First off, welcome to my new layout………tackling this was pretty high on my list once I returned from my work conference.

Which I  survived.  Barely. A week of 18-hour workdays – not getting more than 5 hours of sleep any night for 7 nights. A completely freak-out by my boss directed at me, a guest speaker who just happened to be an RE (not why we asked him to speak) who talked about having to tell women that their IVFs have failed.

I couldn’t help but think about the last conference I went to, two years ago.  The morning of the day I left I woke up with a sharp pain that took my breath away. I’d started bleeding.  I was 9 weeks pregnant with our only pregnancy. I had a D&C upon my return.

I am grateful that our speakers last year never veered towards the topics of fertility or reproduction. Even this year, all I could think of was “Hmmm…wonder if he’d perform an IVF on me.” Forget that we live in different countries and that I’m 44 and that we’re mired in adoption paperwork.

I got through the convention due to having friends who are also co-workers, a determination to see more than the inside of my hotel room, and the promise of a 1/2 day at the spa – compliments of hubby.  Not to mention my determination to keep my job which affords me a reasonable salary, an absurd amount of vacation/sick time, far better than average benefits, and the chance to work from home (i.e., wherever hubby and I decide to finally land).

And now I’m back.  And the mountain of paperwork on my desk is threatening to take over.  I’m off this week but back into work next week and looking at two pretty crazy weeks of catching up on all of the work that has fallen by the wayside during convention prep and work that was generated by the convention itself.

So this week is dedicated to catching up on sleep, real life, and…adoption paperwork.

We have already submitted our I-800A to Homeland Security.  And now we wait for our application to be reviewed so that we will be assigned appointments for our biometric fingerprints.

We’re going next week to get our FBI fingerprint cards (why oh why can’t the FBI accept digital fingerprints??? I don’t get it) so that we can request our own records for submission with our dossier.

Tomorrow, I will print off a bunch of our completed paperwork.  Just to have it done.  There is so much hurry-up-and-wait involved in this that you have to take control over the few things that you have.

Then the doctors forms, the special needs forms (where you have to decide which SN you are willing/able to accept), the photos of our lives (but not, apparently, our friendly and wonderful pets as pets are considered a luxury in Bulgaria and we don’t want to seem as though we’re “bragging” (so says Earth Mother from our agency). I get that but at the same time, I’m terrified of ending up with a child who with a known allergy to dogs/cats or one who is terrified of them).

There are days where it feels like we’re getting close to really doing this.  And days when it feels like we might just age out of the whole thing.  International adoption laws change all of the time.  There is so much hope for the Bulgarian program but I’ve only seen the referrals of a few special needs kids so far.  Even prospective parents who have been referred a SN kid that they’ve requested are still waiting.  I’m constantly balancing my desire for hubby and I to finally have our family with my worries over things like “What will happen when I have to go out of town for work for a week and there is no one to stay home with out child?”.  Talk about jumping the gun, right? In some ways, I relish the reliability of IF treatments – take this shot on this day, come back at 8am.  I thought it was frightening and unpredictable but this is actually worse.

But I’m looking forward to a new year, a year in which we’ll be officially registered (hopefully within the first quarter), a year in which we can look at the videos and photos and reports that Earth Mother forwards and really look to see if our child is there. A year without so much bureaucracy, where hubby and I can spend more time focusing on each other, our other goals, some travel.  It sounds nice and new and fresh.  I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks to Willow for awarding me with an Honest Scrap award. The award is meant to be given to fellow bloggers who blogs you find inspiring, so I’m quite touched to have been given it.

10 Honest Things About Me:

1.  I honestly believe that the best thing you can give your children is a strong marriage.  So I’m all for “date nights”, occassional weekends away, etc. I loved knowing that my parents were in love with each other and want to give that to our kid(s) too.

2. Although I’m Jewish and work for a Jewish organization, the closest I’ve come to a real religious experience was when I saw U2 in 1983 in a 1500 seat theatre.  The hope and unity in the room was almost a physical thing and I remain a huge fan of them to this day.

3. My freelance career involves writing about Irish traditional music.  When I started doing it, I knew virtually NOTHING about the music and had to learn (very quickly) who the major players were and why.  Now, nine years in, I’m a bit of an authority on the subject.

4.  Although I played clarinet for almost 13 years and sat first chair in my school’s band I’m a pretty horrible musician and have no sense of rhythm. That being said, I have a native American flute that I’m determined to master when I get back from the work convention.

5. I’m left-handed.  Hubby is left-handed.  A great portion of my friends are left-handed (I’m also an only child and have a great number of friends who are as well).

6.  I’m a hoarder (but an organized one).  I have tickets from every concert, play, and baseball game I’ve ever been to.  But they’re in a box in the closet, not scattered around.

7. I love books but have to admit that the Ama.zon Kin.dle that hubby bought me is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.  Sometimes I just read to read but have been known to buy the physical book after I’ve read it electronically if it’s special to me.

8. There is a part of me that is happy that the adoption probably won’t go through for another 1.5-3 years.  Although I’m anxious and excited to be a mother, I’m also excited about some of the things that hubby and I have planned to do in the meantime (trying to get the un-kid-friendly trips and such out of the way). That being said, I know that if something happens and I either get pregnant (ha!) or we’re referred sooner, I’ll be over the moon.

9.  By the 3rd day I met hubby (we met on vacation) I knew that we’d probably get married. Even though we lived in different countries at the time.

10.  I have NO sense of direction.  I mean none.  If I learn how to get somewhere, I can’t find my way back because I have problems flipping the landmarks over to the other side.  It’s kind of like directional dyslexia.

Now for my Honest Scrap Awards (in no particular order)…..

Blood Signs

PeeSticksandStones

Don’t Call Me Mother

Gaijin Mama

Life From Here: Musings from the Edge

Mommy Wants Vodka

My Hopeful Heart

Somewhere there is a manual for hair stylists that says “Make sure to ask your female clients if they have children within the first five minutes of them sitting down in your chair.”  I’ve never had a female stylist NOT do this and Wednesday when, with more than a bit of trepidation, I tried a new salon who were running a great color/cut special, wouldn’t you know it happened again.

