My son and I went and dropped off the paperwork! I forgot to drop off the all important check, ooops! So, I mailed it. I think that while we are waiting for the home study I am going to start gathering paperwork I assume we'll need for the government. For instance I need a passport, so I'll get that. And while I'm at it I'll get more official copies of birth certificates and such. Hopefully that'll help speed things along.
After we did that we went to Target and browsed the clearance racks and we found the cutest little dress for our little girl! So we bought it! It took me a long time to commit to buying it, it was a very strange feeling, to say the least.


It's admitting in a way that I have this empty space in my heart waiting to be filled by this little person who may not even exist yet. It feels good to admit that. It's finally allowing myself to feel something, since I've been doing everything I can for the last however many years to deny it, or put off feeling hopeful. It's been my self preservation hard at work. The whole process of infertility seems so endless, so every month I tried (in vain) to pretend that I was going with the flow and not stressing. I'd be trying to fool myself into believing that it was this month, or this month, or this.... it never was. Each month I felt like the ability to hope, or be hopeful, was being smothered. That's why I had to stop. I need to be hopeful, I need to be optomistic, that's the kind of person I've always been and this tourture was killing that. I find now that I have to relearn in some ways how to be hopeful. Relearn how to be optomistic. I'm still stressed, just in another way. And it does remind me very much of being pregnant. The feeling of this all important task being essentially out of your hands, and yet you're so involved in it. I think I am going thru some sort of hormone thing too, whether it's because of the after effects of medication, I do not know. It's there though.
A side note, since this whole adoption thing is new to us, and our families I'm finding that there are misconceptions about adoptive parents I've never thought about. One thing I think we are running into now is the money issue. We feel the need to justify our adoption to others. Like we need to explain away a purchase of a boat or vacation or convertable car in Minnesota. As if people think the adoption is a frivolous choice and if we 'have the money' to adopt, or we 'choose' to adopt then why are we asking for help? We have a son, can't we just be happy? We find ourselves going thru the entire thought process and medical reasoning behind our need to adopt. Notice I say NEED not CHOICE. Because it is a need, for our family to feel complete we need to adopt. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever invision having an only child. I have however thought often about adoption, even as a teenager I did. I didn't realize that I'd feel the need to justify doing what we feel is right for our family! Or explain it. I NEVER had to explain why I wanted to get pregnant!! In fact I probably had to explain more why I didn't get pregnant SOONER! So to those that love us, or those who know someone who is adopting or thinking of it, please don't question why. Just remember that they have the ability and need to love, and love is not descriminating, do you need to know anymore than that?

Bored at work

Who isn't? I have only 25 minutes left before I am free! And finally for once in the last 2 weeks the weather is going to be great when I get home! Windy, but sunny! I have been typing all day long, part of my job is to type up student news. And I'm not the worlds best typer, but I do okay. I get it done.
We still have not finished the initial paperwork. We have to go to the library and sign papers in front of a notary. Libraries have those right? Then we are done. And we drop it off and wait. It bugs that we couldn't have been put on some waiting list while we were doing this paperwork, now we've been busting our butts doing this and once it's in we just pick our noses and wait until the next huge pile of paper they hand us. And we'll bust our butts again trying to get that done, when if they'd let us get started on some of the paperwork now we could make use of this waiting time. So ARCHAIC! And why don't they make any use of computers and the internet? Vietnam has internet, they have email, they have fax machines; really they do!

4:30
Well time to go, I am FREE!!!

Who knew one little piece of paper.....

Could make me so nervous anxious and bored?
I had forgotten to make my appointment to get my Dr. to fill out this little yellow piece of paper saying I am in good health. So last week I made the appointment and today was the day. I've been stressing all week about it because there's this question, "has patient ever been treated or diagnosed for mental illness, depression etc.?". Well, that is a very broad general statement to me. I mean to go from depression to mental illness is quite a jump, and not a good one. I say that because while I was going thru all the infertility, the long weeks and months of waiting I did worry I was getting depressed and I spoke to my Dr. about it and she prescribed Prozac. (the wonder drug?) Anyway, I never took it, still have the bottle in my cupboard somewhere. And I have dealt with depression in my early 20's but it's not something I feel should permanently stigmatize me for life. I worried that the Dr. would somehow see me being proactive as some sort of admission or diagnosis of a mental illness. That whole mental illness label is so broad and misleading. Too broad. It's a double edged sword too, on the one hand you feel vindicated when after months of not feeling 'right' you have this free pass of an official mental illness, "see I told you something's wrong! THEY say so!" but when it comes to the outside world, getting a job or in my case adopting, it's this huge weight, this albatross you want to explain. You feel attacked, you feel defensive "hey I'm not ill, I'm normal, I'm just aware of my mental health and I ask for help when I need it! That makes me more sane and clearheaded than most of you!". Do I think depression is dangerous? Yes, it can be. But 95% or more people who have called themselves depressed are not "mentally ill", they are in need of help in the form of counseling and the support of family and friends. For most that's all they need. Besides, what mom or parent for that matter doesn't get depressed at the thought of carpools, seeing your next r-rated film in a theater in 10 years, or having romance take place after 9 pm?

