Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Our story vs. their story.

At some point in the adoption process, we will become very private. We will stop discussing details with friends and family. Not because we will magically stop wanting to share all of the details, but because, at some point, it's not our story any more.

This blog has been a way to keep everyone updated on what's happening with our adoption process, as well as an outlet for me to vent my frustrations and share our triumphs. It has been about our journey to adopt. But the details about where our child comes from, the reasons for the adoption, the birth family they came from: those details will belong only to our child. And that child should have the right to share those details when and if they choose.

This was one of the topics we discussed in detail at our parenting seminar. Your child should find out the circumstances of their birth from you as a parent, not overhearing other adults chatting about it at group functions. This is not to say that anyone would maliciously bandy about intimate details of your child's life. It's only to say that your child should be the one to choose how much or how little people know about his background. This is obviously very different from birthing a child. You would feel free to enumerate all the gory details of the delivery because you participated in it. It's as much your story as theirs. But with adoption, you have to be much more circumspect about what you can and can't divulge.

When we went to the information meeting at Barker, we met a couple who had adopted their son from Guatemala. Someone in the audience asked a question about his birth family and the wife responded with, "That's his story, so we can't share that information." I didn't understand what she meant until recently. Our child should have the right to privacy and the right to share the details with the people who are important to him (her). So (hopefully soon) we will get to a point where we don't discuss the details of our child's background. You'll just have to wait until they are old enough and ask for yourself.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Seriously?!

One of the cats peed on our kitchen counter last night. ON OUR KITCHEN COUNTER!! We don't know who the culprit is, lacking any visual evidence other than the pee, but we suspect Eva. She does weird stuff like that. We think. Again, lacking any visual evidence, we can only guess based on our knowledge of our cats' personalities.

I don't think it's a medical issue. When the cats are sick, the let us know directly, not round-about. So it's a behavioral thing, but I have no idea why this is cropping up all the sudden. They all have their annual vet appointment in a few weeks, so we'll discuss it with our vet then. In the mean time, we're going to be more vigilant about scooping litterboxes, keeping the counters clean and putting the motion sensor air canisters back up. The cats aren't supposed to be up on the counters at. all. So clearly we need to re-establish some rules in this house.

I feel like my life is kind of a wreck at this point. We have all of our paperwork done, and I'm getting back in to a groove at work, and those are all good things. But our weekends are super busy lately with classes and events and such and I feel like I have even less free/relaxation time. Plus, the house has been in a state of chaos for the past few weeks. It needs a thorough, top to bottom cleaning and I just can't find the time to do it. When the house is a total mess, like it is now, my whole world is in chaos. I need order in the house to have order in my head and right now I have neither.

Sorry for the whining. I'm just flustered lately. I called Barker to get an update on paperwork on Monday and they said our FBI/police clearances had come in, but not our CPS clearances. When I inquired as to how long the wait would be for the CPS clearances, I discovered that Barker hadn't even sent off for them yet! We turned our paperwork in over 2 weeks ago!! How could they not have sent those off yet?! When I pressed for more details, they said they "sent off for the clearances" on Tuesday, but I have no idea if they meant CPS or police/FBI. I have no confidence that any of the clearances are actually in hand at Barker. Good thing I called, otherwise I would have been sitting around waiting god-knows-how-long for clearances that hadn't even been requested yet.

I'm not really sure why all of this has to be such a clusterfuck. Adoption is not new. Barker is not new. Police/FBI/CPS clearances are not new. So why is it like starting from scratch with every single family who applies for adoption? It's so frustrating. This whole process really makes me appreciate the value of patience, but it also makes me appreciate the value of screaming your face off until your voice gives out.

This will all be a hazy memory when we have our child safe at home, but until then it's an uphill struggle. Some days it's an easy grade, some days it's steep. Today is a steep day.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Um... That's new.

Saturday was our all-day adoption parenting workshop/seminar at Barker. Let me tell you: I was exhausted afterward. The seminar was essentially a day-long discussion of all the different topics and issues surrounding adoption. We got a really great perspective on the feelings from the other sides of the adoption triad, the adopted person and the birth family. It's very easy to get caught up in our own journey, as the adopting parents, but there are two other perspectives to consider and hearing what they had to say really allayed a lot of my fears about adopting.