Now said stylist will probably not become my new steady.  Aside from her somehow determining that when I said (and showed her the swatch) that I want to stay in the red pallet that I meant PINK  (I’m still waiting to see if I can get enough of the tint out to show up to my work convention and NOT get fired or if I have to go have it “neutralized”), and aside from the fact that she’s one of those stylists that pulls your hair so hard that it aches for days, I REALLY hate the “kids” question.

Now that we’re on the path – or close to it – to adoption, the question doesn’t hurt the way it used to.  And I’m happy to openly discuss our plans to adoption, which makes it easier.  But in honesty, there is a tiny part of me that almost rejoices in trying to give an answer that might make the person asking the question ever so uncomfortable.  Maybe they’ll think next time before they ask something that might be so personal and delicate.

In the past, I’ve had stylists who responded to my squeaked out “No, I don’t have kids” with a further question: “Why, don’t you want them?” And I wimped out of  being completed honest and always gave some fumbled sort of  “No, we’ve been trying” type of answer when I’ve really wanted to give them the whole painful story just so that they get a clue and learn that next time, it might not be the way to approach things.

The flip side of this is my new endocrinologist.  I had no problem telling him about our infertility woes because it turns out that my thyroid issue might be the cause of it all in the first place (and there is a special place in purgatory for all of the doctors that I BEGGED to look into what I was sure were thyroid issues, who told me not to worry about it). But he is now convinced that he is giving me the magic baby pill. Even though I keep telling him that at 44 I’ve had to let go of my dreams of a biological child with or without a thyroid wonder drug.

But he doesn’t want to hear that. When I called to get the results from my first round of bloodwork since I started taking these, the nurse said that my results were now “perfect” and “oh, the doctor said to let us know if you get pregnant so that we can alter your meds.” Yes, miracles do happen.  But at this point, my idea of a miracle is heading to my convention without pink hair and finding out that we’ve sent all of the proper (signed this time) paperwork to USCIS!

At some point in Mid-November, I’ll be caught up.  Getting ready for a work convention basically ate up the end of summer and suddenly, it’s fall and I didn’t even realize it until I took the dog out one day and everything crunched.

The convention is now less than 2 weeks away.  I return to a week off to recuperate (which I’ll need) during which I plan to shovel a bunch of stuff off my things to do list: redesign this blog, sort through and scan photos, delete things from my computer that I have in triplicate and no longer need anyhow, remind the social security administration that I WAS working and paying US taxes during the four years I lived in the UK, thank you very much.

And then there is our dossier.  The good news is that I did manage to get our I-800A sent off with all of the (many) appropriate, notarized attachments.  The bad news is that after micromanaging those attachments and making sure that hubby signed in the 14 appropriate places, it was returned to us.  I’D forgotten to sign it. Yup – my brain is a little full these days. Grrr…. anyhow, my big hope that USCIS read the entire document and that was the only thing missing.  I fear though that they got to that page, noticed the missing signature and just popped it back into the mail to me with a “ha! ha! how can you hope to adopt a child when you can’t even sign on all of the dotted lines?” letter.  Honestly, I’m surprised that I didn’t mail them our grocery list and a Target bill instead of the proper paperword.  THAT’S how crazy things have been.

Anyhow, we’re also plowing through the rest of the dossier materials. Where possible without leaving my computer so that I can avoid missing work emails, I’ve printed, copied, and filled out what I can.  The rest will have to wait until I get back.  We’re a bit on hold until we get the USCIS approval anyhow.

I realize that for those who aren’t as jaded by the process as we’re quickly becoming, it might seem unfathomable that we’ve been into this process for six months already and aren’t officially registered to adopt a child from Bulgaria.  We might be signed on with the agency and in possession of a finalized and approved home study, but that means that we’re only half-way through the mountain of bureaucracy that will get us to the point of having our entire dossier translated and sent to the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria.

It almost makes me long for a follistim shot.  Or not.

On the magic day that I actually find myself with enough time to finish a thought, I’ll try to write up some overviews of the whole process and the changes that are being made in the Bulgarian adoption system (which should be VERY positive changes).  I really do intend to get to this!  So please, bear with me!

No, not that sort – with the green pea, head-turning, speaking in tongues (although I admit sometimes being able to lose it THAT much sounds like relief)….but the 9/10th of the law type.

We are now in physical possession of our finalized and notarized home study (YAY!).  I picked it up Friday and I think that our SW was even more relieved to get rid of it than I was to retrieve it.  She talked a lot about how this is a milestone, etc….and yes, she’s probably right.  If I didn’t have this mountain of dossier and I-800A materials on my desk at the moment, it would be easier to celebrate but yes, I suppose it is.

In an immediate sense it means we can now submit our I-800A.  Once I have it completed.  I’m close to it and then we need to have it notarized.  But I keep hearing that the USCIS is kicking things back at an alarming rate – everyone, it seems, has something wrong with their forms (could it be, perhaps, that their incompressible directions are…incomprehensible? And this from someone who has navigated two legal immigrations).  And I fear that what will be sent back are some UK documents that are going to be near to impossible to get verification of.

But I did let her message sink in.  And on the way home I detoured and allowed myself to do something that I haven’t been able to do in years: walk through the children’s clothing section of a store.  It was actually difficult to put one foot in front of the other.  My M.O. over the past few decades has been to circumvent all areas of children’s shopping so forcing myself to wade into it was a bit bizarre.

But once I was in, it was like getting used to being in a cold pool.  Uncomfortable but warming up.  I knew that I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something – the purchase was more emotional than practical.  Still, when looking at sizes, I had to think that we’ve requested a girl up to the age of 4 but children coming from orphanages tend to be small for their ages.  I went with a 4T though because kids will always grow into things.  The first thing my eyes fell on was a dusty rose knit dress.  It was absolutely adorable but….what if we bring the child home in summer? The dress looked awfully hot.  And so I passed on it and settled on a legging set: the top in brown with pink hearts and a hood (I love hoods) and the leggings in a leopard print pattern using pink hearts (okay, I know I’m not doing a great job of describing it here).

It’s hung in the back of my closet where, even in the best of cases,  it will stay for a long time.  But I know that it’s there.  And it represents hope in a more tangible way than anything has since our first positive pregnancy tests. It’s at least a step down the road.

I’ve been mulling over a post about “naming” in response to Mel’s excellent post here (if you haven’t read it yet, I strongly urge you to) about the English, Hebrew, and “secret” names that she’s given her children.

