Things People Just Have To Get Over...

OK, I'm just annoyed for some reason today...here's a list of things you should figure out BEFORE you decide to adopt from China:

• If you can't tolerate the food, and you can't even think of trying to put it in your mouth...how are you going to survive for 2 weeks? I get some people have allergies, but that's a minority. Also, what are you teaching your kids? The adopted one...that there are big pieces of their culture that turn their parents' stomachs? And all of your kids...that they shouldn't just learn to freaking try something different?! You can live without starbucks and pizza for 2 weeks, believe it or not.
• If you can't handle flying...how the hell are you going to get to China? You are adults, you have to get a grip...alcohol, xanax, valium ain't the way to do it. Again...how are you going to handle a new baby doped up? Do you know how many people like you have bruised, smacked, insulted, and tortured my mother during the 37 years of service she gave to the airlines as a flight attendent? And, also, at some point, it's being an example to your kids...do you want them to see the way to deal with hard things is to take drugs?
• Egads, you may not get the brands you are used to in the store. Do you see an orange on it and it's a liquid? I'll betcha it's OJ. You'll survive.
• You might not get the made-to-order child. I'm soooooo sick of seeing people get mad that they didn't get the 6 month old cherub with no institutional delays or other undisclosed issues. Really? I mean, you get a 15 month old instead of the 12 month you were hoping for and you throw a month long hissy fit?
• SN/age/gender etc: EVERY ONE HAS THEIR OWN ANSWERS...some can do it, some can't. Just cause you think boy hugs are the best, do you really have to chatter in my ear that I'm defective cause I don't want to adopt a boy? Do I chatter at you that you won't accept an 8 year old? Hummmm? Do I think CL/CP is a big deal. Yeah. I do. I have my reasons. Others don't. Who cares. It's my choice, it's your choice. Because I chose a girl doesn't mean that I think your boy is crap. It's no value judgement of any kind on your kid - get over it.
• Yeah, you have to carry lots cash to China. Don't pat your pocket every 3 minutes, and you'll do fine. And the money there is the Yuan....tip in Yuan. Pay in Yuan...don't ask to use dollars...that makes you an Ugly American.
• People are going to say stupid crap about you and your kid. When it's your sister, brother, whatever then yeah, deal with it. But if some moronic old lady says something in the grocery store, you don't have to educate her. You owe her nothing. You owe your child everything. But, really, 1/2 the stuff out there is us being waaaaay too over-protective. Walk away and if you kid questions you about it, say "well, there's people who don't get it honey". But if you think you are going to stop every dumb forwarded message, you are going to have a very hard and bitter life...you have to put a filter on your indignation and decide what's worth your energy.
• Lots of agencies suck. No, I'm sorry...let me rephrase that: Lots of agencies SUCK HAIRY-ASS. pick wisely. And be willing to stick up for yourself at the end of it all.
• In the end, do what is right for you, for your child(ren), your family, even if it goes against what everyone else tells you. Do what in your heart speaks to you...that's how you find out that you are going to get to parent (another) best child in the world for you....and that's how you find your way to the most beautiful, amazing 8 year old girl in all of China.

Ah...the clusterfu** that is life these days.

OK, I've been an absent blogger, been around the block good and bad a lot here lately.

So let's talk about why the name of this blog is so freakin' appropros, shall we?!

We mostly remember the crazed pyschosis that our first adoption of the sweet and strong-willed Peanut...the 8 months that turned into 2 years...the beginning of the end of the China program...

And then the cute whirling dervish entered our lives...nothing describes life with a toddler like "Insanity"...

Then, things were going well...too well, with our attempt to adopt A. We had to wait an extra 4-6 weeks to get on the Taiwan list, as our agency wanted us home that full year with H. OK, cool. We knew we'd be in line longer than they were quoting...ok, we were good with our extended time frame...

Got many months in, then the agency in Taiwan, TWCA, "suspended" it's program. Nice way to say "go f*** yourselves", isn't it? Supposedly for 6-8 months. But no one can tell us the whole story. Nothing seems to be leaking out that can be taken for hard fact. We're back to the face-saving messages that 3 years of adoption the first time around made us familiar with...