As a parent, the natural instinct is to protect your child. I already feel fiercely protective of our children, so I've been thinking a lot about what I need to prepare for in terms of having an open relationship with the birth family. I've mentioned before that the trend in domestic adoptions is towards at least some degree of openness, generally dictated by the birth family. Having said that, the idea is still in it's infancy (or maybe toddler-hood), so there is still a lot of growing and figuring out how to make these "blended" families work in the best interests of the children. It's a fine line to walk: maintaining your child's sense of identity, maintaining an appropriate level of contact and interaction with the birth family, keeping your child safe from potentially harmful situations... There are a lot of variables. But after hearing the other two perspectives, I felt totally reassured about my place in my child's life. There was no question in the mind of the adopted woman about who her parents are. None. And the birth mother who made an adoption plan for her daughter said something that was such a relief to me. I'm paraphrasing, but she essentially said: "My baby is 7 lbs and a newborn in the hospital. The 8 year old girl I see once a year is Bob and Karen's daughter." (Names made up, of course.)

We talked about many of the potential issues surrounding adoption, but the overall message was that we should be a bit more open and understanding, as parents, than we originally thought we would need be. We have to work hard to insure that our child knows how loved and wanted they are, and we especially have to be respectful of the birth parents. Finding the good and decent and loving aspects of the birth parents, regardless of the good or bad choices they may have made in life is the best way to help your child find the good and decent and loving aspects in themselves. Acting, or worse, thinking, that the birth parents are lazy or irresponsible or bad people conveys an attitude to your child that you find aspects of their character distasteful. Never a good thing in a parent/child relationship. I could go on and on about this, but the short version is that the workshop helped me to resolve some of my own fears about this process and I feel like I came to a place where I can integrate not just a child, but an entire family into my life.

It's a really peaceful and hopeful feeling.

With all the "ups", you knew there had to be a "down", right? One of the (many, many) reasons we chose Barker is because at the information meeting we went to in December, the director told us (the room full of prospective parents) that Barker had never had a birth family (mother) rescind or revoke an adoption during the "legal risk" period. (The period of time - 10 days in VA and DC, 30 days in MD - they have to change their mind after signing away parental rights.) The director explained that Barker had many counseling services in place to make sure the birth mother had thought through and was committed to her decision, and if there were any red flags or warnings that she might change her mind, Barker had foster families that took care of the child until the matter was decided. This was a big relief - we could take our baby home from the hospital and not have to worry about losing that baby in the next 2 weeks.

As I am fond of saying, if it looks to good to be true, it is.

The woman who ran the workshop on Saturday, the former director of the domestic program at Barker and currently an advisor to the director, said something completely different. She said that revocations happen, though not frequently. She said she remembered times when it was only once per year and times when there were 3 per year. Now, granted, when you are talking about 50-60 adoptions per year, 3 isn't bad in terms of a statistical percentage of birth mothers who change their mind. But it's devastating to the adopting parents. It seems to me to be almost like miscarrying. You bring home your child, fall in love, start to bond, and BAM! "Sorry. Changed my mind!"

I want to make it clear that I respect any woman's right to change her mind. Knowing how badly I want to be a parent, I can certainly understand making a plan in your head and then facing a very different reality once the baby is born. I get that. But I really feel like Barker needed to be more explicit about that in the info meeting. Here we've been going blithely along thinking that as soon as we have babe-in-arms, the heavens will part, angels will sing and we'll go off on our happy lives. So finding out that there is a potential for things to go wrong was kind of a punch in the gut to me. The shock of it has worn off somewhat, so I'm feeling okay about it in terms of our plan. We're moving forward and we will handle whatever comes our way. I'm worried about falling in love with someone who will be then taken away, but I know that Barker will try very hard to make sure that doesn't happen. We can all only do our best, so that's what we'll all do. I did mention the discrepancy to them at the workshop, so hopefully they'll have a discussion internally about the dissemination of information. (Also, it wasn't just me. Allen had a distinct memory of the same thing from the info meeting, so I'm confident I didn't mis-hear.)

Adoption requires an enormous amount of trust. Trust in your fellow man, trust in yourself, trust in the system. We trust Barker completely, even given this small bump in the road. We are confident that things will unfold as they should, and are working toward that end. With fingers crossed, just in case.

