No Real Updates

We've had a few people asking why we haven't updated recently and many more asking if there is any news.

Unfortunately, no there isn't. We received our notarized copies of the homestudy in the mail and that felt great. Otherwise, we're in a holding pattern.

This is a somewhat frustrating thing about an adoption--sitting and waiting. But it's all a part of the process, and knowing that something could happen tomorrow or could happen next week or a year from now is kind of exciting in its own way.

In the meantime, we are enjoying some time with our new niece, and just waiting and hoping and praying that our own baby is on the way. People have asked if news of other people's pregnancies have gotten us upset.

It's a strange thing, because you are truly happy for that person, but at the same time, you think, "Well, geez, we really must be defective." Particularly if someone didn't have to try very hard. I have had clients who said, "I looked at my husband and I got pregnant." And I thought, "Geez, that must be nice."

But honestly, there are a couple of things that bother me much more. The number of people in grocery stores and restaurants whose kids are being rambunctious and who say something like, "I don't know why I ever became a parent". That is my number one pet peeve. I want to grab them by the shirt and say, "Do you know how freakin' lucky you are?!" Same with people with babies who complain about how tired they are and how they haven't slept or showered in days or gotten in a full meal. "Do you know how freakin' lucky you are?!" And when people complain about being pregnant, I just want to scream. I'm sure it's not a fun experience, and I now know first hand that labor and delivery is not a whole lot of fun at all, but don't complain about it. At least you have the chance.

I guess that's kind of a 3 in 1. But the other is how easy commercially companies make it seem to have babies.

A couple cases in point: I recently bought a new computer game called "Dream Home". You are playing as newlyweds renovating your first home after your wedding, and as you go along, you can renovate different rooms, etc. And there is an attic room in particular that you keep making progress on. Well, after about 6 turns in the attic room, it is clear that the room is going to be a nursery. And sure enough, when you win, the game says, "Guess what!? We're having a baby!" The game is a sequel to Dream Day Wedding and Dream Day Honeymoon, neither of which I have played. However, the impression given is, you get married, buy a house, and have a baby in a short span of less than 3 or 4 months.

The other day, I was driving around listening to the radio, and a jeweler in Charlottesville was advertising its engagement rings. And the announcer says, "When she sees the ring, she's seeing the wedding, their first house, and their children."

Ok, I and thousands of people like me are living proof that it just doesn't happen that way. And I can attest to the fact that when you get the A-OK from the doctor to go ahead and start trying, it's not like you "have relations" once and boom, you're expecting. We waited for six freakin' years, only to be told "Sorry, not going to happen". And I think we did ultimately wait an abnormally long time, but life has a way of intervening. The point is, for many, many of us, it just isn't that easy, and it is both painful and frustrating to have these types of scenarios presented as the norm.

So anyway, that's my little venting session about that. And we are managing. We are both very excited about the decision to adopt, and neither one of us regrets it or at this point wishes it were any different. I think we are at peace with the way things turned out, and just hope that the end process of building our family doesn't take forever to get done.

If we do get a little gloomy, one of us invariably says to the other, "It's OK, our baby just isn't ready for us yet" or "We have to wait so we get just the right one". This does cheer us up a bit.

We'll be sending out Christmas cards soon and everyone's card will have our little adoption business card taped to it, to remind people that we are still looking and can they please keep us in mind.

Just trying to keep positive! It's all we can do at this point :-)

Email from the Social Worker

I got home to this happy email from our social worker today:

Ok—I called yesterday and we are all set with the fingerprints. I am printing out your homestudy as we speak and am going to have it signed and notarized and hopefully in the mail today! Hooray!

Wow. Just... wow.

We are officially paper pregnant. Feels so good.

Home Study Draft

I received a draft of our homestudy today. Just reading it made me want to cry. Things are really happening! I'm just so excited, I think I'm going to burst.

Our Profile...

...is on its way to Richmond this morning to go and live with our social worker.

Thanks to all who gave advice and feedback.

I had a color copy made at Staples this morning and the woman there could not believe that it was my first project as a scrapbooker. Honestly, if nothing else comes out of this whole thing (God forbid), I will honestly consider that profile a major accomplishment--and something to treasure.

Fun Finds at the Book Sale

This weekend was the Fredericksburg Friends of the Library book sale. As I read more and more about making adoption a normal part of our child's life, it was suggested that we read stories about adoption to our child.

I spent a lot of time in the children's section of the sale this year--I am a firm believer in secondhand books, especially when we're not going to use them forever. I happened upon 12 Sweet Pickles books, which were books I had as a child. My set is still up at my dad's house, and he's looking for them for us, but we also want a set for my niece. I went on Ebay, and a full set of the Sweet Pickles is going for $245+!!! I got 12 of them for 12 dollars.

As I was scouring the boxes, however, I managed to find 5 books about adoption and quickly snapped them all up. Of course, several of them are a bit dated, but I thought it was great that I could even find any! I brought them home and read them immediately, and they are all actually quite good. So I thought I'd start to compile a little adoption reading list with the information, in case others are looking for books as well.

1. Adopted by Judith E. Greenberg and Helen H. Carey (copyright 1987). Adopted follows the story of Sarah and Ryan, both domestic adoptees. The children are Caucasian and were adopted by Caucasian parents. Sarah is seven and was adopted as an infant. Ryan is about a year old and was recently adopted. This is a non-fiction book with photographs as opposed to illustrations.

