Torrefaction

If you've seen my LJ blog you'll already know that we did, at last, adopt a baby.  Charlie was born in Indiana to parents who are here temporarily from China, so this is a cross-cultural and sortof-international open newborn adoption!  We're ecstatic and Charlie is the greatest baby ever.  The whole saga is written up over on my livejournal, http://marydell.livejournal.com, tagged "adoption."

We still plan to go to China in a couple of years to adopt a baby girl--our LID is 12/11/06 and the CCAA marches on.  We'll need to update our paperwork to re-do our expired immigration stuff under the new Hague regs, and to reflect the new shape of the family, but with luck it'll all work out.  

Posted by alchemist at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We got our foster home license!  We need this for a domestic adoption, because for the first few months of the placement we only have physical custody, not legal custody.  The agency has legal custody until the adoption is finalized.  For China the adoption would be finalized right away so the licensing isn't needed. 

So we're licensed through 2012, for 2 children.  It's weird to see it on paper - a license for the future we're hoping for.   

Posted by alchemist at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Our home study is nearly done - done enough that our Illinois social worker is ready to start showing our profile to folks, even though we can't activate with our Indiana agency until it's 100% done.  Apparently it's ok to work with more than one agency as long as everyone knows when your profile is being shown so they don't double-show you.

So far we've been shown to one potential mom, who didn't pick us.  Another potential mom is on the horizon. If someone does pick us, then we wait until the baby is born to see if she decides to place or not.  It's going to be a long, nerve-wracking few months/year.  This is why I didn't want to do domestic in the first place...but.  I keep reminding myself not to make it about me.   I'm wishing for it to happen quickly, and not to cause me too much pain, but I'm not praying for that.  My prayer is, "let the woman who needs me, find me."  For that to happen I have to be more open, more trusting, and have more faith, than I would have believed I could be.

Let the woman who needs me, find me.
 

Posted by alchemist at 06:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We turned in all of our paperwork for our Home Study update, and the paperwork to the placement agency, and we went to the doctor, and all that jazz.  We have a couple more classes to go to, and then the HS will be completed and we'll be "activated," which means we'll be waiting for a placement.

Yesterday we sat down and budgeted to figure out where all of the different fees and costs are coming from. We'll be maxing out our credit, most likely, but it's doable, and we feel very fortunate to be in the position we're in.  Benefit of being middle-aged, I guess--our careers are in full swing, and things are going pretty well, financially.

So now I'm just trying to get a handle on having some kind of rhythm to my life while we wait.  I went for a run today, and I went two days ago, and with perseverence I can get back into my every-other-day habit that I worked up to before it got cold.  I have art projects to finish, and I have a lot of overtime to put in at the office, getting things ready for me to be gone for 4 weeks or maybe a little more.  So it's not like I won't stay busy.  But I've been doing paperwork for a couple of months straight, so it's odd to be back in the no-paper zone again.  

Posted by alchemist at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that the Xmas madness has abated, I can tally up what's to do next in adoption-land.

1. get fingerprinted for DCFS license - DONE.  Waiting for results.

2. send DCFS paperwork to SW - DONE except for med forms, which can follow later

3. see doctor on Feb 2 (self) and Feb 11 (hub) to get med forms filled out.  For China adoption, med forms require HIV status, TB test, assorted other stuff.  For DCFS, it's mostly about whether you can lift a child and if you're likely to die before 18 years from now.  No blood work, apparently.  Whew. Because Tanya, my doctor's needle tech, is great, but she skips my shy elbow veins and goes in through the back of my hand.  Which HURTS. 

4. take cat to vet for new rabies shot.  Need to do before SW visit so we have paperwork for her.

5. verify that batteries in smoke detectors are up to date

6. install bannister - DONE.  This wasn't strictly necessary, but when you show your SW around the house and wave a hand at the basement stairs and say "we're going to put in a bannister soon" it's probably good to do it before her next visit a year-and-a-half later.

7. re-caulk the basement shower.  Okay, ridiculous, SW won't care, but it really needs it, so we may as well tie that task to the adoption because then we'll get it done soon.

8. Go to Indy to meet with placement agency and get paperwork started with them, Jan 5.  EEK

9. reserve hotel for Indy trip - yeah, really gotta do that, like NOW.

10. write "dear birthmother" letter, a task which squicks me on several levels.  To be discussed in a future post, no doubt.

11. apply for 401k loan, which will cover about half the cost of the adoption.  Our already-existing home equity line of credit (taken out for the China adoption) should cover the other half.  Just in case, I also applied for an extra credit card, which hopefully will arrive soon.

12. re-work budget to figure out how to make the payments on the loans (totally doable) and daycare (doable with some sacrifices), possibly for twins (maybe not doable). (also totally unlikely to happen, but we need to know how we'd answer the question, should opportunity arise).

13. Take the online "conspicuous families" course recommended by our SW, soon

14.  Take the local workshop on adoption & child development recommended by our SW, Feb 23

15. SW visit.  She's been here before, so this is a followup/update visit.  Probably will happen sometime in January.

16. Talk to my bosses to let them know I might need some unexpected FMLA leave in 2008 - DONE

17. Talk to my staff to let them know I might be vanishing for a month - will do that once the process is underway.

18. Hub has to talk to his bosses and find out if they do paid paternity leave at his company.  If not, he has a lot of vacation he can take.

And in the land of China adoption, there's just one thing to do right now, and one to do later:

1. decide if we're going to file a new I-600, or if we let the I-171H expire and re-file in a couple of years when we're closer to a match

-and later- 

2. decide if we're going to stay in the China program at all.  Yeah, I said it.  We'll decide this AFTER, and if, we complete a domestic adoption.

Posted by alchemist at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today is both our wedding anniversary (8 years) and the 1-year anniversary of our LID date.  We're celebrating the wedding thing by cleaning house and doing laundry - we're always busy in December, so we celebrate our anniversary in May instead.  We started dating on Memorial Day Weekend so that works much better for celebration.

As for the LID date...Our LID is December 11 of 2006.  As of this month, CCAA has matched folks through December 14 of *2005.*  They've been doing between 6 and 8 calendar days per month.  At that rate it will be approximately...[calculates]...one million years before we get a match.  So we celebrated by filling out paperwork for our DCFS clearance, and I'm sending it to our SW today.  This process will hopefully be a little faster, without interfering with the China process.  We shall see.

Posted by alchemist at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The wait time for China has gotten completely ridiculous, as anyone else waiting knows.  If you're reading this because you're applying for a China adoption right now, PLEASE go read ChinaAdoptTalk for a while before moving forward.  Agencies are telling people the wait is 18-24 months or so; what they mean is people who are in China getting their babies right now have waited for 24 months.  People applying now are going to wait longer than that.

Hub and I have been waiting for 12 months, and we expect to wait another 2 to 4 YEARS from now before we travel.  Fortunately, China has explicitly said that if you adopt another child during the wait interval, it will not jeopardize your China adoption.  So instead of China baby being our first child...we think she should be our second.

So.  I've always wanted to adopt an african-american baby.  I like the idea of being an interracial family (hence China), and this is something I've thought about since long before I got married or started trying to conceive.  But over the years, I started to be unsure whether that's a good idea.  Some years back, the National Association of Black Social Workers famously characterized placement of black children in white families as "cultural genocide" and opposed it in every case.   And the difficulties of being black in america are so far beyond those of being asian, (both of which are so different from the white privelege I've always experienced) I've never been sure I would be able to teach a child to adequately navigate that.

