terminated if the parents have had no contact with the child for six months. Whether this means that children younger than 12 months will finally be available for adoption is a question that only time can answer. But it is certainly a step in the right direction.
For our part, we’re still drowning in paperwork. I just sent my clearance paperwork off to Washington DC today. DC has been a particular worry for me. I used to consult for the government (the District not federal) and know what a mess it can be. Even finding out what form to fill in, has taken weeks but SW has been assured that I’ve filled in the correct form.
Of course, one of the things on the form was that I had to list every address I’ve lived in for the last 18 years. Ok…but I haven’t lived in DC in the last 18. So I threw those on to. Even the house that is no longer there, having been torn down i.e., condemned.
I don’t know if all of you can list every address you’ve ever lived at but I can’t. There is still one short-term abode in Brooklyn that I’m missing and will just pretend didn’t exist because I can’t find the address. Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I’m a sentimental fool. I don’t throw things away. I have every letter that some of you have ever written me! And thankfully, some of those were written to the now-condemned building. I KNOW that some came to me in the missing Brookyln apartment but those letters seem to be AWOL. I suspect that they’re in a friend’s attic in Boston (you know who you are) and some day she’ll allow me to pay her children to go through the boxes for me so that I can throw out the 90210 video tapes and….whatever else is in there. But in the meantime, I’ll just pretend that I never lived at that other place.
The absolute hardest part of the home study process (aside from dealing with multi-national international law in our case and our somewhat dippy SW) is the personal questionnaire. “Describe your childhood” it directs you. “Name your family’s 3 strengths and weaknesses and what you’re doing about them”. It doesn’t really ask these in a logical order either. So half of the battle for me was to reorganize the questions into some logical order so that I could answer them sufficiently.
It was a bit like a job interview: “What is your greatest weakness?” No one is going to say “I don’t get along with co-workers” or “I’m lazy”. The answer in my case (which is actually honest) is “I can be too much of a perfectionist.” See….it’s a negative AND a positive.
These questionnaires follow on the heels of our “thoughts about adoption” questionnaire. While this one made a heck of lot more sense, we were told that there were no right or wrong answers. Yet the questionnaire was slanted. “How”, it asks “will you integrate your adopted child’s heritage into your own?”. Well….see….we’re a bit full up on heritage at the moment. We have enough issues with US and UK and my being a bit of a lapsed Jew and hubby being a proud Scot to keep us busy. Yes, if we were adopting a 10 year-old who was aware of their own culture, I’d be all over learning the Bulgarian holidays and recipes. But with an under 3 year-old…..???? When they get curious we’ll explore it together. In the meantime, I think they’ll have enough to keep them occupied.
I don’t mean to be flip. I think that heritage is extremely important. But one step at a time.
I don’t know how those answers will go over. Same for the ones about birth parents which is touchier-than-touchy subject. Will I help my adopted teenager try to find their birth parents when they ask? Yes, probably. Do I want to exchange photos and letters with those birth parents right now when my eventual child has been languishing in an orphange? No, I think that they gave up that right.
But each set of parents and kids need to find their own path.
The other really fun bit of this is the letters of recommendation. I’m sure that most people who adopt are either (1) living neither at least one set of grandparents (2) have a local close-knit group of friends that the child will be welcomed into. We of course have neither. Hubby’s family (who would be thrilled by any form of parenthood that we choose) live about 4,000 miles away. My family – who will also be happy – is about a 10-hour drive. Hubby’s friends, who don’t even know that we’re moving towards adoption or were ever trying to get pregnant – live mostly in other countries. Mine are mostly on the East Coast and while accepting and supportive, probably aren’t going to be here to serve as a welcoming committee.
So we need letters from a member of each of our families (trust me, this is going to be a process) and well as from three friends. One would guess that they want these to be mutual friends. But…hubby has friends of whom I’m an acquaintance (and they don’t know we’re doing this) and I have friends of whom hubby is an acquaintance. So we narrowed it down to (1) one of my best friends who is a parent of two wonderful daughters, and adoptee herself and whose sister has adopted twice. She will be the voice of wisdom friend in this and is thankfully, a fairly creative writer (and the same one storing all my stuff in her attic). (2) One of my oldest college friends, who is the father of 2 IUI-conceived children who has written something close to a dozen of these letters and whose beautiful prose (thanks to him being an English Prof) will hopefully masque the fact that while he knows me very, very well. He’s never met hubby. And (3) a friend we both adore but to whom neither of us are emotionally very close. That being said, he’s thrilled to have been asked and would make a wonderful “uncle” to our future child. Also he lives in an obscure place that we might eventually settle in so that seems to fit. We will owe all of these people (only 2 of whom are readers of this blog and one of whom is my dad) for a long, long, long time to come.
Anyhow, so if this blog is quieter than usual it’s because of the daunting amount of non-work related papers currently filling my desk. In some ways, progesterone shots were easier.
Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)
June 6th was our 7th anniversary. We’ve been pretty good about keeping to the “traditional” or the newer “modern” gifts. You know….the first anniversary is “paper”, the second is “cotton”, etc….
Well, the 7th is either “Copper” or “Wool”. Yeah…um…. Copper is mostly garden features. Our rented garden is already highly featured and wool….well, I like sheep but you don’t get a lot of them in Nashville. So I was stumped.
Somewhere along the line, I started asking myself what I’d get hubby without those restrictions. And I looked at the spreadsheet where I list any gift ideas that happen to come to me. One of them was “Glam.our Sh.ots”. You know, that mall-based photo shop? But I’d heard so many bad things about them and then the one here went out of business so….