Like most American Jews, I was given both an English first and middle name and their equivalents in Hebrew. I’ve had a life-long love/hate relationship with my English first name.  It’s not terribly common although there is a more common French equivalent.  My middle name is far more common but not overly used and as a kid, when all of my friends were getting pencils, bookmarks, room plaques, and just about everything else with their names on them, I really wished I could swap my names around.

Now though I’m glad that I didn’t.  In some ways having a name that is more unusual has suited and shaped me and hey, now its possible to have anything printed

My Hebrew names have gotten very little use.  I’m not overly thrilled with either one of them and they get stuck in your throat when you say them together.

While hubby and I have had a much easier time of agreeing on most of the adoption questions that have come up than I would have expected, we’re a bit at odds on the issue of naming (well, the discussion has been tabled for the moment).

We are adopting from Bulgaria where the names are very long and highly identifiable as Eastern European. Having grown up with an uncommon name, I know how cruel kids can be.  I also know how much trouble even adults have in dealing with names they don’t know. Also, the Jewish tradition of naming children after dear and departed relatives is something that deeply matters to me.  I have a number of relations who will never have their names carried on unless my children are gifted with them (or some variation of them).

To add to the issue, hubby is Scottish.  I have a freelance career that is Irish in nature.  We both have a strong desire to stay within the Celtic realm.  Also, I’ve also read articles about the ramifications of renaming adopted children.  Done at the beginning, it can give the child a true sense of “new start” and also help them fit in better with their peers and extended family than an unpronounceable name would.

Certainly we have a lot to talk about.  Ideally, we’ll have a list of names that we both approve of and then, once we have a referral, we can see if any of those names come close to the child’s birth names.  But I’m also hoping that we can come to a meeting of the minds on this one and give our child a name as we would have given a birth child a name.  Something that carries meaning for both of us and that we’re both on board with.  And of course, eventually our child will have Hebrew names as well and hopefully they’ll like them more than I like mine.

Does anyone know a Bulgarian-Celtic-Jewish name??????

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Just for a quick update it sounds like our home study will FINALLY be done next week and in our hands shortly after which will allow us to file our I-800A.

We now have our dossier instructions and forms in-hand and if I thought that immigration or the home study involved a lot of confusing paperwork, I had no idea.  I’ll write more on the crazy types of things that we’re having to compile, have notarized and then appostiled (verified by our local Secretary of State) before it can be sent off.  I’d initially thought that this could be done by mid-January but now…..well, we’ll just have to see!

In August 2001 I began a project called 100words.net under a different pseudonym.  You write 100 words a day – exactly – and posted it on the website.  It was a good exercise in discipline.  In culling out what was really important about the day; what was noticed.

Having looked back at years previously where I really had no memory of the ins and outs of my daily life, I found this project to be a way to capture at least the essence of a day; in this case 74 days that are very much on my mind today.

August 12, 2001 was my 36th birthday.  I was living in NJ, in an apartment I’d been in for many years but was about to move to Queens as I was starting to spend more and more time in the city after work.  In fact I had double leases in August so that I could paint and prep my new apartment.  One foot in each life. I was a little out of sorts that year – truly single for the first time in years and enjoying it.  There were a number of men in my life but none were relationships.  Some were exes, some were friends, some were people collected in odd ways including the bland cousin of a major celebrity who’d decided that I was his dream girl (regardless of the fact that I felt VERY much the opposite).  It was a time of introspection.  I felt the change in the air.  My life was in flux but I had no idea what direction things would take me in. I was excited and, honestly scared, about where things were headed.

In late August I went to a music show at the World Trade Center.  Not only was the show amazing but I met a colleague that I’d only known by phone and email and who continues to be a close friend.

I’d renewed some old friendships while having scheduling problems getting in touch with current friends. I ended the month by piggy-backing on a trip to a science fiction convention that two close friends were going to.  It was one of those frivolous spontaneous things that I was able to do as I had no commitments and, for the first time in my life, a little extra cash. Looking back, I think it’s funny as the last thing I probably needed, given my frame of mind, was to be thrown into the alternate universe of a scifi convention.  But the weekend was fun if a little too intense and I’m shocked at the positive reactions that other people have to me. I meet someone although, back in the real world, any thought of it being a real relationship quickly dissipates.

Early September is filled with my tangling and untangling myself from that meeting.  And looking expectantly towards my move and my October trip to Ireland. I was emotionally high and exhausted at the same time.  Very uncharacteristically, I wasn’t really sleeping.  Instead I was going to hear live music, staying up all night on the phone, wandering around my neighborhood hoping to burn off the emotional intensity that seemed unshakable around me.

I wrote last year, here, about my 9/11 experiences.  Listening to WNYC internet radio as I write this, they’re talking about how the city has been split between those who were there and those who weren’t. And how those who weren’t just can’t understand.  That was true at the time and I’m sure it is still now.

Mere days after 9/11 I moved to Queens – the day the bridge from NJ reopened.  I remember not being able to watch TV or listen to the radio unless it was news or one goth album that I’d bought at the scifi fest and that was frighteningly appropriate.  I unpacked. I volunteered at ground zero.  I walked around in a fog, trying to find joy in the things that I loved – even though that was hard there was a solidarity, a certain comfort about being together with people you didn’t have to talk about it with.  People who understood.

Somewhere in that time, my life settled.  It felt uncomfortably and uncharacteristically calm.  So long as the wind didn’t blow in just the “right” direction, so that you couldn’t smell the charred metal, life seemed to return to a new version of normal. I spent early October visiting friends, mending fences, trying to hold onto the new-found perspective that we all seemed to have in those days.

Mid-October was spent getting ready for my Ireland trip.  My first trip abroad, I was taking it alone and was thrilled by that.  I was planning on spending a few days doing nothing but listening to music. Of course, that isn’t really what happened.  On my first night there, (yes, while in a pub listening to music), I met hubby. And from there on, it’s a different story altogether.

I look back and who I was during that time and I know that there are things that I’ve learned.  And also, things that I’ve lost.  In some ways I like myself better then but when I step back, I see that it’s the feeling of being in the center of a tornado that brought certain things out in me.  I was focused but unstable in the intensity of my options and my life. I wonder now if it’s possible to retain the good out of that; to live in a (literally) calm place far removed from the glorious tumult of NYC and to hold those lessons in your heart.