But over the past two years, an interesting thing has happened. Every time I tell one of my white friends I'm adopting a Chinese baby, they praise me for my goodness (which, of course, has nothing to do with it - I just want a baby, damnit, and orphan adoption is my first choice...more on that down below).  When I tell one of my black friends, their reactions range from a polite "oh, really? interesting. Why not a black baby?" to a fairly angry "HUH? why not black?" 

So as we've been considering our options, I've been asking my black friends directly what they would think if we adopted a black baby.  ALL of them have been way beyond encouraging.  Not just "yes, do it," but "I'll help you, they'll have me as a resource, I know you're going to teach them to know their culture, it'll be great."  And "do it right away."  Total strangers at a party last night...WAY beyond encouraging.  There was a black social worker at the party and he said that he places children in interracial situations because children need love, they need to be taught, they need to be raised so they can accomplish things, and racial identity is secondary. 

Over the year I've been waiting for China I've done more research, and it seems like the "cultural genocide" idea is pretty hotly disputed; the NAACP came down on the opposide side of the debate, saying you can't deny a child a family based on his race.  And I've read that a lot of black american children are being adoped by white people in europe and canada, because they don't have enough parents here.  So they're losing their culture and their nation.

So we went and got fresh fingerprints, and I'm filling out paperwork to update our home study, and it's looking like we're going to do this.  By the time we go to China to get our "first" child, we could have a 2-year-old "second" child in tow.

The kicker is that this will be an open adoption, which is scary, scary, scary, but also the only right way to do a non-orphan adoption, in my opinion.  I have a family member who is a birth mother in a closed adoption, and I never, NEVER want to put anyone through anything like that.  I don't want to put anyone through being a birth/first mom in an open adoption, either, because from what I can tell, relinquishment is hell, pure and simple.  But some people don't have a choice, and hopefully we can craft something that will work without screwing anybody over.

More updates as we get our paperwork going and get 100% settled on our choice. 

Posted by alchemist at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So...the pace of referrals (even assuming this recent month was a fluke) is verrrry slow.  I'm expecting it to take between two and three YEARS before we have a match. 

So: waah, wahh, waaaah.  And that's all the whining I'm going to do, here in my blog anyway.  I'm also not going to be thinking about it any more than I have to.  I'm going to be concentrating on other stuff, and doing my best to enjoy childfree living, until I'm not childfree any more.  I'll be blogging about the other things in my life - writing, art, gardening, etc.  If that's not your bag, well, no hard feelings!   Stop back in a couple of years and hopefully I'll have some good news to report. 

Posted by alchemist at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...so the new requirements everyone's talking about will not affect us.  They probably wouldn't anyway - the ones I've read about so far, at least.  But it's nice to be done.  Our LID date is also our anniversary which we took as a good sign, even though we, as usual, totally forgot that it was our anniversary.  Who has time to celebrate in December anyway?  What were we thinking, getting married in December?

So...we're glad we're finally done with the paperchase.  For now anyway.  Other than that am a bit numb, possibly from all the christmas shopping.

Posted by alchemist at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My first attempt at NaNoWriMo was a bust, although a few good things came out of it.  I did find a couple of quiet places that I like to sit and write...and I found that I can force myself to write a little bit even when I'm completely stressed out.  The family medical situation is still lingering, three divorces are underway among our circle of friends, my new job is still a source of confusion to me as I try to figure out all of my new responsibilities and hand off my old ones.  But at least I'm not working on our dossier any more.

It was Christmas last year when we had to admit we were beaten, and that we were going to have to set aside the (failed) notion of getting pregnant in order to treat my ever-worsening menstrual cramps.  After years of TTC it was a relief to throw myself into the adoption process.  But now the main part of the process is done.  In about a year I'll need to get an updated home study so I can get a second I-171H when the first one expires, because the total wait for a referral will probably be 2 years or so.  So I'm in limbo now, and I'm trying really hard to see it as a nice break from thinking about baby stuff.  Yes, I still have tasks to do like painting the baby's room and buying furniture, but there's no hurry.  I'd rather open the door of that room and think "jeez, I really need to paint that," than see a finished nursery with no baby in it.  I had enough of that with the room (now our guest room) we originally painted for the baby I never got pregnant with.

So soon it'll be a new year, with nothing baby-related to do all year long. No morning pee tests, no ovulation predictor, no social worker, no blood draws, no medical techs, no financial reporting, no notaries, no paperwork.  What the hell am I going to do with myself?

Posted by alchemist at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by alchemist at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our China Adoption Dossier
Originally uploaded by marydell.

Posted by alchemist at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally got all of the papers together, notarized, and certified by the secretary of state.  I walked them into the Chinese Consulate for authentication, thinking I'd ask for "rush" processing - you know, while-U-wait.  Then I saw the prices.  Regular processing (4 days): $20 per document.  2-3 day processing: add $30 per document.  Same/Next day processing: add $50 per document.  So I could pick them up in 24 hours for a price of $70 per document.  Now, if this is a passport application or other single doc, sure, no biggie.  But since I have 16 documents in my heap, I opted to wait until next Thursday to pick them up.

On the plus side, they were very nice, and when the gal at the window told me I needed to turn in a photocopy of my home study along with the original, she pointed me to a photocopier that was right there and waited while I made the copy.  So I got glared at a bit by people in line behind me but didn't have to go through the (LONG) drop-off line twice. Good thing I had some change in my pocket for the copier.

The other nice thing was meeting a Chinese family in the elevator.  The mom had a young baby girl in a carrier, and there was another girl of about 3 with them, as well as a teenage girl.  I, of course, kind of fixated on the baby and said "what a pretty baby" to the mom and dad.  Then, feeling the baleful eye of a jealous toddler upon me, I said "you're very pretty too!" to the very pretty 3-year-old.  At that point the dad smiled and said, with enormous pride in his voice, "Three daughters!" and "big family!"  I smiled and said "wow, that's great!" and then we were all happily on our way out of the building.  It was a nice little encounter.

Posted by alchemist at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Notary is coming to my house tonight to notarize a bunch of paperwork.  This is more expensive than going to a regular, 9-to-5 at the currency exchange notary, but what I get is someone who knows what an adoption dossier is, knows what "true copy" notarization is, and comes to my house in the evening after work.  Yay.  Now I just have to stop pacing around while I wait.

In the land of paperwork, we're still waiting for the doctor's forms to be done...apparently hepatitis tests take FOREVER...and I had to fedex my birth certificate to Indiana last night to get it certified by the Indiana secretary of state.  Apparently you can't just certify state documents in whatever state you happen to be living in right now; they have to be certified in their state of origin.  Duh.  I would have known this earlier if I'd read all the way through my agency's dossier guide a month ago, or if I had called them to ask stuff, but I just couldn't stand to while we were waiting for the I-171H.  *slaps self*

The nice thing is that when you call the Indiana secretary of state authentication office with a question, you get a real live person who puts down the phone and toddles off to ask the girl who knows, and comes back with the answer you need.  Ahh.

Posted by alchemist at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I decided to take our local police letters, which come pre-notarized, to the Secretary of State's office to get them certified. The walk-in service office in Chicago is on State street between Old Navy and Filene's, across from Nordstrom Rack.  Know your Chicago Landmarks.  It's in a building shared by the Joffrey Ballet and a couple other businesses.

