Slowing things down
Okay, I know I mentioned I was slowing down my second adoption. I’ve decided that that decision might have been a bit reactionary. I don’t like the idea of waiting at all. And this doesn’t even have anything to do with my I want it now problem (believe me, I might have a problem in that arena). I just feel like since I waited so incredibly long to start my family, it’s time to complete it.
The past month may have been pretty stressful – the still undiagnosed eye thing, the autism and developmental delay worries, the incredibly unhelpful “early” start people (which I’ll write about when I’m not so angry), Oscar’s viral thing (which really might be the measles) and of course the global financial melt-down - but other than the last thing, they all seem to be the sort of “life” events that just happen and you deal with them. Part of me was thinking it would be nice not to have that “am I going to get my referral today” cloud hanging over my head. Instead, what I’ve found in the past few days is that I was thinking more of what happens if I can’t adopt from Ethiopia, and what happens if Oscar ends up being an only child, and even more, why am I letting economic worries keep me from finding my daughter. Lastly, I found out that my brilliant home study agency forgot to send a copy of their license when they delivered the final document. My reaction to this wasn’t “no big deal, I’m on hold.” It was much more of an “are you kidding me, they’re holding up my adoption.” Pretty good sign that I’m not ready to give this up just yet. Sorry, Oscar, you really are getting a sister.
A question
What are people’s thoughts on my taking Oscar to Ethiopia when I pick up his sister sometime next year? Obviously, there are pros and cons on each side. He’ll be far too young to actually remember such a trip, but it would be part of our family history, so there’s an advantage there. I also just cannot imagine going away for over a week without him. After all the work we’ve done with respect to attachment, I hate to think of the impact leaving him with my friends / parents would have on him (in addition to what I’m already going to do to him adding a sister to the mix). The downsides are the travel, the less than ideal conditions (although I don’t know if they’re any more difficult than those in Vietnam and we did fine there), and the split in my attention (although he’ll be getting used to that). Anyone out there actually do anything like this?
The name
Oscar’s real name was quite simple for me to choose. I’m having a harder time coming up with his sister’s name. Any suggestions?
I’m currently thinking of:
- Hadley Piper (was my favorite until I found out that Palin’s daughter is named Piper, making it likely that Piper will become more popular, and therefore unacceptable to me)
- Olivia (again, too popular, along with Isabelle, which I also love because of the “Izzie” option)
- Schuyler (or Skylar)
- Sabrina (one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite films)
- Parker
- Harper (I don’t know why I like this)
- Morgan
- Sloane
- Peyton
- Ella (love, but again . . .)
- Addis (pronounced Addie)
*** And the winner? Sabrina. I just think it’s pretty, and we can call her Bree (not Brie, like the cheese). I will, of course, be deleting all references to her real name soon and will refer to her with a code name (like Oscar’s), but thanks to all of you who contributed!
Outsourcing
Is it bad that I’m outsourcing getting my dossier authenticated? For those of you who have never adopted, you’re required to put together a dossier full of documents. Each of these documents usually needs to be notarized, then you have to take the notarized documents to the county court house and get them certified and then you take them to the Secretary of State, where they’re authenticated (although my terminology could be incorrect). Last time, for Oscar, this required me to make three trips to the court house and two trips to the Secretary of State. This time, I’d just rather not do it.
I’m going to make the trip to one court house to get 15 of my documents done tomorrow, but I’m outsourcing the rest to the traveling notary who will meet me on Tuesday to get my police clearance. He’ll take the docs that need to go through the process in SF all the way through to the Secretary of State. Does this mean that somehow I’m less engaged in this process, or does it just mean that I’m smarter about protecting my time?
It’s official
I’m one of the world’s leading consumers. My dossier is not even certified yet (just waiting for my homestudy to be notarized) and I’ve been shopping. I fear this is only the beginning of a very expensive few months as I wait for my referral and court date . . .
I can’t even pretend that this is something that she’ll need at any point in the next few years (okay, ever). But it looks so pretty hanging on my armoire . . .
