Zen Mama

I've moved...

2006-08-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

my blog, that is. The new address is http://zenmama.wordpress.com. Click here to access it.

Please update your links (and note that the new address has one "zen"--not two.

See you over there!

Zgirl

Adoption Talk at The Melting Pot

2006-08-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

Last night, ZGuy and I went to celebrate our DTC status by pigging out at The Melting Pot. We had a wonderful four course meal that left us stuffed well into this morning.

While eating, both our server and the restuarant manager asked us if we were there to celebrate anything (I get the impression that lots of people go to The Melting Pot for special occasions, probably because it so darn expensive), and we told them about our DTC status. They were very congratulatory, and the manager even said that he and his wife were thinking about adopting at some point.

What was particularly interesting about their responses to us was their assumption that our decision to adopt was based on a desire to save the orphans and help needy kids. Our server told us that we were "good people" for adopting, and the manager said that he respected our way of "ministering." In actuality, we decided to adopt not to be charitable but to start a family. We just wanted a kid and couldn't have one the old fashioned way. After considering our remaining options, adoption seemed like the best path for us. The server and manager seemed very nice and genuine, though, so we just smiled and said thanks and didn't explain the "real" reason for our decision.

Based on comments made by other China a-aparents, this type of response is not unusual. Lots of them have gotten it. Although it is true that the primary motivation of many a-parents to adopt is give orphaned kids a home, many others decide to adopt because, like us, they simply want to be parents.

I have more to say on this topic, but I don't have time right now to write a longer post. I'll continue this post later.

Recipes, anyone?

2006-08-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

It was my birthday a few days ago, and because I'm such a wild and crazy gal, I asked ZGuy to get me a slow cooker. So he did, and now I'm the new owner of a $19.99 red Rival 4-quart crock pot. Here's a photo of its white counterpart:

I am very excited about my crock pot. I' ve never used one before, however, so I need a little help. Specifically, I need recipes. Vegetarian ones. The guide that came with the crockpot consists primarily of meat-based recipes. I did buy two vegetarian slowcooker cookbooks yesterday, but if you know of any good recipes, please send them my way. Thanks!

Celebration

2006-08-05T08:08:00.000-05:00

So ZGuy and I began our weekend of post-DTC festivities by going to see The Descent, a wonderfully scary and claustrophobia-inducing movie about six women who get lost in a very dark and creepy cave chain in the Appalachian Mountains. There were some aspects of the film that I found a little too Hollywood-ish, but overall, it was one of the best horror films that I have seen in a long time.

Tonight, we are continuing our celebration by going to The Melting Pot to eat lots of ooey-gooey cheese and chocolate fondue.

At some point, my post-DTC high will wear off, and the reality of our upcoming two-year wait (give or take a few months) will soon set in. But that hasn't happened yet, so in the meantime, I'm going to milk my excitement for as long as I can. As the drunken college-aged guys in our neighborhood like to say at late hours on weekend nights, "Woo!"

OMG! We're DTC!

2006-08-04T14:28:00.000-05:00

Our agency sent our dossier off to China today. They didn't even get it until this morning, so I just assumed that it would get there too late for them to include in this week's batch.

So, like, wow, ZGuy and I get to celebrate a week earlier than we thought we would. The Melting Pot, here we come...

It's off

2006-08-03T14:59:00.000-05:00

I sent our dossier to our agency this afternoon. So assuming Fed-Ex doesn't mess things up, our agency will have it tomorrow morning. Yay!

Hopefully we are finally done with things on our end. If our agency finds problems with the dossier, we may get delayed a couple of weeks trying to fix things.

My brain hurts from all the sorting and document checking I did today. Must rest now.

More about the update

2006-08-02T20:12:00.000-05:00

So yes, our 171-H, homestudy report, and my medical form should be arriving tomorrow afternoon. Which means that I will most likely Fed-Ex our dossier to our agency tomorrow. Which means that the agency, if all goes to plan ("if all goes to plan" is my new catch phrase, as it seems that this adoption process has reduced our life to a time line), will receive our dossier on Friday.

The only reason why I might not Fed-Ex the dossier tomorrow and do it on Friday instead is that some of the xerox copies of various documents that we have to send along with the originals have my hand/wrist prints on them. This resulted from me holding down the documents on the xerox machine to make sure they were properly aligned. The hand/wrist prints aren't obstructing the actual documents or anything, but they are a little creepy and reptilian looking. Actually, now that I think about it, what I will probably do is redo the xeroxes tomorrow morning so everything is ready to go when I get the forms.

ZGuy (previously known as Mr. ZGirl) and I just got back from our 8 day roadtrip to assorted east coast and southern states, so we are pretty tired.

Oh, and Fed-Ex tracking is a wonderful thing.

August 11th is still looking like our DTC date if (say it with me) all goes to plan.

Update

2006-08-02T16:36:00.000-05:00

The last of our authenticated documents should be arriving tomorrow afternoon.