When I walk into the building, I see that the lobby is full of beautiful vintage light fixtures and brass and whatnot.  Every other light fixture has a pink bulb in it, which is presumably because October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, but I take the pretty pink and white, and the presence of a reknowned ballet company, as a sign that the gods of Architecture, anyway, are smiling on my efforts to adopt a little girl.  A little girl who will be raised as an ardent feminist like her mother and who will possibly have no use for ballet or the color pink, but still.  I'll take any good omen I can get.

The Secretary of State's office is predictably grey and dreary, but there's only one person in line ahead of me so I'm still feeling optimistic.  I fill out a form requesting certification of the documents - not a very complex form, but I forget what it says on it.  As I give it to the gal behind the counter I'm expecting a barrage of questions ranging from "certification? What are you talking about?" to "who do you think you are, trying to adopt a child!?!!"  Instead, she says "four dollars" and lets me figure out for myself that I should go sit down and wait for my name to be called.  About 5 minutes later, they call me and give me my certified docs. 

So, I still have to do this with all the other docs, once they're notarized, and I still have to take everything to the Chinese consulate to have them seal it.  So I'm anxious about all that but not nearly so much as before.  Practice is good.

With luck we can pick up the doctor forms tomorrow.  If so, the "mobile notary" will come to my house on Tuesday night and notarize the whole dossier, and then I can walk it through the next steps.

Posted by alchemist at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, the fun of paperchasing.  So, we got our new police letters.  Now we're just waiting on the doctor letters - we had blood drawn on Saturday, so results will be in on Wednesday.  I need to make appointments for us to see the doc so we can get the paperwork filled out as soon as the blood results come back. 

For getting everything sealed, I've found a mobile notary who's heard of an adoption dossier (all of my notary friends say "huh?" when I talk about the whole "true copy" thing) and will do the whole dossier for $100.  So once I have everything I'll have her notarize it and I can have it sealed.  One thing that will make all this easier is that I'm in Chicago, so I'll be able to walk things through the secretary of state and Chinese consulate myself.

In the meantime, my options are:

1. take the items that are already notarized to get sealed, so I can discover in advance if there are any glitches in the process, thereby hopefully avoiding another delay next week when I have everything

2. wait and get everything sealed together, so I can avoid having seals expire if there's a significant delay with the doctor or some other surprise

I'm leaning toward taking the police letters, which are relatively easy to get more of (as long as we don't, y'know, embark upon a life of crime), through the seal process.  It would kill me to lose another two weeks at this point.  But I'm so wigged about it all I'm kind of paralyzed. I guess I'll decide tomorrow.

Posted by alchemist at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WITH RAGE AND FRUSTRATION, not with joy.  We finally got our I-171H on Friday.  So now we can pull everything together into a dossier and get it notarized and sealed and send it to CCAI (our agency).  Joy!  EXCEPT!  I see in our handy CCAI Dossier Guide that the dates on the doctor's form must be LESS than 6 months old in order to get the seal from the Chinese consulate.  We've been at this paperchase thing since February*, so we are FUCKED and have to go back to the doctor for another physical and more bloodwork.  So I get to blow more of my precious vacation time, money, and blood just to get the SAME DAMN THING over again.  And since the I-171H is only good for 18 months, even a short delay is A BIG FUCKING PROBLEM.

FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!  I am so unbelievably discouraged. 

*"3 to 6 months," MY ASS 

Posted by alchemist at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's been 7 weeks since our fingerprint appointment.  This is one week too long!  We should have heard something from USCIS by now!

I know, I know, 6 weeks is the minimum.  It  can take up to 12 weeks.  And given how long the wait is once we get our dossier finished, this is nothin'.  But it's got me worrying that the gummint is going to say "no!" to our adoption.  Ugh.  I hate waiting.

It doesn't help that I went to a baby shower Friday (a really laid back, enjoyable one, where people talked mainly about their dogs and remodelling their houses...but still a baby shower) and then spent Sunday with my MIL who wants us to hurry up and get our baby already, because she's not getting any younger.  Yeah...neither am I.  And my mom and dad are nearly 80, so I'm well aware that some people may not be around any more by the time we bring the baby home.  But...it's not like I can do anything about it.  And it seems to me that other people bitching to me about the wait is roughly equivalent to saying "what?  You're STILL not pregnant?"

Ah, I'm cranky today.  Waah, waah, waah.  Hopefully that will clear up in the next SIX OR EIGHT FUCKING WEEKS when I maybe maybe get that last piece of paper.

 

Posted by alchemist at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

All right, I guess it's my turn to invoke the wrath of assorted commentors...it's going around blogland right now.  For refs, see recent chatter at The Naked Ovary and at The Thin Pink Line and Wet Feet.

Anyway, let me start off by saying I'm ecstatic for Karen and for all adoptive parents who finally get a referral. Ec-fucking-static.  And I long for the day when that will be me. We're nearly done with our paperchase, and after that we're staring down the barrell of a wait that's getting longer daily.  I haven't ridden the infertility-go-round as long or as hard as a lot of other barren chicks, but TTC took such a toll on me & our relationship that we had to move out of our damn bedroom and into the former guest room because I just feel too unhappy in my old room.  And I loved, loved, loved that room five years ago when I painted it and got started trying to fill our new house with babies.  So I have had my share of pain in this, and there's more coming.

But I also feel a ton of empathy for women and men who dont' get to raise their children.  I can't imagine how painful that must be, but I REALLY REALLY TRY TO IMAGINE IT.  I believe this is my DUTY as a future mother, because my child will need to know everything she can about her first parents.  So I ask questions, and I read blogs, and I sit and think about it.  I'm not a saint; not by a long shot.  I don't want to share my child with another woman, no matter what.  But I HAVE TO!  I asked my body for a baby, and it told me to FUCK OFF.  So I'm asking the universe to bring me a child by another route, and that means I have to sacrifice something--a lot of somethings.

The main thing I have to give up - that I think all adoptive parents have to sacrifice - is the standard concept of family.  Adoption is not exactly the same as biological parenthood...it's just fricken not!  It's not WORSE, but it's not identical.  You're re-making your idea of family and of parenting when you adopt, and unless you're willing to do that, you'll always feel weird and uncomfortable about your child's origins and the underlying truth of the relationship.  I think loving a child means loving the parents who bore her, no matter how uncomfortable that is; no matter how unlikely it is that you'd have a relationship with them any other way.  The adoptions that I've seen that work the best are the ones that accept and adapt to the new reality of what family will be, rather than saying it's just another variant on the biological family.  I will never tell my daughter that I "carried her in my heart" or any of that, because I don't know her!  Another woman is carrying her, maybe right now, and that's the truth of the matter.

You know, I read the saddest story. It's being presented as a happy story - twins adopted separately from China, reunited because their adoptive parents found each other. Which is great for the twins, sort of, but here's the thing--they were abandoned separately. The first one was a day old, and perfectly healthy; the second one was left in the same spot a week later, and had a heart defect, so was adopted as a "waiting child" a year after her healthy sister was adopted. And here's what kills me about the story--if they were abandoned like that, it must be that the parents chose one child, because that's all they could manage, and gave up the other child. And then a week later they found out that the chosen child was sick, and so they couldn't manage to keep her either. How horrible to have to make that choice twice, and to know that you had given away the healthy child (who you could maybe afford to keep) and couldn't help the sick child. AUGH!!! What horrible, horrible circumstances that these people are in, and what horrible choices they have to make.