Interesting final note: out of all the families at the workshop, Allen and I are the farthest along in our journey. We have all our medical forms and other paperwork in, and our last reference is posting today. I also found out today that our FBI and police clearances came in so we are only waiting on Child Protective Services clearances before we schedule the social worker visits. I really need to get moving on the scrapbook. It's hard to sum up yourself, your husband and your marriage in a few pages of photos!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Waiting for test results. (But I don't have TB.)

Let me preface this post with the following warning:

The TB test is not covered by insurance. I had to pay for it up front and then file a claim with my insurance company. The cost of the test is $31.

I don't have TB, but the test is required as part of our medical clearance forms. We both go in tomorrow morning to get the results read and signed off on our paperwork.

By the way, insurance doesn't cover the cost, so I had to pay for it out of pocket. $31.

I thought I'd be in and out yesterday at the doctor's office. I mean, I didn't need anything but a nurse to come in an inject a mystery liquid in my forearm. Then I come back in 2 days to have them confirm that I, in fact, do not have TB. Apparently, at our general practice doctor's office, that takes 2 hours. When my doctor finally came in, a man walked in with her. She introduced him as a visiting doctor from Haiti. She apparently visited Haiti in February and invited one of the doctors to come observe her practice in the US. All fine and good. Except he didn't really look like a doctor. He wasn't wearing a lab coat, and he kind of slouched in the room with his hands in his pockets. I mean, fine, okay, you are a bit nervous, and in a strange place. I get it. But he also had on a short sleeve button up shirt that was kind of "I'm hittin' the bars tonight, lookout ladies!". And his belt buckle... It was huge. And had a big dollar sign on it.

...

I wish I were joking. Thank god I didn't need a physical, though I would have requested that he leave the room before I removed any clothing. He was nice enough when I spoke to him, but I can't, for the life of me, understand why my doctor would not give the man a lab coat for professional appearances sake?! I think we need a new doctor. That place is shady.

By the way, did I mention that I had to pay for the TB test out of pocket because insurance doesn't cover it? $31.

I keep mentioning this because I was told this very thing not once, not twice but four separate times yesterday. I guess they felt the need to fill up the hours I spent there with useless information? I was told when I checked in. When I was brought back to the exam room. When the doctor and Dr. Bling from Haiti came to check on me. When the nurse came to actually administer the test. By the end I was like, "Yes! I know! $31!"

New doctor. Definitely.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Two weeks and two phone calls later...

Part of the homestudy requires a medical clearance. Basically, you get a physical and your doctor signs off that you don't have any major health issues. You also have extensive blood work done and a tuberculosis test. I'm not sure what happens if you have HIV or TB - they ask about those two things specifically - but I'm not going to worry about that, as I have neither.

I had extensive blood work done a few months ago as part of our infertility evaluation. Allen had some blood tests done, too, but his weren't as complete so he has to have another done. I called the infertility clinic two weeks ago to request that they send our blood work to our respective doctors so we could get our medical clearance done. So, naturally, they did nothing and didn't call me back. Awesome. So I put in another call at the end of last week, this time requesting that they send the results to us, since we need copies to give to Barker, anyway. I was prepared to write an uppity post today where I called and raised hell about how they want to talk to you yesterday if you want to spend $20,000 on IVF but don't have time to return your calls otherwise. Luckily, that post is unnecessary since our nurse called back this morning to say she put the paperwork in the mail today. No apology for ignoring the first request, but at this point I just want my blood work results and I want to be done with the fertility clinic.

The only thing missing from my file now is the TB test. Which I had scheduled for this morning - or so I thought. Turns out, my appointment is tomorrow. I found that out when I checked in to the doctor's office this morning. Allen's appointment is today... I think.

And three out of four reference letters have been turned in! The homestudy is going so fast and relatively smoothly. I'm a little worried that we're using up all our adoption karma too early and we'll have to wait longer for our child as a result. Silly, I know, but throw some salt over your shoulder for us, just in case.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

It's in the mail!