Is there a liscense issue? Does TWCA adopt to other countries - if so, are they still getting referrals?! What about the people who are in court process now? When will we know anything?! All a blank wall. Answer of "be patient"...

Of course, if we leave because we've been shut down, our agency, which is 1000% better than our last one, claims all monies. Fine. OK, pisses me off, and I'll fight on some of them, but we're lucky, we can walk away if it means finding a child elsewhere.

Find a child elsewhere...
Yeah, has anyone tried that lately? Let's see...let's go stay in Kaz for 6 weeks...or RMI for 5-7...or, wait 2+ years in most programs and wait for this type of bullet to hit you inbetween your eyes 1/2 an inch from the bullet that was shot at us all the way from Taiwan 3.5 weeks ago...China?! Hah! Colombia...another 6 week stay. Hello, someone has to work and pay for this new child to eat!

China SN...an option this time around. We've found some slightly older girls that seem like a good match. Now we have an agency that thinks we are fools for going out of birth order. We have other agencies that don't return calls. We can't get answers on the nuts and bolts questions we pose about files with scant info, or something that should be clear like fee transfers to new programs.

You agencies post these pics and stories of these kids...NGO's beg for assistance for these poor orphans...wouldn't someone get off their asses and get us the damn video to take to the doctor? Phone it in to CCAA to get a test or more info on a painfully thin file? Make the damn effort? Or are you only willing to give children to people who sheepishly fall in love with a photo (which we are trying painfully NOT to do), even though you tell us not to...and don't ask the questions...to know that we can give these children the care they need AND deserve?

See, cause this kid will be my life and my joy, I'll do anything for her...and therein lies the dichotomy...I have a kid that is my life and my joy, and I'll do anything for her. I can't take on a child that we can't take care of - that will drain away the time and the savings accounts. I don't need a perfect child (aren't they all?!), but I can't take on one where I'll have to foot the bills...one with issues that won't be covered - one that I will be obliged willingly to do that for, one that then harms the other child's life. I owe both my kids certain things in life - my whole heart, opportunities in life, my time...food, education, etc. I can't do that if we're working 3 jobs a piece to pay for bills.

So here we sit, with the hearts, the ability, the time, the willpower, and the monies to adopt in almost any program, but precious little assistance from a handful of agencies and a boatload of international programs....programs that all post that they need families, they have children that need homes.

I'm finding this adoption all of a sudden a much bigger leap of faith than I ever thought it would be, that I ever thought either of our adoptions would be...do we stay and hold our breathe? Do we leap to another agency, another country, another whole idea of what our 2nd child would be? I'm willing to step off the cliff into an abyss of educated hope, but I need to know what cliff to step off of.

I don't ask for a crystal ball...I do ask for honest answers. And of those, IA has very little these days.

Just using this as a place to pull a photo from...

Referral Pictures

We have H's referral pictures that we received (2 years ago next week!) around the house. We have one framed upstairs on our dresser, and 2 on the refrigerator with about 5 other pictures. I'm thinking about removing them. As I scuttle around the house, especially now that the Christmas season is about us, I am really seeing the house a lot more than day-to-day. You know how it is - you just wander by things and don't really look. Which is really sad, cause we've filled the house with beautiful and memorable things, but, I digress...

When we got those photos...well, I could never ever imagine NOT seeing them everyday forever. They had been a fulfillment of years of waiting and hoping. Years of infertility before that. Pain, frustration, longing and lots of anger during the wait. I clutched those pics for the 2.5 months that we waited to go to Hunan. I lived and breathed by those 3 little pictures.

And now, when I see them, I feel next to nothing. I remember the excitement, and that's about it. And as I write that, it sounds horrible. But, that's not H in those pics. That's not the funny, obstinate-as-all-hell-and-just-as-smart drama queen. The one who has grown into loving gymnastics and Mandarin class. The one who will control all eating and bodily functions for days as a point of showing control. The one who snuggles up into my lap and says "no play mama...snuggle. The one who grins ear to ear when she knows all the letters on the signs of the stores and can make the letter sounds...The face in the pictures is a chubby infant face sticking out of a stuffed animal, and I really think it looks nothing like her. It's a living doll, propped up in poses for little 4x5s to be sent to an office as a stop-over to a world away from where she was as a petition to join a family. She looks blank in them. She looks like everything she is not - passive, cooperative of manipulation, bored, uninterested - in these photos.