Throughout the course of our 2+ years of infertility treatments, I let a lot go.  Including other types of doctor’s appointments.  My GYN visits were particularly disrupted by my cycles and having pap smears done by the RE’s office and not being able to do a mammogram close to cycle, etc.

So I’ve made a list of visits that I need to start squeezing in and the first was to get the gyno out of the way.  Unlike NYC where it’s possible to find comments and reviews of any doctor worth their salt, Music City is…um…silent.  It’s very hard to get info here and even if you do, trying to get in to see the doctor of your choice can me a 6-month wait.  I’d selected a GYN who is also a highly-touted OB and it therefore came as no surprise to find that his next available appoint was for DECEMBER!  Um…no.

I was offered the chance to see a nurse practitioner in the same office who does also the gyno stuff plus infertility (i.e., IUIs).  I figured that at least she’d understand my charts when I gave them to her.  So I saw her and she was lovely and switched on and pretty much “got it.”  She also mentioned that I needed to move the endocrinologist up higher on my list as my potential thyroid issues might be our infertility culprit.  That’s fine but I’m still 44 so……

Anyhow, I’m completely happy with her, happy with her interest in rerunning a thyroid panel and checking my levels of various vitamins.  Her blood person did a great job and used a butterfly without a fuss.  It was one of the least painful paps I’ve ever had.  In fact she’s great, her staff is great, the location is great but her physical office sucks.

Okay, I wasn’t there for infertility treatments but I’m still sensitive to those issues and guess I always will be.  Her exam room had one of those digital picture frames in it with constantly revolving photos of her kids (grandkids? niece and nephew?)…the same two kids were pictured in huge photos all over the office.

When I was in NYC, my clinic was thankfully low on kid pictures.  Every once in a while a woman would thoughtlessly bring her unruly toddler (I never did see a well-behaved one there) in with an ineffective husband or grandmother to run around the waiting room while she was in for her exam.  But the clinic itself had the sensitivity to understand that a woman having an ultrasound where she’s being told that the doctor can no longer find a heartbeat or on her last ever IUI before she gives up her dream of a biological child doesn’t need to see photos of laughing, beautiful children.

I came very close to saying something to my new Gyno.  And at some point, I probably will.  Perhaps she’s unaware and woman here just aren’t as vocal as they are in NY but are still seething inside.  She seems like a caring person so hopefully she’ll take it in the right way.

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I’ve always been a bit of a video game freak.  I was the first one on the block with Pong, had the first nintendo, etc. I never got into online gaming of any sort but if I had a PDA, it had some sort of roll-playing game on it.  So I got a game the other day for my iTouch.  The “game” is really to just take care of a little family.  You start with 2 adults and take it from here.  You drop one on the other in hopes that they’ll try to make a baby and be successful.  The first time I did this, they were.  But then they were resistant.  If I could get them to hug, they never got to the next step.  If they tried to make a baby, they failed.  Or they argues about whether it was the right time to even try.

I did manage to get three kids out of them.  And then I noticed that one of the things in the character’s “store” was vial of medication that increases the chance of having kids as well as of having twins and triplets.  Virtual IVF (except this one $500 vial increases their fertility for life.  It’s too late for this generation but believe me that one of their kids is gonna get a hefty dose of that.

Yeah…I’d pop that $500.  Where do I get one for myself?????

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Our agency agreements are now signed and notarized. Okay, I haven’t had a chance to actually read them yet but I will before they’re sent off next week.

Next step the dossier.  We don’t even know what that will entail as they don’t release the instructions until we return these current pieces…but I’m sure the paperwork will be tons of fun (not!).

It’s sometimes great to feel like you’ve got a large support system working for you and many people pulling for you.  Then there’s today!   No, no, we’re grateful for the support of friends and family all.  And I have to say that we’re lucky to be one of the few couples that I know of anyhow, to receive only positive comments from friends and family about our plans so THANKS!

That beings said…I can not WAIT until we’re completely done with our home study agency (okay, we won’t be “done” for about a decade as there are post-placement reports, etc….but that bridge is so far away that I’m not even thinking of crossing it at the moment).

Today’s drama consisted of an email from our SW with a form attached that was sent to her by our placing agency.  The form, which has to be notarized, is meant to be filled out…not by us…buy by the friends that we specified as “guardians” should anything, you know, happen to us.  The choice of guardianship kinda happened as a spur of the moment thing.  We figured that we’d get a child home and then have to write wills and would sort it out then. But one of my best friends inserted something into her letter of support about being the guardians (which was pretty darn inspired), hubby and I had a short (very short) conversation about it and then we said “yup! works for us and we can still sort it out later if we need to”.

Anyhow the form needs to be filled out by said friend and her husband (who I’m not even sure knows about all of this).  And notarized.  Hmm….she’s starting a new job next week and he has a 2-hour commute to work.  When’s that notary thing going to happen I’m wondering????

So I wrote to both the SW (who couldn’t care less about the form anyhow) and the placing agency (who needs the form but really wants this all to get a move-on) numerous times and in various combinations.   We now have a consensus that our home study can be finalized without said form that we can file our agency agreement paperwork and start work on our dossier and the dreaded I-800 while waiting for this form.

I sense that this is only a glimpse into what the next few months is going to be like…..

Other than all of this, life continues on (thankfully) and work continues to be a complete pain in the lead-up to our biennial convention this fall.  I did get a thank you note from my boss today, which is one of the things that makes working there a good thing.  I don’t need the thanks but, hey, its sometimes nice to hear that you’re doing a good job.  And our two weeks of Phase one of South Beach diet are thankfully coming to an end.  I’m not sure which of the phase 2 additions I’m looking forward to more: fruit, red wine, BREAD (okay, whole wheat but still….).  At least I lived through the french fry craving I had last night at around midnight that almost had me in the car and heading to McD’s.  Thankfully hubby parked me in and his Jeep scares me after dark!

I just received an email from our placing agency that we’ve been accepted into their program.  I know that there was no reason for them NOT to accept us but the way things sometimes work, you never know !