The comfort in all of this is that I feel like I'm in a partnership now, a partnership with a woman I may never meet.  She's going to have to make an excruciating choice, and leave her child in the hands of fate. And I'm going to be there to catch her, to catch her child, to make it so that, whether she knows it or not, her child will survive and be safe, and be loved, and learn to love her.  So I'm not alone in this process that basically flays everyone who goes through it.  And neither is she.  I hung Buddhist prayer flags for the baby's mother and father in the room that will eventually belong to the baby, because those prayers are carried on the wind--I don't need to know who to pray for; the wind will take them where they need to go.

So, the key to empathy?  Don't confuse it with guilt.  You see, I'm confident that I'm doing the right thing.  I'm helping out a child who needs help, and hopefully easing a spiritual wound for a woman whose burdens are heavier than mine.  I feel happy that I'm eventually going to be a mom, and sad that she's going to lose her child, all at the same time.  It's not difficult to feel this, although it makes me ache.  I'd love to feel pure happiness, but that went out the window along with my fertility, and so this more complex, layered feeling is the one I'm going to have for the rest of my life.  And that's how it should be.

Posted by alchemist at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

We just got our fingerprint referral letters from USCIS!  This is basically our "ticket" to get our fingerprints taken (for the 3rd time) so that USCIS can check us out.  The home study just went to them so this is much sooner than we expected.  I'M SO FREAKIN EXCITED!  For some reason the home study being done just didn't really register as a big milestone, whereas this...I guess beauracracy just turns me on!

So I've heard this reffered to as the fingerprint "appointment" but it looks like we just show up whenever it's convenient (within the hours the place is open).  So we're going to go next Saturday morning (unless I can manage to squeeze it in before then).  The letter says we have to go within eighty-four days of receieving the notice, or they'll our request.  Um, yeah. I think we can manage it.

Eeep!  So exciting!

Posted by alchemist at 06:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eep! We received our completed Home Study, which our SW has also sent to USCIS.  Woo Hoo!  Yikes! I guess it's all for real now.  In about 6 weeks we should receive our I-171H (or a big stamp that says "NO." 

I can't say that the apparent 12-and-growing wait time for a match isn't getting me down, but I'm trying hard to focus on other stuff.  We're going on a road trip in a couple of weeks (Boston! Yea! But we won't be there at the same time as SIGGRAPH, boo!).  I'm writing a new story and reading a LOT of stuff which I'll blog about later.  We're seeing the King Tut exhibit at the Field next week.  My Sister-in-law and family are here visiting as well so we're out and about with them.  And there's a block party coming up.  So I'm keeping very busy.  Now all I have to do is maintain that level of activity for a year or more and I'll be fine and the wait won't make me crazy.

Posted by alchemist at 05:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So a little while ago we went to an all-day class called "Our Rainbow Families," which was for families adopting transracially, internationally, or both.  Parts of it were great and parts of it were lame.  It was divided into a series of different hourlong presentations. 

Most of the ones that involved adoptive parents talking about their experiences were interesting, but came off a bit self-congratulatory and smug.  I don't know why people go to a country like China and are shocked, shocked to find that orphans live in poverty.  One comment was made that an office building where a meeting took place was so run down it was "like something from the projects."  Um, yes, I imagine it's exactly like something from the projects.  Huge chunks of the planet struggle with poverty that's even harsher than US-style poverty (which is plenty harsh), even with an economic miracle in progress. It seems to me that parents adopting internationally should have some respect & sympathy for the economic reality of their chosen country. 

Another (non-China) parent adopted a baby who had bad diarrhea that continued for a month after she brought him home - turned out to be lactose intolerance.  She mostly said positive things but she was upset that the diarrhea wasn't disclosed on the baby's referral health report.  

It was just little stuff but overall the tone of the parents made us uncomfortable. 

The adoptees panel was better - very informative.  The speakers were young women who'd been adopted internationally.  One gal was adopted from Korea and had a lot of interesting things to say about her expeirence of racism, her search for her Korean mother, and developing a Korean-American identity.  She said that she wishes she'd learned Korean, but as a kid she didn't want to have to go to class so her parents didn't make her.  She said it would have been different if the whole family was going to learn it (she had 2 brothers who were not Korean) but she didn't want to do it on her own.  That got us thinking about the whole language thing.

We're not very good at languages.  But when I think of all the cultural activities we could push our future daughter into enroll our future daughter in, language education seems like the most valuable.  Chinese dance is great for making a girl feel cool and special, but it won't necessarily help her connect with other Chinese or Chinese-American people.  Whereas being able to go to China and talk to people will be huge.  Or even just walking around Chinatown on the weekend and being able to read the signs and chit-chat with folks who haven't learned English yet.  So we've decided we are going to make sure she learns Chinese as a second language (not sure yet if Mandarin or Cantonese--will have to see what's spoken in her native province and then see if that makes sense from a practical standpoint).  But we're going to learn it too - badly I'm sure, but we want to be able to say a few things in Chinese by the time we go, and we want to learn with her as the years go by.

The other thing we're going to start before we go over there (and heaven knows we have plenty of time, we're not even LID yet) is Tai Chi.  We're too old and fat for Shaolin Kung Fu, but we're hoping the kid will want to pursue it because we love martial arts and various famliy members practice Aikido, Karate, and what have you.  We figure it'll be better if we all pursue Chinese cultural stuff together, rather than hang a little sign on her that says "Chinese."

We had a lot of vague notions rattling around our heads about how to teach our future child about Chinese culture without making her feel alienated, and hearing this particular gal talk really helped us in our thinking. So that was very useful.

The other two useful parts were a pediatrician who talked about how to evaluate a medical report and generally how to assess a child's health when they're in an orphanage.  He had some useful tips about what kind of med kit to bring with you when you travel.

Our favorite part of the whole thing was a very impressive developmental psychologist who specializes in the effects of orphanage life.  She does assessments for one of the local hospitals and we're definitely going to bring our future kid to her.  She herself spent the first 5 years of her life in a Korean orphanage, so a lot of the dire things she was saying were tempered by the fact that she's standing up there, with a PhD, obviously having caught up despite the long time in the orphanage. (other than height, possibly-she was quite petite)  She showed video of 3 kids with different levels of developmental problems and then showed the same kids after 6 months of therapy, and they'd all improved dramatically.  Overall it was a great session, pointing out the likely problems in motor and cognitive development and what the solutions to those problems are.  No horror stories, just a lot of good informative stuff.  So that was really terrific and made up for some of the crappier sections.

Lastly, the chairs were SO HARD that by the end of the day you could see everyone shifting their butts around trying in vain to get comfortable.  But they had cookies and snacks, and those were good.  So not such a bad day after all, but we were glad to finish it.  This was the last requirement for our home study, and we did it a few weeks ago, so we're hoping the finished report will be arriving soon.

Posted by alchemist at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Frequently, when I tell people we hope to adopt a baby from China, they'll respond with a version of this statement:

"Oh, that's great!  Chinese babies are soooo cute!" 

Variants range from the fairly innocuous to the egregious.

"My friend adopted a little girl from China and she is just so adorable!"

"Oh, they're so cute!  I want one too!" 

"Those girls are just like little China dolls!"

"Yeah, she won't look like you, but how could you NOT want one when they're so darling?"
 

So, what's the right way to respond to this?

1. "That's right - we don't want one of those ugly American babies!"