I have sentimintality for these photos, but that's about it now. And that shocks me. People will tell me that I want to deny her history. No, I'm ok with that, that's how she came to us. Maybe it's a lack of memories associated with the photo. I've got a pic of her in Dada's arms at her first father's day. I have a pic of her at a local teaching farm in the field with a wildflower branch in her hand. I have a pic of her grinning ear to ear with a cookie...all these images, I remember, I can smell and hear what was happening when I look at them. Those are the ones I want to stop next to the coffee table and cherish.

Memories of Danny

We learned last night that we lost a long time friend...Dan was 35. He was P's childhood friend, and became the brother I never had when I started to date P. He was best man in our wedding.



I remember the first time I met Danny...I had heard so much about him already. P and I had been dating a few months, but were talking pretty seriously already...Danny called because he was coming back from LA to NY, as he was done with submarine duty for the M/M Academy, and wanted to know how far our university was from the airport. P pretty much ruled it out with the length of layover, and then Dan found out about me. Dan was determined to meet me once he heard that this was already pretty serious. With only about a 4.0 hour layover, he landed in ORD, came up to school, hung with us for about 2 hours, and then went back to the airport. That's how he was...he always was open, loving, outgoing, and a bit of a spur of the moment.



I remember the toast he gave at our wedding...beautiful and caring words that I never expected out of "just Danny." He was the brother I never had...he was the brother P never had. I remember Danny three way calling while we were in school, cause they figured out that the Academy only tested for long distance after 20 minutes, so he'd call and set a timer and then walk away, so our parents wouldn't yell at us about phone bills, the summer P and I were living 5 states apart. He would do that when he called us too - we'd talk the three of us for 3 hours easily, in 19 minute increments. I remember Dan calling drunk from a bar in NY, because a pop star from the 80's that he had had a crush on in the day had walked into the bar...I remember him flying out for a surprise party for P's masters. In a snowstorm, coming in 3 hours late. But he never gave up coming. I loved seeing P's and his faces that weekend, having them back together again, having a great time. I remember the fear we felt on 9/11, not knowing where he was for hours, he was a freelance consultant, we just didn't know. He had been outside the city a bit still, thankfully. I still remember his voice when I picked up the phone. I can still hear it. I remember when I went to visit him in NY, back in college, and he so naively told the bum that I wasn't his girlfriend and the bum hit on me then...and I remember the time he almost lost an arm pulling me into the subway train during rush hour. I remember the pain he was in the time I spoke to him after his kidney was removed.



Over the years, Dan came and went. It wasn't unusual to not hear from him for a year. He was a single guy living in the city. In 2005, we got a call from him, he was having surgery. Kidney cancer. He was 31 at the time. I spent a lot of time on the phone with him then, and talking to his mom who moved to NY to see him thru the kidney removal. He bounced back quickly. He worked hard at it. He didn't want P and I to come, he wanted us to visit when he was well, and I was soon to have my first surgery for endo. We were for sure he'd be out to the house within 6 months. It never happened.



P last saw him a few years ago, when he took a business trip to NY. They went our for sushi and ran up a huge bill drinking and eating and talking. Danny's Dad had just passed, and it had hit him hard. Dan was talking about moving back to FL. He was admiring of our work on the adoption (we were still waiting), he shocked us by speaking of a desire to go and find a way to adopt as a single dad. We encouraged him, but as he moved closer to moving to FL, the talk faded away, and he did too.



Once he moved, he fell off the face of the Earth. Which we expected, that was how he was. We figured he'd resurface once he was settled in, once he had a job and was back in the groove. We were in the midst of H's adoption, that was the first email that he didn't respond to.

Did he move to FL knowing the cancer was back? Knowing it was the end? Did he go back and move into a home in rural FL to die? Did he purposefully keep that from us? Dan came and went, but we always reconnected. And as soon as we did, it was like no more than a week had passed.