Next they send us an agreement which we send back with the initial payments.  After it taking 4 months to get our home study done, I have to wrap my head around the fact that our placing agency is more efficient and on the ball.  That means that my initial estimates for payment are going to be a month + off so I’m going to have to either sit on some forms or do a bit of juggling.

Then they give us all of the information on how to create our dossier. That gets sent back with the last round of large payments that we have to pay until we receive a referral – which gives us a few years probably…..

Somewhere in there we fill out the I-800A, the US government’s problematic book of a form.  So there is a lot of financial juggling to do and a lot more paperwork coming our way.

AND I’m probably going to take a stab at applying for some adoption grants.

But in the meantime, we’re now officially signed with an adoption agency and that feels quite good!

The phone rang yesterday and it was our SW.  Usually this makes me nervous (because usually she calls when she’s realized that she doesn’t have some really complicated piece of information that means that we need to make multiple international calls to sort it out) and I held my breath when I heard her voice.  In reality though, she was calling to tell me that she’d finished the draft of our home study and was going to email it.

And that she did.  She actually did a pretty good job although it made me laugh in many places because she took direct quotes from our interviews and used them in somewhat odd ways.  It was interesting to see what she focused on and interesting to see what quotes she pulled from our recommendation letters (only some of which we saw before they were submitted).

So I feel good that we’re almost done with this piece of the puzzle.  In the meantime, I’m awaiting word from our placing agency that our application has been approved.  They keep saying “We can’t imagine that there is any reason it wouldn’t be” but…..that’s one of those foreboding things in movies that always means that something will go wrong.  “What could possibly be lurking in the basement?”

As a member of the mailing list for the placing agency’s “waiting children” e-mails, I had an interesting experience yesterday.  Hubby and I have agreed that there are some “minor” and, in some cases “correctable” special needs that we could deal with.  We actually had little problems filling out the list because we both agreed that if one of us had an issue with a medical condition we wouldn’t accept it.  So hubby, an avid hiker who wants to share that with his children, prefers that we not adopt a child who has mobility issues.  I’m a music writer (in part) and as we spend a great deal of time listening to music (live and recorded) I would prefer a child who doesn’t have hearing issues. And we’re both on board with those.

Yesterday I got a slew of videos from our placing agency.  The children ranged from those with down syndrome and other obvious disabilities to one little boy whose medical issues weren’t apparent.  And then there was a little girl.  Obviously bright (Okay, I don’t understand Bulgarian but the cries of “bravo” from the staff who were filming her in response to her answers to questions was pretty clear), charming, with a smile that would light up a room.  They then pulled her up and helped her walk across the room.  I don’t know what type of muscle issues she has but walking is obviously difficult for her although she could do it while holding onto something and it didn’t seem to deter her from getting around. But she probably wouldn’t make it up the side of a mountain.  Or ever a large hill. Not for a while anyhow.

In reality, it’s probably too soon for us to be “choosing” a child.  Our home study isn’t completed, we haven’t even filed our I-800A (to the US State Department) because we don’t have our home study.  Hell, our application hasn’t even been accepted from the placing agency. But it was an intense experience to finally look into the eyes of a little girl on a video and say “this could be our daughter”.

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On a purely administration issue, I’ve (finally) gone through the blogroll on the left and updated the lists.  I deleted closed blogs, added a number of others that I’ve been following on Bloglines, and moved a ton of blogs from “infertility” to “parenting after infertility”.  I’m happy for all of my cyber-sisters who moved over.  Perhaps, as the nurse at my old clinic (and adoptive mother herself) once said “Most women who want a child usually end up with one, one way or another.” Amen!

Next up: A new format and header!

Many thanks for the birthday wishes on and off this blog as well as the good thoughts for our home study.

Although our SW was on vacation last week and I’m sure it’s going to take her a while to get the study written, I finally feel we’re moving forward.  At least somewhat. As such, we’ve finally filed our application with our placing agency. They still need to approve it, we’ll have more forms to fill out and then, once we get our home study, we can file our dreaded I-800A (the form that the US State Department needs to approve us for adoption).

As we go through this process – either a feast or famine of paperwork – Earth Mother from the placing agency is sending out information on waiting children.  Most are special needs to some extent but some have fallen within our perimeters.  Thankfully, none of the photos/reports have given me the feeling that “this child is the one”. If we had that feeling, in most cases, the child can be “held” for us. But we’re so far from having our dossier completed…I can’t stand the thought of a child just waiting there while we swim through these masses of paperwork and bureaucracy.

And as much as we want a child….there are a few things we need to take care of first so it’s all a bit of mixed feelings really.

One of the blogs that I follow (forgive me if it is yours, I don’t remember which one) recently asked the question “What first made you feel like an adult”. And I had to laugh when I read it.  I don’t own a house.  I don’t have a child.  And I guess those two things, for some reason, equal adulthood for me. So…not sure if I’ve gotten there yet.

Now I have to say that growing up as an only child, with only one parent from the age of 13 after my mother died, I was on my own a bit.  And, as my dad, and I had a strong and open relationship, I was given quite a bit of trust and freedom, which I was careful not to abuse. So perhaps the freedom that many people feel upon adulthood was something I’d had for a long time.  I’m not really sure.

But a few things struck me on my birthday this year.  I’m 44 and I’m still not sure what being “an adult” feels like. For some reason, this played into one of my birthday gifts as well.  Hubby bought me (at my request) a make-up lesson with the person who did my make-up for my photo shoot.  I never really learned how to put on makeup (thankfully I have pretty good skin, etc. and haven’t needed a lot).  I’m sure a lot of this has to do with my mother passing away.  My grandmother was a make-up fiend but I don’t know why she never taught me.  Perhaps because I was never interested?

I’m not sure what is prompting my interest now.  It isn’t that I’m looking so much older – I still find that people assume I’m in my early-mid 30’s. But it’s probably the same impetus that has me doing the South Beach diet again (phase 1 – no grains, sugars, fruit, etc…for 2 weeks) to try to finally rid myself of the 15 pounds gained in the fertility treatments.  Once we have a child, that child’s needs will take precedence over everything else.  Now is the time, I guess, for me to focus on myself while I can.

I always wanted to be a young parent but the opportunity never presented itself. I still think that it’s probably better, in many ways, for a child to have a younger parent.  And perhaps what we’re setting out to do is somewhat selfish.  We’ve gotten to live our lives as we chose and have hopefully learned enough to be better parents for it. At the very least, hopefully we won’t have those longings of “the life not lived”. If there is anything we haven’t accomplished, we have only ourselves to blame. Perhaps realizing that DOES make us adults.