Back to the Dr.'s office, I waited and waited, 35 minutes in a paper gown to be exact. Then I got dressed and was almost out the door when the Dr. came in. I only had time to speak with her about the paperwork (Gee, bummer guess I'll reschedule that annual for uh, next year) she was very nice about it. And thank God she was on the same page as me and feels most people she sees that are depressed are not mentally ill. Meaning it will not affect their ability to be parents.
My gripe is that the adoption agency makes me feel like I am being attacked, and they do not adequately explain their needs. I suppose they do that so we'll vomit out all this potentially incriminating stuff. I wonder how many good parents are ruled out by this? Or maybe it's just not a big deal at all and I'm just hyper sensitive to anything that could potentially leave me without the possibility of a daughter.
It's probably a little of both.

I hope this counts as work. ;-) Since I'm at work. But it's a paper and this is news-media isn't it?

By the way I named my blog 'January hopes' because I hope that by January we will be bringing our daughter home.

Beginning my story

HI,
thanks for checking this new blog out. I'm at a total loss as to how to do this, but I figure it's like a journal right? I tend to write in a very conversational form, always have. I have kept a journal since I was in 5th grade when my parents separated. I guess huge life dilemmas are my writing triggers. And here we go again............

I'm beginning.
Odd sentence, but that sums things up. I am beginning, beginning a new job, beginning a loooong trek thru the trials and tribulations, not to mention the insults, and stress of adoption. We (Dh, Ds and I) hope to adopt from a newly re-opened program in Vietnam. The thing is, I am a very private person and the initial paperwork has asked for more info than I was prepared for. I mean, we've got to get finger-printed!! I know that this is all a precaution, no one wants some crazed criminal adopting children, but it still feels so icky. I want a child more than anything so of course I am going to go thru all of this. I just can't help but feel like it's so not fair. It's not fair that I am unable to give my family another biological child, and it's not fair that so many irresponsible women get pregnant and either give up, abort or abuse their kids. That being said I know that kids are life changing and I know that they have a way of making the worst person change their ways. But some don't. Plus, what is it with those women that just say the word pregnant and they're insanity knocked up? What is it? Who needs 16 kids?! And these days who would even have a farm that big? Anyway, I feel like going thru some of this is not only insulting but punishing someone who's been thru a lot already. I don't mind proving I'm healthy, I don't mind them looking to see if I have any police record, which I don't. I do mind them asking for more than my physical records, and wanting permission to interview a counselor from 10 years ago, or making it seem as tho needing help thru a time of stress and receiving it from a therapist or doctor or even thru medicine is somehow wrong. Like there's a stigma attached to asking for help. It's archaic.
The whole concept of adopting is scary. You have to have faith that this child that someone else picks for you will be the right fit for your family without ever having any interaction at all. Hey, we can't all be Angelina Jolie, she can basically walk into any orphanage and pick which one she wants, we don't have the money to be so selective. In fact I can't find any info on how exactly the average person would go about adopting in such a way.
And adoption is expensive! I really have no idea how we are going to do this without nearly bankrupting our family. That's not the way you imagine bringing a new member into the family. So I'm planning a garage sale to help with current debt. At least I can try to whittle that down. I got a new job 3 days a week. My son's not too keen on the idea of mommy being gone now. But at least he's got daddy time. He loves his daddy time, doing yard work and riding his big wheel.
I've been scouring the net for books on different types of families, so I can begin explaining how it's so cool that we will have a unique family to our son. And to explain how he is biological and his (sister) will be adopted and that that is just as special as having a bio-baby. So far I haven't had much luck. Maybe I'll write my own book.

I think that this is probably a good start, besides this laptop is giving me a headache.

Thanks for reading.