Our lives have a big whole in them right now, a painful dark hole. And the only thing we have to fill it is regret. Regret we didn't find some way to check on him, that we didn't send more than an email every few months. Regret that life got in the way of the big picture when we realized something was up.

We always think there's another day. Now, there are no more days. All I can hope for is that some of the religions of the world out there are right, that there's going to be a child soon born that has the soul of a loving, kind, intelligent person who was well loved in this life and that that goodness is carried on. 35 years for this world to have had him wasn't enough.

Good bye Dan, we love you.

Did Anyone Send Out a Search Party?

Random Dates of Reflection

Perhaps some of you remember this story, most probably don't...but it's become woven into a point in time that for some reason apparently every year becomes a moment of reflection for me...

Our neighbor got pregnant with her 2nd (after giving up) the week we sent our dossier in to China. We had thought they'd "be coming home" the same time roughly, Peanut and her child-to-be. Well, obviously, with a 12/05 LID, that didn't happen. G was 18 months old by the time we got referral of Peanut. The timelines of this little boy's life stung me like few things stung me as the wait dragged out, I had two more surgeries due to the endo eating on my insides (culminating in a hysterectomy at the age of 33), and I felt that becoming a mama was never going to happen for me...

Two years ago, at his first birthday (which is what I posted about back then), not only was I still waiting the endless wait, with all kinds of rumors swirling and twisting in the air, and no end in sight, but also another drama-queen friend was there, knocked up with twins via ivf. She sat there and bitched all day about the trauma of having to carry these babies, and how expensive all this had been, and she hadn't had her teeth fixed before the pregnancy, and now the one root canal she had needed to do had become infected and they had to do it with a topical, cause, hello she was pregnant with twins, and obviously didn't have 2 brain cells to click together...she figured if she did the dental work, they wouldn't have the cash to get the ivf (hello? is this a sign?), so she opted to not have 7k in work done to her teeth, cause that's waaaay safer for all.

So, in my grown up way, with all my wits around me, I went next door to my house with some false pretense and sobbed my eyes out. And sobbed and grieved and sobbed some more. No matter how hard my friend had hoped for her 2nd, and this friend had endured infertility to get this pregnancy, I was pissed off and hurt. I felt somehow betrayed, tortured by these people having these kids and kids-to be. Probably the worst day ever of a one-week-under-2-years wait for Peanut.

Last year, G turned 2, and H was with us. She had been home 5 months and was a velcro baby. I was so proud to be carrying her into this party...my little girl (I was one of the mamas now!), in her little party dress. Our friends' family was all there oohing and aaahing over her, and it felt so good, after the year before's pain. Then I realized the absolute joy of seeing your child do something, attain a goal you've had for her...my little velcro baby went outside after a few hours with another neighbor friend and her little boy...she looked at me, and I said "if you want to go outside, you go with N"...and she did. And I felt myself beaming with pride. She was so brave. She was already learning to grow up...and even better, after 20 minutes, she came back inside and ran into my arms and squealed "mama!"

This year, G turned 3. He's independent and following the big boys etc, etc...H is more advanced "academically", but I see her socially behind where he was at at her age. What did I see yesterday? I saw a little girl hesitate at first, who still refuses to eat in groups other than small snacking, but then she warmed up, I saw her ask her dada for her swim suit (and after just a few seconds of hesitation about me staying at the party, she went home with him to get it), and run around on the slip n slide, and jump in the pool with the little kids and some of the bigger ones. I saw her let another neighbor hold her, a man who is gentle and kind, but with his booming voice scares the crap out of her. I saw G's dad get a hug from her, another man who's kind and caring towards her, but his height scares her. I saw a girl who says thank you to people, and one who climbed into the pile of kids watching presents opened with just a quick turn of the head to calculate my position. I saw a different child this year, one who is confident, smart, becoming articulate (she held discussions with many people who rarely hear her talk, and they understood her! woot! speech therapy!)...I saw the timid scared baby all washed out of her soul, I saw a strong confident little girl standing there...an opininated one (she was back in China too), but one who not only is confident enough to express her opinions clearly, but one who is learning to do it kindly (usually), and with some poise.