Is it unreasonable
for a girl to expect her homestudy agency to actually get her homestudy started within two months of the date she first contacted them? I first called my crackerjack homestudy agency in early July to ask for a homestudy update. After seven phone calls (including two from my social worker to the director of the agency), I finally received pretty much every single application and form the agency had on adoption. I completed all of it, knowing that some was redundant and sent it in the next day. It has been six weeks since they received it and I have yet to receive a call from them telling me who my coordinator is (I’ve called and they won’t tell me). Meanwhile, my social worker and I have had all of our meetings and I’ve almost finished my dossier. The one and only thing holding me back here is this incompetent agency.
How aggressive can I get with them? I mean, they’re the ones who have the right to deny my homestudy, which would then send me to another one, wasting another $2600. Do agencies fire clients for pushing them too hard? The only reason I even care is that docs expire in 3 months for Ethiopian adoptions, and I started my dossier a while ago. This seemed like an ok thing to do as my original homestudy was completed in three weeks. How an update can take this long is beyond me. It’s frustrating that my SW and I are finding ways to work around them so we can have our part of the process done when they finally get to me.
Anyway, I met with my SW last week and I have to say she’s just the most wonderful woman. We talked for hours about the Thai situation as well as Oscar. I really underestimated the benefit of a good social worker. We thoroughly discussed what we both think is the right child for my family right now – age, health, race (we both agree that being multicultural/international is probably better than doing domestic adoption for my family), etc. Since she’s spent so much time with Oscar, and has a pretty good take on his emotional state, I really appreciated her advice. I was surprised that her primary concern was age. She thinks that, given Oscar’s attachment issues, bringing an infant into our home is the preferable choice. There’s less competition and it’s less likely he’ll have significant issues with a little baby that’s just being held (as opposed to running around and being in his face). I think I need to give some credence to this, if only because I’m doing this second adoption so quickly after the first. I just want to make sure Oscar’s as ok as he can be with what I’m doing to his life. So, after adoption #1 when I said I was open to a child up to 4 years old, I’m now jumping into the pack of PAPs requesting an infant under 1 year of age. I know, I’m part of the problem and not part of the solution.
The truth
Not the whole truth, but the truth nonetheless. You might have noticed that for almost three weeks I haven’t really written about my current adoption. I’ve thought long and hard about how much I would/could tell you about what’s been going on these past few weeks. Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that all I really have the right to tell you is that I am not going to be adopting the little girl I mentioned a few weeks ago. The reasons for this are extremely complicated and there are, of course, confidentiality obligations that I will not breach. I just thought it was appropriate for me to mention that I will not be returning to Asia for child #2, but that I will be following through with my original plans to adopt a child from Ethiopia. As you might imagine, I am deeply conflicted about this, but I am confident that this decision is for the best in most respects.
Then and now – self-doubt
I had one of those horrible days where I seemed to question each and every decision I’ve made recently. I’m not entirely sure what triggered it; although it seems likely that it has to do with the fact that I’m making one of the large agency payments now in connection with adoption #2. I’ve been racked all day with doubts as to whether I should be embarking on this adoption. This is not aided by the fact that my mother has decided to actually express her opinions on my family planning decisions (I’ll let you in on a secret – they’re not entirely in line with my own). So I spent all day worrying whether I should be adopting now; whether I should be adopting a child who is not an infant; and worrying whether I can actually cope with having an HIV+ child. My favorite worry of the day was the worry that if I’m actually worried about any of these things perhaps I should just stop the process now, since I would imagine people should only do these sorts of things if they’re completely sure of themselves.
Then I remembered the self-doubt I had last year around this time while I was awaiting Oscar’s referral. You can’t imagine a girl more conflicted/unsure about the adoption process. Back then, though, the doubts were there only because of the fact that I had not had a child before, so the entire enterprise was just a leap of faith. I get how wonderful it is to be a mom now; that part I’m very secure in. The other things – parenting a child who has been in an orphanage for more than a few months and with a special need already identified – are issues I’m not familiar with. In fact; the institutionalization issue is scary for me since Oscar’s transition was so difficult and he had only been in his orphanage 7 months.
Then I get to the HIV issue, which for me is the hardest one (obviously). I’m not concerned about transmission; I am of course concerned about the possibility that she (did I mention child #2 is a girl? she is, and she’s super-cute, too) falls ill. I’m sure that this is a normal worry. People who know about her medical state usually tell me that I’m a stronger person than they are for being willing to deal with this – they would be overcome with worry, etc. These statements sort of perplex me because it’s clear to me that I am no different than they are. I’m certainly overcome with worry about all of this. I hate that I can’t control the outcome of this situation; that I don’t even have a clue how this will play out. I am approaching this with the attitude that all will be well; that even if we’re thrown for a loop, we’ll deal with it and everything will be ok. But, am I being cavalier? And, if I am being cavalier, is that a bad thing in this case?