First off, I have to explains that hubby is a visual person. I’m not. I like to have photos of my love-ones and old family photos are my most-prized possessions (as so many of my family has passed away) but I don’t really have photos on my ipod, etc….I just don’t look at them like that. But he does. And when he’s away, he asked me to send him photos. There is nothing more uncomfortable for someone who doesn’t like to be in photos than to be asked to take some of yourself. But I’ve tried.
And I liked the idea of doing it “the right way”, you know, with a professional and all. So I started scouring the internet. And believe me, I came up with some, um, interesting, photographers. I settled on one whose work I really loved. Her photos were sexy but not vulgar or really even all that revealing. She also held day-long marathons in a B&B, booking four woman in a day and had hair and make-up people onsite along with a stable of “costumes”.
We chatted by email and she immediately put me at ease. Well, as much at ease as I could be given the post-infertility 20 pounds that haven’t shown any sign of going away. I deliberated waiting until Xmas to do this but was, frankly, stumped for an anniversary gift (See….Xmas is about a month before hubby’s birthday and then comes Valentine’s Day and then our anniversary by which time I’m plum out of ideas). And it just seemed to be the “right” gift.
I was about to put down my deposit when the photographer got some horrible health-related news. And I was back at square one. She gave me the name of another photographer who didn’t really seem to be the right fit and he suggested someone else and….although I was a bit sceptical, I hired her.
We met for a consult. Exchanged ideas. Planned out the day.
On the day of the shoot, I went and got a manicure (a rare occurrence made rarer by the lack of inexpensive nail salons around here) and then met the photographer and make-up guy at the hair studio. As someone whose idea of hair care involves slathering my hair with the appropriate products and then letting it air-dry (unless it’s REALLY a special occasion when I whip out my diffuser), the lengthy process of having my hair curled and the straightened and stuck into place was really a trip.
Then the make-up and boy was this an experience. I can put on a bit of light foundation, lipstick and mascara. But this was the full-blown deal including false eyelashes. I kid you not when I say that the process took well over an hour. This was an amazing experience. I’ve never felt so doted on – at the same time, I kept thinking about TV stars who have to go through this all the time. AH, now I see why they have to get into shoots so early!
We then all converged back at my house. The photographer brought a ton of clothes and costumes (including more sets of ruffled panties – which I didn’t use – than you could shake a stick at). And we covered my amazing leopard-print chaise lounge in a crimson and gold tapestry. I settled on a black bustier and accessories (including a mix of my grandmother’s and her grandmother’s rhinestones). While I was nervous at first, they both had me laughing through the whole thing. And she was great a direction so I didn’t feel like I had to wing it on my own.
We did some more shots upstairs in the mini-kilt my Scottish hubby had made for our first anniversary. And then some in an antique blue silk negligee that the photographer brought. It literally took hours but was such a surprisingly good time that I was sad to see it end.
As hubby was coming home from work though, I had to remove the false eyelashes and the bulk of the makeup. I didn’t have the heart to wash my hair out though as I don’t think I’ll ever get it looking that good again.
I chose from an online album and had prints made and put them all in a…..copper photo album (had to work that copper in somehow) and they were a hit. I literally catch my breath when I look at them – I can hardly believe it’s me. Amazing what you can do with some good make-up, the right lighting and just a little bit of photoshopping!
Expectations
When I started telecommuting, I thought a number of things would magically happen. I would be more relaxed, I’d have more time to take care of non-work things (i.e., exercise, hobbies, house stuff, emails), the dog would get a ton of attention, and I’d be free to focus on all of our adoption paperwork.
Some of that has happened. Some of it hasn’t. I’m in a strange mental place where the end of my work day signals the end of my productive hours. That was fine when I was working late at my last job, but now that I end at 4, I really think I should be doing SOMETHING. Perhaps it’s the heat or the stress of the past few years but aside from a cursory house-cleaning or an ocassional errand, I don’t seem to be able to do much. And that bugs me.
I also had expectations for how the adoption process would work. And this is bugging me too although it’s somewhat out of my control. Even with our newfound truce, our SW is making me batty. She’s just SO SLOW. I write her asking questions about their poorly designed forms and it takes her many, many days to get back to me. We don’t have a second appointment scheduled yet. It sometimes feels like she’s working on our case one day a week or something – perhaps I should have asked, up front, how many cases she had on her plate.
With having to get clearances from six different states, included DC which is always the worst to get any information from , and all of hubby’s UK stuff I knew that this was going to be a longer-than-average process. Some home studies are done in 6 weeks. I’d estimated four months for ours. And now I’m beginning to wonder if that’s accurate.
Once the home study is done, then we have the dossier to prepare. And with the wait time in Bulgaria being approx. 24 months….well….I really want to get a move on.
Hubby and I leave tomorrow for a mini-vacation for our 7th anniversary. We’re looking forward to a long weekend of hiking, hot tubbing, and good food. I’m also excited about giving hubby his anniversary present – something I’ll write more about later. With the IF treatments and all that entailed we haven’t had a proper vacation in 2 years. This won’t be one either but at least it will a get-away where we can focus on each other and on having fun.
But when we get back, I guess I need to call SW and have a chat with her. And see what we can do to gently move things forward.
And then I need to take a good, hard look at my day. And trying to figure out where I’m getting derailed. My work is getting done but I don’t seem to be able to do anything else. Perhaps the summer heat is weighing too heavy or perhaps the draw of the back yard is too strong. But I need to create this life to be what I want it to be. With all of the things that are out of our control, this is something I need to take charge of. Maybe then, the other things will follow suit.