The book deals with Sarah's questions about her birth mother, questions she has about why her parents couldn't have biological children, and Sarah's other friends who are adopted--one is from Vietnam and the other is African-American. The book deals with teasing and extended families as well.

2. We Adopted You, Benjamin Koo by Linda Walvoord Girard (copyright 1989). This book is the story of young Benjamin Koo Andrews, who was adopted from Korea. This is a fictional book based on a real life Benjamin's story. It is illustrated beautifully.

The book talks about what Benjamin knows of being found and placed in an orphanage and how his parents came to adopt him. It discusses his journey to America, becoming an American citizen, and the first time he realized that he didn't look like his parents or his classmates. Benjamin has some hard feelings towards his mom for a while and learns that just because his mom didn't give birth to him doesn't mean she isn't his real mom. And then Ben's parents decide to adopt again, this time a little girl from Brazil. Ben loves being an older brother and his parents share cultural celebrations from both Korea and Brazil. The book also deals with extended families and kids in school teasing.

3. We Don't Look Like Our Mom and Dad by Harriet Langsam Sobol (copyright 1984). This is the story of Eric and Joshua Levin, Korean adoptees living with a Caucasian family. The boys have different biological parents. Eric was adopted when he was a few months old and Joshua was adopted when he was 2 1/2. This is a non-fiction book with photographs as opposed to illustrations.

The boys ask lots of questions about why they were adopted. They both love talking about their adoption and learning of the circumstances of their adoption from their parents. The story talks about their friends and interests. It also discusses how their parents try to incorporate the boys' Korean heritage into their lives with things like food. The book talks about stereotypes, citizenship, birth parents, and what makes a family.

4. A Forever Family by Roslyn Banish and Jennifer Jordan-Wong (copyright 1992). This is the story of Jenny, an 8-year-old Hispanic adoptee who was adopted at age 7 by an Asian-American father and Caucasian mother. This book is probably more on the level of a 6 or 7 year old. It is non-fiction with photographs instead of illustrations.

Jenny talks about her interests and activities in school and how she came to be adopted. She discusses going into foster care at age 3, where she was cared for by an African-American family at her second foster placement. Jenny talks about her social workers who helped her find a forever mom and dad and how nervous she felt meeting them for the first time.

Jenny talks about learning her father's Chinese culture through his extended family, and about the joy she experiences with her mother's family as well.

5. How it Feels to Be Adopted by Jill Krementz (copyright 1982). This is a group of teenagers talking about how they feel being adopted. The teens are all different races and ethnic groups, including Native American, African-American, Caucasian, and Asian. The book is non-fiction with photographs. It is organized into chapters, one chapter per child. As such, it is meant for a slightly older audience, probably pre-teens and up, but is by no means a tough read.

They discuss birthparents--some have already found their birthparents, adoptive parents, culture, siblings, foster care, siblings, school, etc. The book shows that families come in all shapes and sizes (there is a young man adopted by a single father, for instance).

So this is my initial kid's reading list on adoption. I enjoyed all 5 of these books immensely. It was instructive for me as a potential adoptive parent to see how parents deal with the immortal "You're not my real mother!" issue as well as to read some real feelings by adoptees. As I find more, I'll add them to another reading list in the future.

Argh!

The General's fingerprints have bounced back again as "unverifiable". This is the second time. Considering that he has prints on file with the FBI, I'm not sure what the problem is--surely the FBI can just look him up and be done with it? Right?

Wrong.

So now there is a new form which Beth, our social worker, says we might be able to fill out and request an end to the bouncebacks. I'm not 100% clear on whether or not that means we can skip doing the General's fingerprints or what, but I guess we'll find out more.

The philosophical part of us says that this is all happening because our child isn't ready for us yet. He or she is out there in the great beyond, waiting for us, and we all have to wait for the stars to align properly so that we get the right baby and a baby gets the right parents.

The irrational part of us is fuming. Fuming enough to say "The heck with it, is this really worth this kind of hassle?"

Of course it is, and all this will fade from memory when we have our little one home. But dang, this is only the first step! What else is going to happen?

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I spent a good part of my lunch break reading the blog of Sweet Baby James, which you can find at http://www.sweetbabyjames.info. It was such an inspirational story and so sad, but this family moved me--from the parents' struggle with infertility to the birth of a special needs child and his way too short life.

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My in-laws were down this weekend and bought us a crib! All we need now is a mattress and at least our baby will have a place to sleep and some snuggly blankets. If only we could get a floor put in.

Thanks, Hank and Sheila!

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Colleen, our attorney, said she thought the profile looked good. She suggested we solicit feedback from family and friends. Thanks to those who have commented. If anyone else has a few minutes to look it over, please feel free to do so. It can be found at http://www.mkosior.com/profile.pdf and after viewing it, please leave us a comment about what you thought.

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I guess that's about all. Hope everyone is well out there! We are keeping the faith, even though faith seems to be making a break for it.

Etc.

All the paperwork is officially in! Hopefully we will not have to do anything further.

Also, we got our profile done and scanned in. We are awaiting word from the attorney that it is "good", but I think it came out great and am getting lots of positive feedback on it. Thanks to Jacalyn for scanning it.

If you'd like to see it, please visit:

http://www.mkosior.com/profile.pdf.

It's a large file, so it may take a couple minutes to load up. Be patient. :-)