2. "Sure, they're cute when they're little, but once they get big, they'll bite your foot right off!"

Posted by alchemist at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I want to make it clear - I think that it’s FABULOUS that Illinois goes the extra few miles to make sure we’re providing a good home for a child.  However, it’s still a pain in the butt!  My brother’s in Indiana and their home study was way simpler.

We chose our home study agency because compared to some others we talked to, they require less paper up front, they do more of the writing for you, and they cost less.  When time is of the essence, hearing that we have to write our autobiographies just as part of applying is not encouraging.  Our agency was more into questionnaires, forms, and talking to us and taking notes, and their fees are reasonable.

So:

HSA=home study agency,

IAA=international adoption agency.  Really I could make this just “AA” but people would come here from google looking for something else and be mad.

SW=social worker

FUN: this is where we have EXTRA FUN trying to fulfill the requirement.

These are the steps we've finished, in not quite chronological order:

1. Fill out HSA application form.
2. Fill out HSA adoption applicant financial statement.  Make sure it matches IAA financial statement, which is formatted completely differently and includes different categories
3. Get HR at work to fill out HSA employment verification form letter.  Make sure it matches differently formatted IAA employment verification letter.  FUN:  My employer is smallish, so I went to a gal I know in HR, told her about the adoption, and promptly got everything I needed.  Hub’s employer is largeish, so he went to his management, who forwarded the form to the HR department, which is in another state.  HR filled the form in, putting “CANNOT DISCLOSE” in all the fields other than Hub’s job title, and sent it to HSA like that.  Hub had to get a new copy of the form from HSA, fax it to HR in the other state with another piece of paper okaying disclosure, and then wait until our SW told us it was ok
4. Go to infant/child CPR class.  Hear about numerous horrifying things that happen to infants and children.  Practice on plastic people with no arms or legs.
5. Go to daylong “Our Rainbow Families” class sponsored by HSA (this is coming up, so will report on that later). FUN: Hearing name of class inspires friends to ask questions ranging from "oh, you're adopting a gay baby?" to "does that mean they serve ice cream in the class?"
   
6. Get scanned fingerprints taken by Identix in  odd school-bus company lunchroom setting. Wait for Illinois State Police (ISP) to receive prints and produce our state clearance. (This is not to be confused with the local city clearance our IAA wants).  FUN:  Hub’s clearance arrives within 2 weeks.  Mine does not.  After another week I call Identix.  They are based in Springfield, IL, which has been hit by a tornado that very week, so their office is light-staffed and their phone system recommends calling...some other time.  Calling ISP nets me a “We don’t have any record of anyone with your name requesting a check” and wanting to know my tracking number, which the Identix scanner guy did not give me.  A week later, call Identix again, get through, nice lady looks up my tracking number and calls ISP for me, and whaddya know, the prints were processed just a couple of days before.  Receive clearance in mail about 4 days later.
7. Send ink fingerprint cards (also done by Identix at same appointment as above, but handed off to us) to FBI for federal criminal background check.  Wait 6 weeks for response.  Worry about whether other people could be using my fingers for crime while I sleep.  Receive clearance at last.
8. Pass another background check, this one fingerprint-free, showing that we have no record of child abuse (this was entirely handled by HSA so was easy).
9. Get medical forms filled in by doctor.  HSA was flexible about the forms and so we were able to give our SW a copy of our IAA medical form, with an addendum showing that we’d passed a TB test.
10. Write statement of guardianship - that is, who would raise the child in the event of our deaths.  This entailed actually talking this over together to make a decision (we are fortunate to have more than one excellent option) and then talking to the person in question.
11. Give SW a copy of everything we’ve got in the IAA dossier so far so everything matches up
12. Make house presentable for SW visit
13. Read gov’t website listing tons and tons of recall alerts.  Verify that none of the recall items are in our home.  This wasn’t so bad because we don’t have any baby stuff yet, so could check off whole categories quickly.
14. Feel bad that the stairs to the basement (where the study/future playroom is) don’t have a bannister at the moment, but don’t actually fix it.
15. Give IAA’s home study guide to SW
16. Fill out DCFS application...we're not applying for a foster license but many of the forms are the same.
    
17. Line up 3 personal references and pester them to make sure they don’t delay filling out the referral form when they recieve it (our HSA has them fill in a form rather than writing a free-form reference letter).
18. Fill out vast “basic information questionnaire” about our marriage & values & stuff.  FUN:  one question:  “how do you feel about your sex life?”
19. Find veterinarian for our ridiculously healthy cat, get rabies vaccination & certificate proving same.  (Happy thing: vet says that if he had to guess he’d figure the cat was about 4 years old...in fact, he’s 11)  Also get distemper vaccination, although not needed for HSA...my first kitty died of distemper.  I was about 3 and thought it meant she’d had a temper tantrum.  Which didn’t stop me from going right on having my own tantrums. FUN:  Ahab (the cat) didn’t mind getting a shot, but HATED being out of the house, in the car, etc.  Hub (who took care of the whole vet visit by himself; my hero!) felt guilty for days afterward and totally spoiled Ahab with petting.  On the plus side, it made Hub stop worrying about attaching to a child, since he’s got so much empathy for kitty.
20. Fill out DCFS vehicle insurance certification.
21. Install a smoke detector in basement.  Check batteries in upstairs smoke detector
22. Send I-600A form to us-cis.  Include cover letter saying there are two adults in the house, listing enclosures, and indicating that home study will follow.  Include filing fee plus my fingerprint fee plus hub’s fingerprint fee on a money order, even though the form says a personal check is ok.  SW assures us that a personal check is NOT ok and I believe her.  One month later, recieve reciept, yay!  (This just means I didn't f*&k up the form, not that they're processing it or anything...they need the finished HS for that)
    
23. Go to a total of five SW meetings - one for both of us, then just Hub, then just me, then both of us at the house, then one last one for both at the office.
24. Write a big check to HSA

Posted by alchemist at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Our FBI fingerprint clearance just arrived after 6 weeks of waiting!  No, boys and girls, this is NOT the I-171A immigration fingerprint clearance, which will involve even more waiting - this is the one for the home study.  Illinois requires 3 clearances for the home study - a state police clearance, an FBI criminal clearance, and an FBI child abuse clearance.  So the FBI criminal clearance has finally arrived, which means we have ALL the paperwork for the home study completed!  And that's a LOT of paperwork.  I'll post a detailed rundown soon of what we had to get, for those who may want to adopt in Illinois, or for those who want to say "well, jeez, thank god we don't live in Illinois!"

Now, I'm going to do my little happy dance, and then cook some lipton noodles, and then go sit on the couch with Hub and watch Mythbusters on the Tivo.  Do I know how to party, or what? 

Posted by alchemist at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Spent the past couple of days in my hometown, which is a blue enclave in the sea of red that is Indiana.  While wandering around with family and whatnot, I saw two interracial families.  Then while I was chatting to my SIL about our respective dossiers a lady overheard me and pointed out her young son who was adopted from Russia a couple of years ago, and told us all about what a great experience it was.

Interracial and international adoption has been part of the landscape for my whole life, so it wasn't really suprising, but it was kind of nice to run into 3 adoptive families in 24 hours like that and get a little boost while I'm waiting around for print clearances.

Posted by alchemist at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've hit a lull in the paperchase - waiting for fingerprint clearance to come back from the FBI so that the Home Study can be completed.  Just about every other piece of paper is done (the I-171h won't come til long after the home study is done, so I'm not even fretting about that yet.).  Now I have nothing to do, adoption-wise.   So that leaves me plenty of time to feel bad about being infertile.