We just mailed off a huge packet of paperwork to Barker! All that's left, on our end, is getting medical clearance from our doctors. We have our adoption/parenting seminar next weekend, and we should be scheduling our social worker visits some time in the next few weeks. We're done with our paperwork, I'm having a bang-up week at work, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1 came in the mail from Netflix today.

Today is an awesome day.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Oh yeah, one more thing.

I called Barker again. I swear, those people seem to not understand email or voicemail, but they are great if you can just get them on the phone. I had a chat with the program assistant about smoke detectors and fingerprints and fees and CPS clearance forms. You have to get clearance from Child Protective Services for every state you've lived in for the past five years for domestic adoption, so we still needed the South Carolina CPS forms. And those forms need to be notarized, naturally. So last night we sat down and went through all of our paperwork and got everything together. We filled out our financial forms, which was a long, tedious process, we dated everything that hadn't been dated yet, we made copies of birth and marriage certificates, social security cards and vet records, we finished our autobiographies and we addressed all the envelopes. We are 99% done with paperwork. Today we are getting the SC form notarized, and we still have medical forms to get filled out by our doctors, but otherwise we are done. It feels really good to check that off our to-do list.

Once all of our paperwork is in, Barker sends off for our FBI/police and CPS clearances. Once those come back, our med forms come in and our references come in, we are ready to schedule our home visits with the social worker. We have 1 meeting in our home with the social worker and both of us, one meeting each with her at the Barker main office (but they are scheduled back-to-back so we only have to make one trip), and she has one meeting with our "in person" reference. We have some pretty amazing friends who volunteered to have a face-to-face interview with the social worker to attest to our character. It's a big thing to ask of someone, and we're really lucky to know such kind-hearted people.

So... Fees. Barker charges a sliding scale for domestic adoption. Basically, we make more, so we should pay more. I see no problem with this arrangement. Allen and I current place in the highest bracket on their fee scale (DINKs... sigh.). The only problem, for us, is that I am quitting my job soon. This will literally halve our household income. We've taken steps to insure that we can survive and thrive on less, but coming up with the balance due at the end of our journey might be a bit more difficult with only one incoming salary. It's basically a $10,000 difference. Luckily, Barker is willing to discuss changing our fee if and when our income changes. (No guarantees, but at least they'll have the conversation with us.) If we get a placement before then, (fingers crossed!!) it won't be an issue. It only becomes an issue once I've quit.

So, in case you were wondering, these are the forms you need to fill out as part of your homestudy:

CPS record release forms for each state you've lived in for the last 5 years (VA and SC for each of us - 4 documents total)
FBI/police records release forms (for each)
medical clearance forms signed by your doctor (for each)
a self-check medical history form witnessed by your doctor (for each)
financial disclosure forms - assets/liabilities and monthly budget/expenses (for household)
Fee schedule document (fees to our agency)
service agreement document (legal liabilities and responsibilities for us and the agency)
corporal punishment document (we agree to not use corporal punishment on our child)
vaccination document (we agree to vaccinate our child)
firearm safety document (we agree to follow legal safety protocols for any firearms in the house)
home safety checklist (working phone, smoke detectors, fire exits, etc.)
fingerprints
autobiography for each (a 4 page essay on you, your life, your marriage, so the agency can "get to know you" better)

copies of: birth certificates, marriage certificate, vet records

Some of these forms, like the vaccination/corporal punishment/firearms forms, might be unique to our agency, rather than a standardized set. I'm not sure. But basically, if you decide to adopt, you can expect something along those lines. My best advice: keep detailed financial records. You'll need them. Thank goodness Allen keeps such awesome financial records.

It seems daunting, but it really went pretty fast. We are getting everything in the mail to them tomorrow, and then we wait. Our references and medical forms should be in sometime in the next two weeks or so, and I think we'll be scheduling our social worker visits by the first week of June. Everything is gaining momentum (whew!), so I really need to get working on our profile book!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A good start.

I jumped a big hurdle yesterday in my work block. I finished a case that had been plaguing me for weeks and it felt really good. I have meetings all day today, but I really need to keep the momentum going so I can salvage the tattered remnants of my career before they blow away on the breeze. One case down, 213 to go. Roughly.