In all of this there is one thing that I keep coming back to over and over again. It’s actually the possibility that things do not go well for us; that she does become ill. And, oddly enough, that’s when I know that I’m making the right decision. Because in the end, the one thing that frightens me more than anything else is the possibility that she becomes ill without her family there to take care of her. And somehow in that I’m able to find peace with this.
Maybe I overreacted a little
Okay, so I’m almost done with my dossier. Yeah, I’m a little surprised, too. It’s amazing what having gone through this once does for your ability to pull together a bunch of mundane information in an incredibly small amount of time. That, and the fact that I’m doing this at the office, where I have a notary outside my office. All I’m missing right now is my police report and my medical letter, both of which I will get early next week (if I can figure out how this traveling notary thing works). This is by far the most productive I’ve been in months; quite likely the most productive I’ve been this year, in fact.
Anyway, to add to the great success of the day, I was able to finally program my remote control, allowing me to watch television for the first time since June 20th. This is huge to me. I’m not one of those people who think that they’re more intellectual than others by virtue of the fact that they don’t watch tv – or even better – they only watch certain erudite programs. Ha. Not this girl.
We moved in June into a lovely house that had recently been remodeled. All of the rooms had been wired for cable, of course, but the owner of the house IS one of those guys who doesn’t want to be known as a tv watcher, so none of these cables were actually pulled through the walls. Some guys I know were able to rig up a cable box to the movie projector (yeah, the owner doesn’t watch tv, but he did build a home theater, I guess to watch really smart films), but I needed a fancy remote control to actually use the cable box, which is in a utility room away from the theater. SO, enter the Logitech Harmony something or other. Very fancy – very complicated (it’s taken me two evenings to figure out simply how to change the channels, let alone adjust the volume or watch a dvd) – very pricey. But very worth it. I just changed channels without walking down the hall and through the garage to the utility room. I love technology and I heart this remote.
Repressed memories
I’ve launched myself full-force into my dossier for child #2 today. Can I tell you how much I hate this aspect of adoption? I agree that the sending country has every right in the world to ask for the things they require. I would be a little suspect of a country that didn’t ask for all of the basics (for those of you bio moms, the basics include over a dozen notarized documents, certified financial information, medical clearances and highly specific letters of reference – all of which must be certified at the county, state and federal level). Must say, though, that even though they have every right to ask for it, it is still a pain to produce all of this. I’m fairly certain that this aspect of adoption is one of the reasons that a lot of people automatically reject the notion of it.
My current frustration lies with the bank letter. In concept it’s no big deal, but the country I’m adopting from wants language from the bank that my financial future looks positive, that I have made good investments and that I am financially capable fo providing for a child. Yeah, that’s going to happen. All of these statements are true, but notwithstanding the fact that I bank with one of those “private” banks, there’s no way they’re going to make those statements. Of course, this just means that I’m going to have to enter into a protracted negotiation over what they’re willing to say. Obviously, the result is well-worth the frustration, but it’s annoying nonetheless.
My dossier for Vietnam must have been like this, too, I guess, but I seem to have repressed all of the negative memories of Oscar’s adoption (aside from my wait for visa approval – that I’m going to keep with me a while). Okay, enough whining, must return to the task at hand.
The eye thing
Oscar has something very wrong with one of his eyes. Actually, he might have something wrong with his brain, but whatever it is is affecting his vision. I first noticed that there was a problem the day after I picked him up in VN. His eye sort of shakes – the iris/pupil flits back and forth constantly, he turns his head to use only his left eye and he only uses his left hand. The doctor at the SOS clinic in Hanoi was the first to identify it as a serious problem, telling me that I should talk with my agency to determine whether I should even take him home, as I had not anticipated adopting a child with a special need.