I spent my 20's trying to get my shit together.  It really wasn't together at all.  I made a huge radical life change when I was 25, after the sudden death of a close friend.  I dropped out of graduate school (Lit and Creative Writing) and moved to the big city and started working with computers.  I had a few friends here but mostly not, and I'd never lived anywhere really big.  It was the right choice - it started me on the path to being actually happy for the first time in my life - but it was a very hard couple of years.  I didn't do anything too masively stupid but I did manage to fall mildly in love and get my heart broken.  I was 28 when I met Hub and was still licking my wounds and kind of drifting, life-wise.

It took a while to get around to getting married - I wasn't cut out for partnership.  I'd always dated jerks, so I didn't really know how to deal with someone nice.  "You mean, when I come home, I'm supposed to sit and talk with you?  But what if I'm in a bad mood?"  Fortunately for me, Hub is a very patient, sweet guy, and he rode out the crappy first year of living together while I figured out how to be an ok girlfriend. 

So, I had more things to learn.  For assorted reasons, I didn't acquire certain skills as a youngster.  Managing stress, keeping my workaholism to a manageble level, friendly conflict resolution, building normal instead of super-rigid boundaries -- I had no idea how most people handled these things.  On the other hand, I am super-duper in a crisis, and will wrassle with a rabid tiger if I think there's a need.  A year or so of therapy made a big difference. (Advice to folks seeking therapy: find someone who specializes in your Issue.  If you're dealing with the death of a friend, for instance, see a grief counsellor. If you're addicted to crack*, see an addiction counsellor. Otherwise you get a sympathetic person who says "oh, wow, that's terrible" but doesn't teach you useful skills for changing)

By the time I was about 34 I felt like I was ready to be a mom.  I'd always wanted kids, but I didn't want to screw them up.  I knew I would never be perfect but I wanted to have skills for dealing with stress, and I wanted to get past the majority of what I'll call my moodiness.  Thanks to a good job, a terrific husband, a good therapist, a stable home life, and nobody I loved having died recently, I was feeling normal and healthy and ready to start trying for a baby.

Two years later, we thought probably something wasn't working right. My confidence in my ability to be a mom had grown a lot - we'd had a bunch of family crises & illnesses, including losing a very dear aunt to cancer at the age of 56.  It was horrible but it didn't send me into an anxiety spiral - it was just a sucky, grief-filled time, like anyone else would have.  So I felt like "if I can handle this, I can handle anything," but my body seemed to be going the other direction.  Another 2 years and I'm 38 and we had to decide how to address the situation.  If I was 30 right now, we'd be making a different set of plans.  We'd be adopting a baby, because we want to adopt a baby. But I'd also be going in for a laproscopy to see what they could do about my apparent endometriosis, and then I'd be finding out what they could do about the uterine abnormality.  In short, I'd have more options.  I could still daydream, at least, about growing a life inside me.

So, not only has my body failed me (and let Hub down), but my psyche has too.  If I was one of those people who sailed into her 20's truly knowing herself, not struggling with life angst or what have you, not wasting years in school and starting a career later than everybody else, not dating worthless bozos, etc etc, etc, then maybe I could be, you know, a REAL woman.

Sheesh, where's a giant stack of paperwork when you need it? 

*note: I am not addicted to crack. This is merely an example.  At the moment I am addicted to "chuckles" candy, but I'm sincerely working on beating it.

Posted by alchemist at 05:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Took the day off to plow through a heap of paperchasing.  Got the I-600-a form sent in (even though the home study is still in progress--our social worker said to go ahead and file now), picked up my police clearance report.  Called to nag various folks - doctor, work references - so hopefully those chunks of paper will be ready soon too.  Left a message attempting to sign up for our home study agency's required adoption class.  Spent 3 hours last night learning infant cpr.  We can't schedule our last home study meeting until we've assembled everything our social worker needs to see, so that's still hanging over us.

I'd really hoped to have all of the needed stuff for the home study pulled together by the end of March, but it's not looking like that'll happen.  Hopefully within a couple of weeks, though.  Identix is checking to see what happened to my fingerprints, since they didn't apparently end up making it to the Illinois State Police, although Hub's did and he was cleared.  The FBI has another set of our prints which will take a few/several weeks to produce a result.  Once LCFS has all that they can finish the home study, which will then be sent off to USCIS for the biggest most important clearance.

Thus far, here are things that make managing the paper mountain a little easier.  Some of them cost money, so take this for what it's worth to you:

1. a laser printer.  Dear God I love my laser printer.  I print everything out, over and over and over.

2. a shredder.  Printouts that have been superseded by later printouts (like ferinstance, an updated version of the adoption petition) go in the shredder.  That way I don't have to worry that I've got the wrong version of something in my "real" pile

3. extra copies of everything.  We bought 5 copies each of our birth certificates & marriage certificate.  That way we can attach them to anything where there's any question about needing them, and if someone just needs to see them, we have spares handy.  The passport folks send your certs back when they've finished, by the way.

4. manila envelopes.  These are the bomb.  Every piece of paper I've got is in a manila clasp envelope, with the contents marked on the outside.  e.g: "CCAI application--completed (photocopy)", "LCFS adoption info kit"  "Docs in progress" "birth and marriage certs" etc etc etc.  Whenever I'm getting a form or filing ready, it gets its own manila envelope, and I list what's needed on the outside.  Once I've assembled everything in the envelope I carry it with me to FedEx (see #8),  photocopy everything (see #9), and put the originals into the FedEx envelope and the photocopies into my manila envelope for easy reference later on.

5. Sharpie markers in every color of the rainbow.  Officially, for writing on the envelopes.  unofficially, because sharpies rock! 

6. A multi-level to-do list.  Sections for "ASAP," "Soon," "Whenever," and "Done."  When I complete something I move it to the "Done" section.  It helps a lot to look at everything that's finished when I'm feeling swamped.

7. Mini Post-it notes.  When I'm filling something out, I use bright heart-shaped post-its (I know, gaack, cute, but hey! I like hearts!) to flag everything I can't fill in or that needs Hub's signature.  I write what's needed on the post-it and pull each one off as I take care of that item.  That way I can fill stuff out in multiple passes, without having to reread the whole form looking for blanks every time.

8. Fed-Ex, for every piece of paperwork that has to go in the mail.  Yeah, it costs 18 bucks to send something, but the peace of mind that comes from being able to track it and see who signed for it is worth it.

9. Photocopies.  Everything I send or give to someone else, I copy first.  That way I can refer to it if I need it later and make sure things like financial statements match up perfectly.

10. A dedicated "Adoption Stuff" folder on my computer, *backed up* to an external drive.  All the documents I've created or downloaded (pdfs etc), go in here.  I'm not obsessive enough to have scanned all my paper-only stuff (yet!) but I have keyed in my own versions of a couple of things that I only had on paper initially.  The LCFS biographical questionairre, for instance--it's about 8 pages of questions, and I don't like writing by hand.  So I created a fillable word doc of it, filled it in on the computer, and saved it to my Adoption Stuff folder. 

11. An alternate project.  It helps to have more than one thing that I'm focusing on.  Even though some days it seems like my freelance work is cutting into my paperchasing time, at other times it's a real relief to *have to* think about writing and art  for a while instead of adoption.