In other news, I'm a bit irked at Barker. I've left voicemails and sent emails asking some pretty relevant questions about our paperwork and have gotten zero response. I did this last week, so you'd think I'd have heard something by now. In fact, the only thing I have heard from them is that we owe them $2,000 for the privledge of the in-person interview.

...

If you have the chutzpah to send me a bill for two grand for talking to someone for an hour, you damn well better return my freaking phone calls. Even therapists for super-mega-wealthy people don't charge that. I'm just sayin'. I've been wavering on whether to call them again. I hate to be "that girl" who calls all the time, but my sweet friend pointed out that we essentially hired them to do a job and are paying them accordingly and as such, they should be communicating with us. So, I'm calling them today. And every day until someone answers my questions.

I'm a little worried that I'm over-reacting as a result of being in a heightened emotional state. We've been on emotional "Orange" for a while now,  so I try to temper my reactions accordingly. But since these questions have to do with the paperwork that we are sending to them this week, and getting something wrong on said paperwork means delays and set-backs, well, I think it's okay to be pissed that they seem to have lost my number.

Definitely calling them today.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Signed, sealed, but not yet delivered.

The 'V' key on my laptop is sticking. It's getting pretty irritating. I may have to pry the key off and see if I can figure out what's wrong. Or, you may have to endure words missing the 'v'...

This past week was the "week of getting paperwork together". I already filled it all out, but we had to get things notarized, and we had to get fingerprinted. We also still need to get physicals, but the appointments are already made.

Our first stop last week was for fingerprinting. I had an inkling that this was going to be an issue since I had to go back and get re-printed 4 times before I could get clearance at my job. I was irritated at the time, but now I know the reason. Apparently, my fingers are a mess. I have scars and creases on my pads - the result of a combination of dry (extremely dry) skin and years of abuse. I do a lot with my hands: I routinely cut my fingernails down to the quick, I knit, sew, scrapbook - all manner of dexterous activities - I waited tables for years in college, I cook (and therefore burn my fingers) frequently, and I spent about 4 years doing dishes by hand every single day. (Don't ask.)

In the end, the fingerprint tech had to re-take my prints about 3 or 4 times. There were a few fingers that simply would not register an acceptable print, and in the end, she was forced to write "best prints possible" on my fingerprint card. I have a feeling that's going to come back as not okay. Allen's prints, on the other hand (ha), were perfect. We also learned a few interesting facts: fingerprints are only meaningful if you've been arrested in the last 12 months, and there is no national database of fingerprints in the US. I know! TV lied to us! Though I'm still convinced that the FBI has something in the way of permanent records... Just sayin'.

The notary was much easier. Three documents, $2 each and we're done. Two money orders for CPS stuff and fingerprint stuff and we're done. I think we'll likely send off a packet to Barker of what we have so far, and then send off our medical forms separately next week.

One of our references mentioned that they received their forms yesterday, so I imagine all of our references should hear from Barker soon, if they haven't already. Once all our forms are in, and all our references are in, we'll start scheduling appointments with the social worker for home visits and interviews. The main take-away point is: I expect us to be done with our homestudy by mid-June at the latest. In the meantime, I've also been collecting photos to start our profile scrapbook. I need to do a quick perusal of my scrapbooking supplies, but on the whole, I think I've got everything I need. It's all starting to come together pretty fast and I couldn't be more excited about it.

Man, you never realize how many times you use 'v' until the damn key starts malfunctioning...

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Tired and unmotivated.

I have not been getting enough sleep. I've been staying up late and sleeping in as a result, and it has to stop. I am also really, really unmotivated at work. That also needs to stop. I keep telling myself that next week will be different, but thus far, that has not been true. I'm really tired of being tired. I feel like most of my adult life has been me saying, "I'm tired." I think it has to do with the complete lack of exercise. Gotta get on that.

I feel a certain amount of pressure to stay at my job as long as possible to pay off student loans and rebuild savings. But I have a list of (literally) 50 other things that need to be done/I'd rather be doing. The bad news is that I sit in front of my computer all day goofing around on the Internet because I feel like if I sit at my desk, I'll do work. (Which is untrue.) Consequently, neither my work nor my housework gets done. It's a vicious cycle. If I'm not going to do my work, I should at least be doing something else productive. But the minute I start I feel bad for abandoning my desk. This will be moot in a few more months, but how do I make it until then?

