Week 12 - Guess We'll Need a Coat

Rumors still abound that the wait for referral is now lengthening to 18 months from LID. Although we had originally hoped to have our daughter home well before next Christmas, as the days tick by with no answer on the job front in sight, that far off date becomes ever more elusive. At the current rate of referrals, it seems as though Winter 2008 is more likely. Gosh, that sounds like a long time away.....

Week 11 - The Form is Found

Week 10 blew by with nothing of importance to report. So, here we are in Week 11 already, and the paperchase is still plodding on. The good news is that the elusive CPS form finally was picked up and processed. The bad news is that trickling down through the referral pipeline today are rumors suggesting that the wait is growing ever longer.....

I find myself irritated today at just about everything. It's funny how when you get yourself worked up over one little thing, issues at all ends of the spectrum become fair game for misplaced ire. It started when I read a post on another blog about someone's intention to conceive a second child after nearly dying while carrying her first son, who was born extremely premature after a complicated pregnancy. Stories like that always catch my attention, because it could have been me.

I understand what it feels like to desperately cling to the hope that maybe next time you'll be able to cheat science, fate, the odds, and yes, whatever god you believe in, and have a healthy, normal pregnancy. I don't want it any less today because I'm adopting than I did the day we decided to have a child. But, the difference today is, I have a daughter. She's not with me now, but she will be. And then what? How could I look her in the eye and tell her that the risk of me dying during pregnancy is just one she'll just have to live with? How can anyone?

I'm jealous of that blogger, for finding a way to make peace with fertility choices I cannot. I'm angry at my body, for having wonky chromosomes, zealously clotting blood, and faulty ovaries. I'm equally peeved at my brain, for having taken it's own sweet time allowing adoption to worm itself out of my head and into my heart. I'm p.o.'ed at my father, for dying before he could meet his granddaughter (or maybe just at whoever decided it was his time to go). Mostly I'm just pissed that there aren't any choices surrounding this whole f'ing thing that don't involve heartbreaking compromise, crushing self doubt, and a whole lot of limbo.

Whew...sorry for the rant. There will be better days....

Week 9 - Why Rush?

Last week was a comedy ....of sorts. Our social worker informed us that she still hadn't received our clearance from Child Protective Services. Since we had turned in the form over a month ago, she was concerned that something had happened to it. Turns out we dropped the form off at the wrong government office. No wonder the clerk there looked at us like we'd stepped off a space ship when we handed it to her. Sadly, she was not dazed enough to hand it back and point us in the right direction.

So, in a panic, our home study agency asked us to mail another form - immediately. Evidently the clerk that processes CPS clearances is leaving the position and the department is being reorganized. If our form gets processed before she leaves - we're golden. If not, it may sit on an empty desk for a while until that function is reassigned to a new clerk. So, not yet swept up in the urgency of the matter, I calmly drive to my local post office to overnight the form, since FedEx won't deliver to a P.O. Box. No one tells me that USPS automatically requires a signature to deliver an Express Mail item. No one thinks about the fact that it's a P.O. Box and there aren't miniature people hanging out in the box all day just waiting to sign for packages.

My specially-overnighted now desperately-needed form doesn't get picked up for four days. As the days pass, I grow less and less calm about it. Everything is stalled, waiting on this form to be processed. So much for the mad rush.

Starry Eyes

Here folks, is what it's all about:

http://moonbeamcelebration.homestead.com/flash_detected.html

Click the link above for a reel of referral photos taken from a September 2002 DTC group, as well as photos of their children taken two years later. After all of the paperwork, delays, frustration, and a trip around the world - this is the real deal.

Warning: Kleenex required.

Thanks, Donna, for sharing this wonderful link.

Week 8 - We Passed!

For the last couple of weeks, we've been waiting on a draft of our homestudy from our social worker. Even though we feel confident that we're fit to be parents, there was an uneasy current running through each of us as we waited for that official "recommendation" necessary to adopt. We worried over whether we said the right things; did our home (and our housekeeping skills!) pass muster; were we likeable? What if we forgot to dot an i or cross a t in our paperwork? What if our references got together and said we were closet psychopaths (infertility does do funny things to you)? Neither of us spoke a word about this river of uncertainty winding through us, as if to voice it would lend truth to our fears.

Mercifully this past weekend, after hours of speaking with our references, reading our autobiographical applications, and meeting with us in person, our social worker granted us legitimacy as adoptive parents - we passed our home study!! We won't actually be certified to adopt until our home study goes before the judge for review, but it still merits a mini-celebration for now!