Posted by alchemist at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, I needed a little filling but didn't need any novacaine, so it worked out ok.  Today we're still in a frenzy of cleaning to prepare for our social worker's home visit.  Of course she told us in advance that it's not a "white-glove check," that she's there to make sure the baby has somewhere to sleep and that we have enough smoke detectors, etc.  But it is our one chance to put on our best show for the powers that be, so we're doing it up right. 

I keep thinking of how you prepare a house for a social worker visit - have to keep reminding myself that we're not trying to sell the house, so real estate tricks like having a pie baking in the oven are unneccessary (not that I know how to bake a pie).  We're also not having a party so filling the fridge with beer isn't the thing either.  I don't really have enough time to, you know, re-landscape the yard.

So we're just doing the usual pick-up, vacuum & clean, and do an extra sweep through the place to make sure we don't have any books called "how to ruin a child's life" or what have you.

Posted by alchemist at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went to the doctor yesterday for my physical exam for the adoption.  Also to get my exam forms filled out for my life insurance company, so I can increase my coverage.  And I figured I may as well get my hepatitis innoculations started.  So I got stuck in my right arm for hep A, my left arm for hep B, my right arm again for my TB test, and the back of my right hand (ow ow OW!) for the blood test.

Ah, well.  The doctor was super nice, my blood pressure hasn't gone up as much as I expected after two months on the pill, and I'm all done getting needles stuck in me for the rest of the month.

Except...at work today, I was too busy for a regular lunch so I settled for some "machine cuisine"-- peanut brittle and smartfood cheddar popcorn, specifically (I am allergic to chocolate, so vending pickings are slim).  The smartfood didn't make me much smarter but the peanut brittle certainly brought out the brittle in me. I chipped a tooth, bad enough that I have to go get a filling tomorrow if the dentist can fit me in.  So that'll be another shot, and drilling and half a day wasted when I'm supposed to be getting the house ready for our social worker's visit on monday morning.  Crap!  And of course I've been twiddling my tongue over the sharp part of the tooth so I've got a little owie starting there too.

Normally shots, owies and such don't bother me -- I had 4 years of immunotherapy (a.k.a. allergy shots--worked GREAT by the way) and I have 3 tattoos so I'm down with getting stuck.  But I'm just not in the mood at the moment...feeling like whining instead.  Waah, waah, waaahh.

Posted by alchemist at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 Ah, my old friend is back -- that's right, that searing pain in my middle that says "you're taking on too much! You're not built to withstand this kind of stress!"  When this started, back in college, I would just live off of bagels and milk for a week while blowing off my classes and avoiding human contact.  It worked.  Unfortunately, I'm now employed full-time, married, and lactose-intolerant, so while the bagels are still an option I can't really do the whole retreating into my shell thing, or drink any milk.  And it was never more than a short-term fix, anyway.  Somehow I need to learn to live a less stressful life...hopefully before adding parenthood to the mix.

At the moment, things are just piled up a little too high. First, there's the adoption paperwork thing, in which I have to write answers to questions like "how do you feel about your sex life?" ("like it's private") And I'm supposed to be finishing a freelance article right this minute, instead of blogging, but while writing articles brings me spare cash and free 3d software, it doesn't bring me inner peace.  And my rumbly tummy wants inner peace, or a near substitute, and blogging is like a binky for the soul.  I'm also supposed to be working on some 3d models so I can make some money to fund my new computer.  Working on 3d models on my current computer is excruciating, due to the age & slowness of the computer.  So that's a bit of a dilemma.  Maybe I can find yet another freelance hustle to use to earn enough $$ to buy the new computer so I can go back to my primary freelance hustle, 3d modelling...geesh.  Or I could just decide that one job is enough for any sane person, and just do my day job (grueling enough all by itself, and includes having a "crackberry" pretty much welded to my hip), and stop trying to make extra money?  Seems like a good idea but extra money is just so damn soothing.

Aside from the woes of my personal brand of capitalism, one dear friend is getting divorced and another is recovering from major surgery, so I'm worrying about them.  And a third is touring to promote his fabulous new book, which has just been published to rave reviews and brisk sales.  Which is not like getting divorced or having major surgery, so I'm not at all worried about him, but I'm, how shall I put it, completely eaten up with envy.  While I've been fucking off with one thing and another--career in computers, side gig in 3d graphics, thinking about writing, talking about writing, occasionally actually writing a teensy bit--he's been sticking his butt in a chair on a regular basis for 15 years and writing, writing, writing, writing.  So he deserves every bit of his success, and I'm absolutely delighted for him.  I'm also delighted to have earned a spot in the acknowledgements of his book, because I made a suggestion or two about his first draft.  But it's not how I always imagined first seeing my name in print, and it's forcing me to look at the whole writing part of my life and see if it really fits anywhere.

Until I figure that out, though,  bagels and zantac will have to do.

Posted by alchemist at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've been thinking a bit about positive adoption language.  I see how some phrases like "to give up for adoption" carry a judgement within the words.  But I'm not sure it serves everyone to discuss adoption only in terms that are pro-adoption and free of emotional freight.  Adoptees and firstmoms in particular have a lot of grief to work through, as well as possibly regret and confusion--you know, negative stuff.  Requiring everyone to use vocabulary that's essentially pro-adoption doesn't seem like it addresses those issues.

I'm picturing this conversation in my future: 

"Mom, why did my real mom give me up?"

"Birthmother, dear. She's called your birthmother.  I'm your real mother."

"Ok, why did my birthmother give me up?"

"She didn't give you up, sweetheart, she made an adoption plan for you and chose to terminate her parental rights." 

"Gosh, suddenly I feel much better about this, thanks!"

I'm not saying positive adoption language is inherently bad, it's just that I'm not sure what words are best for the negative side of adoption.  And for adoption to be a positive force, the negatives have to be discussed and honored.  I think kids (and adults) are smart enough to absorb explanations and not just be limited by simple words.  Maybe instead of the suggested positive language we could substitute phrases that own the complexity of the situation.  And call it "truthful adoption language."

I'd sure love to hear what folks out there think about this--particularly "triad" members. 

Posted by alchemist at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's been a hopping couple of days in blogland.

First, Manuela asks,

What is your opinion of North Americans who adopt orphaned Chinese baby girls?

And an excellent, thought-provoking discussion ensues. 

Then, Afrindie gives us the inside scoop on adoptive breastfeeding.

now - how many of you are asking, 'why on earth is she doing this?'

And another fascinating discussion is under way.

Go on, check 'em out.

Posted by alchemist at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Had our fingerprints taken twice yesterday for our state of IL adoption clearances (which is not the same as the fingerprinting that's done for the I-171H form). Scanned prints are for our criminal clearance, ink prints are for our "child abuse clearance," which sounds like we're applying for permission to abuse a child, but I assure you we are NOT.  Illinois is particularly stringent about clean records, which is a-ok by us. 

The fingerprints were done by a company called Identix, which sets up in various locations on different days of the week.  It's basically a guy with a laptop and a little scanner.  Yesterday they were at a school bus company, doing the printing in the employee lunch room.  There was a display on the wall with a bunch of cutouts of street signs -- stop, one way, pedestrian silhouette crossing.  And carefully spelled out in the middle of the display:  OBEY YOUR SINS.