I need to climb out of this funk and get to work.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A hope-full day.

This is not a political blog, nor do I ever intend it to be. I try, on the whole, to stay out of politics. I have issues that I'm passionate about, to be sure, but I try very hard to not force my opinions on anyone. But, as it's my little corner of the Interwebs, I really wanted to share this video from the Minnesota State Legislature. Rep. Steve Simon is so eloquent and so logical and rational in his argument. He does something that my sister is great about doing: he poses a question and asks each of us to explore the answer, in degrees, for ourselves. In a time, maybe even an era at this point, of political, economic and occasionally personal turmoil, his message is one that fills me with hope. He envisions a future of justice and righteousness that includes everyone. You know that flutter in your chest when the orchestra swells and your heart feels like it will leap out of your chest with joy? That's how I felt watching his speech. (Also, props to the separation of church and state.)

"How many gay people must God create before we accept that he wants them around?"

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Crazy dreams.

I had a dream last night that I took a pregnancy test and it came up positive. I got really excited so I took another and it was positive, too, but the indicator was weird. I said something like "near peak" instead of just being a plus sign. I looked again and realized I had been taking ovulation predictor tests. I felt really embarrassed and let down and I tried to sweep everything in the trash before Allen saw so his hopes wouldn't get raised.

It was such a weird dream. Allen couldn't care less about having a biological child. He prefers adoption. He wouldn't say no to a bio kid, obviously, but it was such an irrational thing for dream-me to worry about given that real-him doesn't put much stock in biology.

This is part of the reason I didn't want to go down the "infertility" path. First: You can't un-know. Once you know something is actually wrong with you, it gnaws at your brain. Even when you are asleep. Second: It puts me in this weird limbo of kind of mourning not being able to get pregnant but also really excited about adoption. It makes me feel a bit defensive when I talk to people about adoption because it isn't a last resort for us. It's not like we tried and tried and tried and finally "gave up". We always wanted to adopt. But because I have investigated the reasons behind not getting pregnant, I feel like I have to justify myself.

Would I like to get pregnant? Of course. Do I need to get pregnant? Absolutely not. I'm going to chalk this up to jitters since we are finally and irrevocably on our way to adopting. Our paperwork is almost finished - just need a few fingerprints and physicals. So maybe this is just my crazy brain getting excited about adopting but scared that it will fall through? I'm actually willing to bet that's it. I got pregnant and had a miscarriage, so maybe I'm a little scared that we might have an adoptive miscarriage, too.

At any rate, I'm just feeling lucky that I didn't accidentally wet the bed after a long, drawn out dream about peeing on a stick. That would have been tough to explain.

Crisis.

I found a gray hair. In my bangs.

That dog won't hunt, Monsignor.

Monday, May 2, 2011

A problem of perception.

The girl I see in my head and the girl I see in the mirror don't match. I know this is a common problem for women (and men!) in general, but I sort of just realized the gap in my perception. It's pretty large.

In my head, I am young, trim, dare I say sexy? In my head I see a girl from around 2003. She weighed less than I do, she was confident. She loved shopping for clothes.

The girl in the mirror? Not so much. It's kind of backwards from typical perception issues. Most women see themselves as fat and ugly when they are not. 

But the sad truth of the matter is that I am overweight. I've been overweight for a while now, but I kept thinking this issue would rectify itself. I went vegan, and though it wasn't the primary reason, I figured I'd lose some weight as a result. Maybe the fact that I haven't means I am doing it right? Either that or I love food a little too much. I've also been using conception as an excuse to avoid getting in shape. I kept thinking I would get pregnant and I'd need to stop working out anyway, so I might as well just be proactive in my laziness.

Now that we are starting our homestudy, officially, I have realized that it's time to stop making excuses and get off my butt. I'm tired of being overweight. I'm tired of my clothes not fitting right, and I'm tired of dressing like a slob to hide how ashamed I am of my body. I swore up and down that I wouldn't be one of those moms who look tired and disheveled all the time, but I look tired and disheveled all the time anyway! It's time to put the excuses away and be the person I want to be.

The girl in my head and the one in the mirror can be the same girl. Now I'm off to the gym. Right after I finish this cupcake... (hah)