Of course, I didn’t do that. Even taking into consideration how difficult my relationship with Oscar was early on there was no way that I would have considered leaving him behind in Vietnam. I automatically dismissed his suggestion, but the issue behind the suggestion (that there might be something significantly wrong with his vision) remained. Since our first visit to his pediatrician here in the States, we’ve seen a number of specialists, most of whom told me that the condition was something called ”nystagmus,” a condition that has no cure, has only one treatment that isn’t very successful and that may lead to complete vision loss. Others simply noted it was a complete vision loss (that’s what the PC medical world appears to call the condition formerly known as blindness). Great. We saw a neuro-ophthalmologist yesterday who wasn’t so convinced that this is nystagmus, but he was also not convinced that he knew what the condition actually is. He just knows it’s something he wishes weren’t there.
At this point, my frustration with the medical community is pretty pronounced. I understand that it is misdirected. It’s not their fault that there is something wrong with my son’s vision. It’s probably not even their fault that they can’t identify the problem. He is, after all, a one-year old who has extremely limited communication skills (unless you take into consideration his highly developed ability to grunt). I just wish I could ascertain what that problem actually is. At the most fundamental level, I wish I understood whether my son even has any vision in his “bad” eye. No one has been able to even tell me that. We’re at the point now that I’m patching his “good” eye at home in order to tell whether he can see with the other eye. So far, I can tell that he can track light with the eye, but who knows if he can actually see anything (it doesn’t appear that he can). I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get him to wear the patch long enough this evening to determine whether he’ll watch his favorite movie and if he can track any of the action.
The reason I mention this is that I’m finding it ironic that most of the people I’ve told about child #2 being HIV+ (I’m only telling people IRL if they’re immediate family members or people I’ll need to have write reference letters addressing my ability to parent a child with the virus) express so much concern about the stress that accompanies having a special needs child. They’re right. It is stressful. But it’s a stress I’ve been living with for a while already.
People like to tell me that it takes a special type of person to parent a special needs child. That is wholly untrue, IMO. It just takes a parent. I didn’t request a special needs child when I started the process to adopt Oscar, but I ended up with a child with a vision loss. I think it goes without saying that I would prefer that this weren’t the case. The disappointment I feel for him for what he might miss out on (e.g., driving a car, perhaps playing sports) is sometimes overwhelming, but I’m not sure that it changes our relationship. I mean, sure, it changes it on days like yesterday when he had his eyes dilated and spent the day in dark rooms refusing to eat and I tried to compensate for it by babying him more than usual. Yes, we spend more time in doctors’ offices and I spend more time on the phone with my insurance company, but our relationship isn’t different. I’m the same mom I would have been had he not had this problem, and he’s the same kid. He just can’t see out of one eye and I’m now able to see that there’s not necessarily a difference between parenting “special needs” and “healthy” children.
What I think about most is that if the orphanage had disclosed the existence of his vision problem, he would have been designated a “special needs” child, and I would not have adopted him. I wouldn’t have even considered it. That is unfathomable to me now. The fact is that Oscar would probably still be in his orphanage waiting for someone to choose him despite his “eye thing” (as we call it). The fact is that there are many other Oscars still in their orphanages in the same predicament, but I’ll leave that topic alone.
I promise I’m not going to start with the preachy posts; this one really was in remembrance of a certain girl last winter who rolled her eyes at the parents with SN kids who would reply to the posts on the Yahoo! groups about wanting a “healthy” kid – you know, the posts where the parents say “even if you ask for a healthy child you never know what you’re going to get.” I may have thought that they were stating a truism – of course you never know – but I missed their subtext, which is that if you only ask for a healthy child you never know what you’re going to miss out on. You could be missing out on the best thing to ever happen to you.
More than procrastination?
I still haven’t filed my I-600A. Yeah, yeah, I know I said I was going to do it. I didn’t. I think there might have been more to it than simple laziness (or procrastination as it’s more formally known – has a much more pleasing ring to it, don’t you think?). My placement agency has a woman who focuses on placing HIV+ children. I’ve talked with / emailed her a few times in the past couple of weeks about child #2, and she got me thinking about adopting from a country that I had not considered before – a Hague country no less. As a result, I’ve actually put together my I-800A application and am filing it tomorrow. I think that my procrastination actually just saved me $670.
More importantly, it appears that I’m switching countries. I am going to hold off discussing it until my dossier is submitted and I learn more about this new country’s process, so stay tuned.
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