And me? I feel a different woman. A much stronger person, mentally and emotionally...between the endo trying to steal all quality of life, and the wait that we endured (more than I ever estimated in myself that I could handle)...a strong person who has been broken down and built back up. I was wobbly on my feet as a new mother, terrified of caring for this little one. Now, I'm confident, and sure of my steps with her. I have days where I can't wait for P to get home, but I feel very recently, that I've truly fully adjusted to motherhood...it can feel like a daily struggle sometimes - hell, she's 2, but not a struggle to find my bearings anymore. I don't know really how to explain it, I just feel zen about the whole thing now...

And here we are, a few days shy of 5 months into the wait for mei mei. A totally different wait, this time around. At this point last time, I was going bat-shit crazy. This time, I'm good, I know it'll almost for sure come. I know I can deal with the changes that we only had been warned about with IA, but never experienced at this point last time. I also know H isn't quite ready for mei mei to be here...in a year, yeah she will be. She's learning to share so nicely, but she's not ready to share me quite yet. All that has transpired in the last 2 years has made the child I'm waiting for much more tangible than H ever was when she was a figment of our dreams.

And I wonder next year, what will Peanut be doing at the party? Will she be the one helping the scared little twins come out of their shell? Will Peanut be showing off the picture of her new baby sister waiting in Taiwan at the party with an expression of her opinions and viewpoints on everything going on? I do know she again will not be the child that attended that party yesterday...

National Doughnut Day & Time Slipping Away...

According to MSN, bringer of every piece and tidbit of important, earth-shattering news, it's National Doughnut Day. Mind you, I love a sugar bomb of carb goodness like everyone else. Sometimes, I get a craving for the twinkie-filled doughnuts that Kr**py Kr*m* used to carry around here, and was stoked even more when the local doughnut shop, which churns out amazing doughnuts, copied and improved upon this treat. But, I eat them rarely, cause I'm entering the mid-30's this year, and my family genetics isn't kind to my backside as it is.

But, seriously, our gov't spends tons of money convincing us to eat healthier, to make our kids do stupid tests that supposedly test healthfulness (yeah, I remember when they started that...holding your chin above a bar only tests your threshold for pain, not if your ticker is good.), threaten to sue/ban/put on 40 foot billboard how unhealthy so much food is, but then there's a National Doughnut Day? I mean, some National Horse Puckey Day usually overlaps with National Pick Your Nose Day, but I just don't get the message...and I don't get why any government takes the time to worry about this bullshit. Oh yes...contributions to campaign funds. Well, I guess I just lost the doughnut & horse puckey union for thousands towards my campaign in 3 years...

Crazy old-lady with her robe open rant done...

On another front, I've broken down and I'm starting to work on The Peanut's photo albums. I'm not doing the China trip yet, I still don't know how to tackle that. I'm making it into a bigger deal than it should be, but there's so much emotion locked up with those pics. So I'm starting at her first days here, and moving forward...so the short version is, I've been going thru pics from March 1- approx May 31 2008 - slightly over a year ago...

Already, I don't know this baby in these pics. I don't remember how we went thru the days with her, she is so tiny (well, not really, but...relatively...), so helpless, so overcome, so shy and cautious. So very much not my opininated, stubborn, bright - wickedly bright, gregarious, loving child is now. It feels like a million years ago. Here, now, we are working on kicking the straw sippys, the crib is coming down within the next few weeks, we're showing an interest in the potty, are completely sure of ourselves and our opinions on everything, and willing to defy authority to express our opinion. And it's only been a year...what's it going to be like looking back at these in 2, 3, 7 years?!?! Will I remember how it was to go upstairs and have her giggle hilariously that she opened the door by reaching over her crib and jumped up and down to see me? Or will that be a dusty memory too quick and we'll be living in a new moment, so far away that I can't even imagine it, but apparently much closer than I think it is?

I'm amazed at what my child has already accomplished, and I look forward to what she is going to accomplish, but for a few moments, I need a sit with a doughnut and relive in my brain the baby she was...