More updates soon.

First squirrels, now monarchs

2006-07-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, I've had several lovely monarch butterflies hang out in the foliage outside of my office window. There are two of them out there right now.

If my camera had working batteries, I'd take some pictures of them. But alas, it doesn't, so instead I'm posting this photo from the World Wildlife Foundation:

Our next steps

2006-07-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Now that we have the I-171H, we have all the documents that we need for the dossier. The only thing we need to do now is get the document certified and authenticated.

We got the I-171H notarized and sent off for certification yesterday. If all goes to plan, we'll have it back later this week. Because we are going on vacation on Wednesday for eight days, I am having the document Fed-Exed to where we are staying. Then, the day after we get back from our trip, we are driving down to Chicago to get the form authenticated by the Chinese Embassy. If we get the form in by 11:30 AM, we can pick it up later that afternoon. A couple of days after that, we'll Fed-Ex our dossier to our adoption agency, which will then--if everything looks good--send it to China on Friday, August 11.

An August 11th DTC would mean that we would be done with things on our end in less than three weeks. I don't want to get my hopes up yet, however, as delays could still happen at various points along the rest of the process.

It's here!!!

2006-07-21T17:56:00.000-05:00

Our I-171H arrived today! Yay! I'm very intrigued by the fact that it arrived the day after our INFO PASS meeting and my phone call to CIS. Hmmm. Maybe these things did make a difference. At the same time, though, the form's processing date is July 19th--the day before our meeting and phone call. Which leads me to wonder why they didn't tell us that at our meeting the next day. Oh well, whatever. It doesn't matter now.

Tomorrow we will get the form notarized and Fed-Exed off to our Secretary of State.

And if all goes to plan from here, we're going to have a mid-August DTC date. That's less than a month from now.

Our INFOPASS visit

2006-07-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

This morning Mr. ZGirl and I went to our INFOPASS appointment at our trusty CIS office. Before we got there, I had envisioned that we would get called into an office, and we'd all sit down and chat, with the immigration officer answering our questions about the 171-H process.

This isn't exactly how it happened. Instead of being called into an office, we got called up to a counter, and we spoke to the immigration officer through a speaker, as she was on the other side of a plexiglass window. The only benefit to this set up was that right before the meeting, I noticed a food stain on my pants at the knee, so her being behind a plexiglass enclosed counter meant that she wouldn't be able to see my unkempt state.

The other thing about this meeting was that she didn't seem to know what forms we were talking about. I told her that we had been waiting for the I-171H for over seven weeks now and were just wondering when we should expect to get it. She paused for a second and looked a little confused before asking, "When did you file your I-171H?" Hmm. I told her that we didn't file the I-171H , that we filed the I-600A, and that once CIS received that form, along with our homestudy report and fingerprints, they were supposed to review everything and approve us for the I-171H. She paused again, skimmed through a official looking binder for a few seconds, and then said that she's be right back. When she came about a couple of minutes later, she said tht she spoke with the orphan officer, and that person said that they don't have a timeframe for when our I-171H should arrive. She did say that she would tell the orphan officer that we had stopped by and that he/she would probably look at our file.

Sure, that's cool, whatever. When we got home, I called the orphan officer's number that my SW gave me a couple of days ago (the new policy as of July 1st is that adoption agencies are not allowed to call them anymore, only the prospective a-parents are). The message on the answering machine said that processing time for the I-171H is currently 90 days. So the 3 month estimate that I had heard about earlier appears to be true. My SW said that until they go above 90 days, there's not much that we can do. If they surpass it, though, that's when we can contact our Congresspeople.

51 days down, 39 to go. Ugh.

Interesting reactions

2006-07-19T17:32:00.000-05:00

[Note: I originally posted a rougher version of this discussion at the end of my earlier post about my accupunturist. I took it out because I wanted to give it its own space. In the meantime, Johnny left a comment about the deleted part, which I then responded to. So if you're confused as to what he and I were talking about in the comments section of that post, here's the story. Read the earlier post first for a broader context.]

I have various friends who were born and raised in Asian countries. When I told two of my Chinese friends about the adoption, they expressed great interest and offered to help teach our child Chinese. When I told my some of my Vietnamese and Taiwanese friends about it, however, I got very different reactions.

I told my Taiwanese friend about the adoption just as we were starting the adoption process. After I told her over lunch one day, she got this horrified look on her face. My initial thought was that she disapproved of international adoption and more specifically, the act of white parents raising Asain babies (I had been reading a lot on the politics and ethics of transracial adoption at the time and my worries about perpetuating white/Western cultural imperialism were particularly strong then). Anyway, it turns out that she wasn't horrified at us adopting a Chinese child per se but worried that we would get swindled by the Chinese adoption officials. According to my friend, Chinese people like to swindle foreigners, especially Americans.

Then, yesterday, I was tellling my Vietnamese accupuncturist about the recent slowdown at the CCAA, and she rolled her eyes and gave me a look sort of like, "Yeah, what did you expect? It's China."