Tomorrow I will be 44. That number doesn’t especially freak me out.  I don’t feel 44 or what I think 44 is meant to feel like.  People are still shocked to find out that I’m older than early 30’s.  The only person I can really pinpoint at 44 is my father.  When he was 44, I was 19 and in college.  Here I am at 44 in the early stages of pursuing an adoption.  The differences aren’t lost on me.  It’s a different time.  At least that’s what I tell myself!

The one area where my age does rear it’s ugly head is in terms of fertility.  Yes, we’ve moved on from that concept.  Well.  Mostly.  In the back of our fridge is a cooler bag with some just-expired follistim.  Lots of it. I’d planned on using it this spring for an unrecommended unmonitored cycle.  But the Repronex cycle screwed up my system so badly that it’s just getting back on track now.  It seemed like we should wait.  Now we’re looking at September or October.  Hubby and I don’t really talk about except when we need room in the fridge and he asks if we’re ever going to use or get rid of the bag and it’s contents.

I keep thinking I’ve moved on from trying to get pregnant.  To some extent I have.  I’m happy with the concept of adoption, however sad I am at the loss of the idea of having a biological child together. But I can’t help but keep an eye on my cycles, looking for signs of ovulation and planning accordingly.  And I’m acutely aware that using our now out-of-date stash will mean that it and our chances are gone.  I’ve closed the door but damn it’s hard to completely lock it.

And I realize all of the issues connected to it.  For instance…on my mother’s side of the family, I have four cousins. My mom was the oldest of 3 sisters and I’m close to my aunt who is in the middle. The youngest and I have been pretty much estranged for years.  I saw her my paternal grandmother’s funeral last year and we talked and caught up.  I gave her my email address and have heard nothing (she didn’t offer hers) which is pretty much how we ended up not speaking in the first place I think.  Anyhow, I’m pretty close the kids of my aunt, the middle sister.  At least we’re friends on Facebook and exchange the occasional email and offers of visits, etc.  I’ve had no contact with the two kids from my mom’s youngest sister. By choice.

Her daughter is about as close to a Jerry Springer guest as our family has.  Her brother….well, I just don’t really know him.  He was born two years after my mom died and named for her.  I have to admit to a bit of resentment as I’d hoped to name a child after her and remember being quite upset about it at the time. But I was already in high school when he was born and we never had much contact.

A few weeks ago I put up a family photo on FB, as a laugh for my cousins.  One of whom is HIS friend. I had a nagging feeling of guilt and so I friended him as well. It’s the kind of thing my mom would have wanted me to do.  I realize thought that I have lingering issues there. I have a relatively small family.  Hubby’s is larger but is 3500 miles away.  I’m worried about adopting a child and not even giving them a thriving adoptive family.

That’s probably pretty silly.  I don’t think that my cousin is going to really play any role in our child’s life.  But I think that getting older is making me look at our dwindling family tree in a different light.

The time-frame of this adoption 18-36 months from the submission of the dossier, is going to give me a lot of time to deal with things like this.  I wonder what my life will be like when this finally comes through though.  Yes, it will give hubby and I time to get out of debt, travel, get some stuff worked out and out of our system. But it also creates an odd sort of statis; a feeling of inhaling and….just waiting. And sometime in there, I guess I need to lock the fertility door for good so that I can walk through a new one.

Over the past week we’ve pretty much plowed through a bunch of our last requirements for our home study.  Last week we went to get our local clearances (and had a hysterical encounter with a young lad, trying to pull a report on the mother of his baby without knowing her birthday or social – or one might even guess, her last name) and then to get our state/federal fingerprints.

And yesterday was our home visit.  The lead up to the visit was, frankly, a pain in the ass.  I did some preliminary cleaning on Wednesday and decided to make cookies after hubby suggested that I make something that I like so that I’d have the leftovers (after all, carbs don’t count when you’ve made them for someone else right?).  So I found a lemon cookie recipe and I made the dough and then realized that I had no parchment paper.  I ran to the store, popped them into the oven for the required 15 minutes and….the bottoms were burnt.  I put batch 2 in for 10 minutes and the same thing happened.  I ended up with about 10 edible cookies and a bunch that I cut the bottoms off of before deciding that while I could eat them, I couldn’t serve them.  Ah well….

Yesterday was a juggling routine of “working from home” while cleaning the house.  Scrubbing counters while on conference calls, etc.  And hubby could never understand why I insisted on getting phones with headset plugs!

I set the coffee pot up and waited.  Hubby came home early from work.  SW showed up on time.  She came in and took a dismaying look at our animals (1 golden retriever, 2 cats) and told us that she was severely allergic to cats.  So we did a quick walkthrough and by quick I mean “Oh look, there’s a bathroom” and then went to talk on the deck.

Not once did she ask about outlet covers, where we kept our medicine, our low and exposed bar, the fireplace tools that are at the right height for a toddler to spear themselves on.

Throughout the conversation only one issue came up.  Apparently USCIS (the US agency that needs to approve our international adoption) has gotten really picky about the wording on home studies and are holding parents to only accepting children who match the exact wording of the home study.

And here we get a little stuck.  Hubby and I have always had our hearts set on having a daughter.  Obviously, had we gotten pregnant we were 100% in the “so long as it’s healthy” court.  But with adoption you have a choice.  In fact you’re kind of forced to make a choice.  We could say “either”.  But in all likelihood this is the only time we’re going to do this.  I think that hubby would be MUCH better with a daughter.  Different parts of me yearn for each gender.  SW had “either” on our home study because hubby had a sudden change of heart during our first meeting with her.  But I know that there are many more boys available from Bulgaria than girls.  “Either” is really going to end up being a boy.

Our other issue is with sibling groups.  Domestic adoption allows for the option of changing your mind at the last minute and taking a sibling group.  Hubby said, during our initial meeting that he’d be willing to do this.  I was shocked as we’d never discussed it.  I’m of 2 minds on this.  First, neither of us has ever had kids and we’re far from anything resembling a nearby support system of friends or family. This is all going to be a learning experience and we’d probably be best suited to raising a single child.  Also, hubby is still hoping that he can stay home with the child and I’ll be the sole financial support.  One child seems safest.