Posted by alchemist at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday we had our first meeting with our social worker at LCFS.  We didn't sleep well the night before...butterflies in our stomachs & worries in our heads.  Of course, it went fine.  We were afraid that we'd have to have "fully grieved our infertility," but she just wanted to be sure we were working through it and that we weren't TTC any more.  She said "Adoption cures childlessness; it doesn't cure infertility," which seems like a useful distinction.  Most of the meeting was just going over why we chose adoption, why international adoption, and why China.   Basically it seems like they want to make sure you've actually thought about what you're doing.

So we left the meeting with lighter hearts and a heavier stack of paperwork.  Illinois has some particularly stringent requirements, which is good for the kids, so we're all for it.  But it means we have to be fingerprinted several times and get 2 different versions of the I-171H that everyone stresses about.  After the meeting we went out for a (late) steak-and-egg breakfast, and then came home & wrote up a complete to-do list based on the info from the social worker and the dossier kit from CCAI.

Sample item:  "Take Ahab to vet for rabies shot; get certificate" 

Number of items on the list: 45!

Posted by alchemist at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not sentimental or religious enough to say that God is choosing a child for us, and that his timing is perfect, and all that stuff.  Many adoptive parents do feel this way, and I'm not saying they're wrong.  It may be that I'm thinking the same thoughts but using different language to express it.

See, I've been reading archived posts at The Thin Pink Line, and this one really got me thinking:

I’d love to hear if I’m being ridiculous about this. Cuz… to me… it seemed so fucked up to hear that, “We adopted you , because I couldn’t have my own”.. ok fine… but then sobs after sobs about how angry she is that she couldn’t have her own, how empty she feels, what a failure she is, how angry she is at P. because she could have one but didn’t appreciate it, and how grateful I should be that they rescued me from that. 

Wow.  I can't imagine treating a child like this...adopted, bio, clone, niece, nephew, bratty neighbor...any child.  Not simply because it's, y'know, wrong to abuse children (emotionally or otherwise), but because it's such a cockeyed way to think about this in the first place.

I actually have a pretty simple take on the whole infertility thing.  I didn't go very far down the infertility path before deciding to go for adoption.  I could still try Lupron, I could have surgery to find out once and for all if I have endometriosis (and then try Lupron! not a lot of options there).  Maybe my tubes are blocked.  Maybe surgery could correct the uterine abnormality that maybe has nothing to do with the problem but could maybe cause a miscarriage if I maybe could solve whatever the problem is.

What it boils down to is, I don't care what I could do any more.  I'm cooked.  I'm 38 and I just want to be a mom, and I'm tired of feeling bad about myself after years of TTC.  Do you other infertile folks out there ever think maybe you just don't know how to have sex?  Like maybe when you snuck a peek at The Joy of Sex when you were 12 you accidentally picked up the TOTALLY BOGUS edition and have been doing it wrong all these years? I keep thinking "you know, we used to think we were pretty good at this, but apparently we totally SUCK at it, because...NO BABY!"  So yeah, I'm tired of that.  I miss angst-free sex.  And I have a low tolerance for invasive gynocological procedures...a very low tolerance.  The one transvag ultrasound I had was, um, stressful. 

So, how does adoption fit in?  For me, as a means for acquiring a baby, adoption is not as easy as just getting laid and subsequently giving birth would be.  Except that I don't live in imaginary-land, where that would actually work. As a process to go through, adoption seems easier to me than treating my infertility, because of my particular ooogie-woogies about the medical stuff, and because of the high likelihood that it would also not work, while depriving me of most of my spare money.  When it comes to raising an adopted child as opposed to a bio child (jeez, is there a good term for this that doesn't sound stupid?  That is, all children are biological life forms, but "genetically-linked" is just ridiculous, and "my own" is crappy...help?), there's a host of issues that we'll need to work through as a family, sure.  But, a bio child would potentially inherit any number of bad genetic creepy things that have been wandering the family tree for a while, so it's not like raising a child I birthed myself would be issue-free. 

But no matter what - here's the important bit - an adoped child may seem different to me than a bio one, but not less, or "second best." I won't get to say "you have my grandmother's eyes," but big whoop.  She'll have her own grandmother's eyes and that's just as cool.  Would I rather I could have a baby for $7000, and get to be with her from her first heartbeat, as opposed to spending 2 or 3 times that much and missing out on her whole first year?  Yeah, sure.  But whatever path leads me to my baby, that's the right path.  And I say, screw the (supposedly) easy, simple, organic process of conception; hooray for the hard, expensive, scary path of adoption, because that, as it turns out, is how I roll.

Posted by alchemist at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the adoption process is now underway.  We sent our signed agreements & first fee to CCAI, and made our first appointment with our social worker at LCFS.  That'll be in about a week and a couple days after that we're getting fingerprinted by Identix.  As I understand it these fingerprints are for the state of Illinois, not for USCIS--they'll do more fingerprints later.  Our "already done" list is growing but only at about half the pace of our "to do" list.  Get more smoke detectors, put a banister on the basement stairs, update the cat's vaccinations, update our own vaccinations.  Hub has to shave his beard before we take our passport pictures since he only wears it in cold weather, and we don't know what time of year we'll ultimately be traveling. 

Even though the to-do list contains many steps that are about getting ready to have a baby in the house, this feels nothing at all like being pregnant, as I understand it anyway.  If a pregnant woman does absolutely nothing, the pregnancy will most likely continue and produce a baby.  Yes, there's steps you should take to ensure the baby's health and a safe delivery, but most pregnancies will move forward without any particular assistance.

The adoption process, on the other hand, will completely halt at any time if I just fail to do one of the steps that's required of me.  This creates a wee bit of pressure.  My internal voice says "if you don't get that check sent right away, you'll never have a baby!" or "if you don't find a good day care center before the home study starts, you'll never have a baby!"  I suspect my internal voice is a bit panicky and needs to just chill, but I keep pushing forward at a frantic pace anyway...all to get into a nearly yearlong queue.   

I keep reminding myself that this situation actually does revolve around a pregnancy...someone else's.  The mother of my future child is probably pregnant right now, and my responsibility is no different than if I'd met her and she'd planned to place her child with me.  We'll probably never actually know anything about each other (although I hope someday we might) but if I think of this as a partnership it's easier to do my bit calmly.  It's not easy to be evaluated by strangers and to jump through so many hoops, but must be a thousand times easier than what she's going through, and will go through.

Posted by alchemist at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Right now it feels like I'm reading everything ever written about adoption, China, and China Adoption. 

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adoption

The Unnoficial Guide to Adopting a Child

Raising Adopted Children

The Lost Daughters of China

From China With Love

...and that National Geographic DVD that everybody watches, China's Lost Girls.

Hub and I are both distressed by what we're reading and watching about the abandonment of girls in China, and the role of women in China in general.  To offset this, I'm trying to take big heaping helpings of the things I like and admire about Chinese culture.

China: History and Civilization

Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies

Hero (the movie)

Chop Socky movies in general

Whatever TIVO can find with the word "China" in it

When I don't have a book in hand, I'm reading blogs. China adoption blogs, infertility blogs, domestic adoption blogs, general parenting blogs, birthmom blogs.  A few of the good ones:

A Little Pregnant

The Naked Ovary

Afrindie Mum

Paragraphein

Life Under Calico Skies

Do They Have Salsa in China?

Once I finish the stack of books I'm already reading I'll kick back with a couple of multi-volume Chinese classics, and a few more adoption books.  And somehow I'll have to squeeze in my normal quota of SF & Fantasy reading, so I don't go completely crazy.

Posted by alchemist at 01:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)