But…..I’d be lying if part of me wasn’t yearning for the idea of siblings.  I suspect that one child will make me want another.  But I don’t see us going through the adoption thing again (I’ll be 44 next week and while a lot of older people DO adopt….I don’t think we will) and we’ve pretty much bungled up the “have sex/get pregnant” method. So what better to do than to adopt siblings?

Thankfully SW is on vacation next week.  I’ve written an “urgent” email to Earth Mother at the placing agency asking her advice. I think though, we’re going to be forced to declare upfront “single, girl” and that’s what we’ll get.

At least now, I see that the homestudy will be approved. And we’re one step closer on this long path.

I was both glad and dismayed to read the comments and emails from people who also found their online adoption courses to be completely useless.  It’s a shame that agencies can’t seem to find the midpoint – they either require that you read a U-haul full of books or they require the pointless academic exercise that we went through.

I’m a bit of a research hound and could easily amass a library of adoption and toddler books.  But as we’re still so far away from bringing a child home, I’m resisting.  I did buy this one though and so far I’m impressed.  It was what I’d hoped that our courses would be.

I also had an enlightening e-mail conversation with Earth Mother, our contact at the adoption placement agency.  Apparently we aren’t the only people complaining about our SW.  Seems like she might be overwhelmed by the Hague requirements or something.  At the very least I found out that some of her advise so far has been incorrect (such as her urging us to get our medicals first thing – apparently Bulgaria has it’s own requirements and we’re going to have to do this again for our dossier.  Lovely).  Earth Mother was also dismayed at the time it was taking SW to get anything done and apparently contacted her to “check in”. The next day, I got an email from SW requesting a date for our home visit.

So far, out of all the seemingly pointless forms and conversations we’ve had, I’ve more or less seen the purpose in them.  But the home visit….let me explain.  We live in a rental townhouse.  It’s lovely.  But not at all set up for a child.  We have a “creek” for runoff water behind our house – about 4 feet deep and stone.  With no barrier.  Our “bar” is a low shelf of a baker’s rack.  We still haven’t gotten around to really wrapping all of our electronic wires that dangle behind our open-backed office system.  Pretty much all our furniture has sharp edges.  We have 2 nice-sized bedrooms but one is being used as my office since I’d be working from home. We don’t have a medicine check so all our meds are in the open cabinet under the sink.

But our adoption is going to take 18-36 months from the time we file our dossier.  There is little to no chance that we’d be living here by then. And yes, we’re smart enough to make a list of what we’d need to change (that being said hubby – who should know better, having a younger sibling and a number of closely raised cousins – thinks that it’s okay with a toddler because you can tell them “no”.  My experiences babysitting for toddlers made me laugh at this.  I truly thought he was kidding.  Obviously there are some discussion in our future).  But it’s a rental.  And we won’t be living here by then.  I suspect I’m going to be repeating that line over and over on Wednesday when SW comes out and starts lecturing us on these things.

Over the next two days, we’ll be finishing the rest of our other commitments for the home study. Then it’s just hounding our near and dear friends to get their promised letters in.  I swear, I’ve never seen people stress out over writing things as I have with this.)

Our placing agency is urging me to officially file and start the dossier process but SW is such a flake that I feel like we need to get through next week first.  At the same time, Earth Mother assures me that we’re far enough in the process to “hold” a child, should one come along that we want to request.  This, of course, only works for special needs but some of the needs we’ve seen have been things that we’d consider.  Just not this week!

On another topic, I’ve been wrestling with how to turn this blog into a true adoption blog.  I’m still mostly found by people looking for IF experiences.  And I don’t want to delete or move those entries either.  I’m definitely due for a new look though and an updated blogroll and such.  I’d like to do this before the dossier is completed but I also know that I’ll have a lot more time after that point.

All in all, I set out to spend this year, getting the adoption show on the road and getting our finances in order and so far we’re succeeding at both.  I’m looking forward to a different list of 2010 goals though when hubby and I hope to do a little traveling and I have dreams of actually getting on top of my things to do list!

Speaking of which…the next thing on my pile of things to do is to write a check for the my final bill to the infertility clinic that shall remain nameless.  I’ve owed them for a while.  I can’t tell if my reluctance to pay is my passive-aggressive response to their utter lack of success in my treatments or if it’s the closing of a door.  I think it’s more the former than the latter but then, I do still have a bag of follistim at the back of my fridge.  September maybe????

Yeah, so I’m naming this post after a Culture Club song.  As a child of the 80’s, I guess I’m allowed.

It’s funny though that I’ve suddenly amassed a number of friends who were born in the 80’s and that, to me, if just unfathomable.  I mean so many of the pivotal things in my life took place during that crazy decade and I loved it. Although many happy things took place for me in the 90’s, I just never meshed with the music, the culture.  Life just didn’t flow as smoothly.

Anyhow…..

I’ve pretty much had no time.  Those of you who know me in real life are aware of how bad a correspondent I’ve become. I’m busier at work then I’ve ever been and am still doing a bit of freelancing on the side.  And the adoption stuff.  And hubby. And….well, my things to do list is now unraveling all over the floor.

There has been some movement on the adoption front though (okay, that might be overstating it).  (1) hubby has his one-on-one with the SW today.  I’m sure he’ll do fine.  Hubby is nothing less than charming when he chooses to be. But he also isn’t one to bite his tongue and this is a situation that needs a little tongue biting.  I know that I’ll be quite relieved if he comes home and says it went well.

(2) We finished our online adoption course yesterday.  The last few chapters were actually interesting.  A bit about Bulgaria.  A bit about transitioning your adopted child home. But we both agree that the course was crap.  Not a waste of time but way too academic and not really filled with anything practical.  Now I know that I’ll have procured a sizable library of adoption, toddler, and toddler adoption books by the time we actually get a referral.  I know that I’ll continue to read blogs and listserv posts for the foreseeable future and will take note of everything I read.  But….not everyone will and hubby and I talked last night about how bad it is that the course doesn’t take that into account.

Now we wait for the rest of our recommendation letters to make their way to the SW.  We go for our local clearances and fingerprinting (all to happen next week).  Then we have the home visit – which is really a sham because there is no way that we’ll be living here by the time the adoption is finalized.  We love the townhouse but we need a 3rd bedroom (since I work from home) and, for a rental, it would take too much money and work to make it child-friendly (for instance, we have a creek/drainage ditch in the back that is accessed by a decorative bridge.  The rest isn’t fenced or enclosed in any way.

Speaking of money…..I literally thank the universe on a daily basis that hubby and I are both gainfully employed. But the damned credit card companies are on my last nerve.  (1) I closed a card over a year ago and paid it off.  When I went to log on to the website to make sure that I hadn’t accrued any additional finance charges, I couldn’t get in.  I never heard from the bank again so I figured I was fine.  Until other banks started talking about my “delinquency”.  Turns out I owed them $15 for 3 months. which I was never notified about.  But boy that 90-day late payment on my credit report took it all down.  The bank has twice promised to reverse the note with all 3 agencies.  This should be done by tomorrow so we’ll see.  I hope – for them – that they’ve done it.  (2) A bank that I have a long standing (good) relationship with acquired my “emergency” card. A card with a huge available limit that I’ve used for emergencies, business trips oh…and it was going to fund our adoption.  Well, guess what.  They just cut my limit IN HALF.  With no notice I suddenly had a $10 available balance.  I’ve never been late on this card.  Always pay WELL over the minimum. And in part this is because of the first bank screwing with my credit report.

I know that we’ll sort out paying for the adoption.  This year is all about paying things off and we’ll get there in time.  But still.  Can’t a girl catch a break?

Someday I’ll actually start writing some eloquent, non-rushed posts.  Really.  I promise. I have so many things rolling around in my head.  I just need time to commit them to the keyboard.

I had some vacation hours that we expiring and it was time to meet one-on-one with our social worker, so I took off early on the 2nd and, with much trepidation, set forth to the meeting.  As I’ve written, our social worker has been odd so far – a little put off by the amount of work that our home study was going to take (with my having lived in six states since I turned 18 and hubby being a UK citizen) and was being a tad negative to the point of her calling me and asking if we shouldn’t part ways.  Normally, I would have jumped at that – I mean, if you don’t want to work with us you probably aren’t the right person to champion our adoption.

But we’re here in the South. Where most of the agencies rely heavily on religion and that wasn’t what we wanted (and they wouldn’t have wanted us).  So we stuck it out.

And I have to say that the meeting really wasn’t that bad.  I’d already given her my 10-page “personal profile” and it ended up that she was basically just filling in some blanks.  Yes, we had a low-key debate about the role that birth culture should play in the life of an adopted child (for the record, hubby and I are completely in synch on this issue – if we end up adopting an older child, although that isn’t what we’re requesting – we completely understand why we’d need to make Bulgarian food, music, holidays a part of our lives.  But, if, as expected we adopt a 3 year-old who has barely been out of the orphanage….well, we already have US and UK, Jewish and not to deal with.  Of course, we’d help the child explore whatever questions they have but we aren’t going to start celebrating random holidays that the child probably won’t even recognize).  Anyhow….that one was expected.

We also had a chat about birth parents.  Our SW is used to doing domestic adoptions.  And the movement in domestic adoptions is towards adoptions that are open to one extent or another – ranging from the annual letter/photos to a total integration of families.  International adoptions tend to be different.  Language and physical distances AND the fact that the child has, in most cases, been in an institution since birth changes the concept.  We’d be more than willing to assist our child in finding their birth parents if they decided that it was something they needed to do.  Will we seek them out on our own.  No.  While we’d love to get more detailed medical records, it’s doubtful that the family would have (or share) them anyhow.  Others have made other choices as is their right.  But I don’t think that we’re going to rush to have coffee with the birth parents just to do it.

While SW and I had a little debate on these issues, it stayed friendly and positive. I left with a smile on my face and was very relieved.  Hubby is next, and the house visit and we still have to get our local clearance and fingerprints (and finish our online courses) but we’re getting there!

Hubby will tell you that I’m a research junky.  It’s just something I’m really, really good at, and something I happen to like.  And it’s not often that those two things go together.

By the time we finished infertility treatments I knew WAY more than I’d ever wanted to know about the ins and outs of it all.  I suspect the same will happen with adoption.  Currently, I’m mostly reading blogs.  And mostly those about international adoption.  Unfortunately, the process is so slow that what blogs there are, aren’t updated much. It can be a bit isolating.

I have a number of books on my wishlist that I’ll work my way through but it’s hard to take too much on when we’re looking at not bringing a child home for at least 2 years and probably longer.

One thing we ARE doing though, because we have no choice, is taking a 10-hour online course.  It’s part of the Hauge requirements that, as part of the homestudy, adoptive families take some sort of formal adoption courses.  And each placing agency interprets this differently.

I have to admit to excluding one agency we were looking at because their education requirement was so high.  That agency sent you boxes and boxes of books and expected reports to be written as well as wanting you to take an in-person class. Now I’m really not adverse to reading about adoption.  Or taking a class.  Or even writing reports.  But there are so many hurdles to jump through that I wanted to be the one to pick and choose what I looked into.  And hubby was less than interested in those types of requirements.

So we chose the agency that was probably the best choice anyhow.  And their requirement is a 10-hour online course.  We’ve decided to break it into 5 segments, doing 2 sections a week.  And I was actually somewhat excited to start it last week.  But then we did.

The text is taken from a very dry study written in 2004. It isn’t overly text-heavy but it IS very clinical.  It’s one thing to know about behavioural issues caused by institutionalization but damn!  Tell me what to do about it?  There is no practical information (which admittedly, I’ll be finding somewhere else but…) to be found here.  No methods to try or signs to look for.

To prove that you’ve done the course, you take a test.  In this case it’s approx. 3 very basic multiple choice questions following each section.  So far, we’ve been 100% accurate but then I think we would have had we not even read the materials.

I’m not really sure what I expected or what I’d even suggest.  What we’re doing is relatively painless but also without a lot of merit.  Will we learn what we need from other sources?  Sure!  We even have one of the few international adoption clinics in the US, at the university that hubby works at.  We’ll definitely take their course once we’re farther down the road.  But not everyone has that opportunity.  Not everyone is going to read as voraciously as I will.  Why have an education requirement and not educate?

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!

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.