When I had the discussion with my Taiwanese friend, I already knew about the contentious relationship between Taiwan and China. I wasn't familiar with the contentious history between China and Vietnam, however, but after my conversation with my accupuncturist yesterday, I got the impression that maybe something was going between those two countries as well.

Turns out there is bad blood between China and Vietnam, as explained to me by Johnny. Mr. ZGirl also explained some of this history to me when he got home from his trip today. It's very interesting to learn about these historical tidbits, as it provides me with a greater knowledge of Asian--and in particular Chinese--political history.

It's also very interesting to see how these broader historical and political dynamics play out in very localized and personal ways here in the United States around the adoption issue.

CIS progress, sort of

2006-07-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

The person with the April 14th fingerprinting date emailed me to tell me that she received her I-171H form on Saturday. She's still pretty sure that they got through April 27th. If that's the case, we're still a month behind, but at least the office is making some progress.

Today we hit the seven week mark...

2006-07-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

of waiting for our I-171H form.

I celebrated this momentous day with a very relaxing accupuncture treatment from my Vietnamese accupuncturist. I bring up her ethnicity because when I was telling her about our adoptions delays, she asked me if I would consider adopting a Vietnamese child. Assuming she meant adopting an orphan from Vietnam, I said yes, that Mr. ZGirl had talked about that country's program, and that we might consider adopting a second child from there. It turns out, however, that she had a different adoption plan in mind for us. Evidently, she has an unmarried cousin in California who has 5-7 kids by various fathers (my accupuncturist gave this numeral range, as she's not sure of the exact number of children her cousin has). Anyway, she said that she's thought for some time now that the cousin has too many kids to care for as a single mom, and that I should consider adopting one of them. She was serious. She even said that if I was interested, she would talk to the cousin and the cousin's mother for me.

I responded by thanking her for the offer, but that if she is worried about her cousin's mothering skills, she should probably contact a social worker rather than try to give the kids away to her friends. But I was touched that she thought of me as being worthy enough to raise her cousin's offspring.

About those adoption tickers

2006-07-18T20:26:00.000-05:00

I forgot to ask this in my earlier posts about adoption tickers, so I thought I'd mention it now. If anyone knows of any not-too-cutesy, not-too-girlie, not-too-ladybuggy adoption tickers, PLEASE let me know. And no teapot ones, as that is the one I am currently using, and I would like to replace it something a little more, uh, relevant.

Thanks!

It's pretty much official

2006-07-17T09:51:00.000-05:00

The CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) recently returned from a meeting with adoption officials in Australia. Based on this meeting, the Australian government (there are no private international adoption agencies in that country) officially declared the the wait time for a referral from the time that your dossier is logged in with China will go up to 18 months over the next year, and that the wait time could get longer after that.

To put that 18 months is perspective: when we decided to adopt from China, our agency told us it was a six month wait. Turns out the wait was really 9 months at that point, but whatever. 9 months was still a comfortable time frame, and close to the length of an actual pregnancy. This summer the wait has gotten to be around 13 months. Still, not great, but not so bad. But 18 months, that is triple the length of time we were told the process would be and double the length of time that we were anticipating once we actually started our paperwork.

So this is what it all means for us in practical terms.

Say we get our dossier to China in late August (assuming our CIS office gets its sh*t together) and we get a log in date of mid September 2006. That means at the very least we won't get a referral until April 2008, and we won't travel to meet our daughter until June 2008.

That is two years away. So from the time we started the adoption process, it will be 2 1/2 years, and tack on another year to trying to have a kid to old fashioned way and we're pushing 3 1/2 years.

And to make our CIS saga even more juicier, an 18 month wait would mean that we will have to redo our homestudy, fingerprints, and 171H approval, as the fingerprints are only good for 15 months. Fun.

And if we did stick it out for the first child, I'm not sure what we'd do if we decided to adopt a second child. If we decided to adopt a second child, we would ideally want her to have the same heritage as her sister, but I don't know if we could deal with another 2 1/2 year wait, especially since we won't be able to start the adoption process for a second child until the first one has been home for at least six months.

Hmm. Lots to ponder.

It's the little things

2006-07-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

Mr. ZGirl is visiting his brother in Texas for five days, so I've had the house to myself this weekend. Usually when he goes away for trips or conferences, I take advantage of this quiet time. So what have I been doing with it today?

1) Kakuro Puzzles. I was hooked on Sudoko earlier this year, but I got a little burned out by it after awhile. I've been avoiding Kakuro puzzles like the plague since then, as I haven't wanted to start up another puzzle obsession, but I finally broke down and tried out a couple this week courtesy of Games Magazine. And then there is this site, from which you can print the puzzles for free. I just printed two of them, and will do them at bedtime.

2) Steamed asparagus with a little butter, blasamic vinegar, and roasted pine nuts. It's quick and easy to make--about ten minutes. I made a ton of it tonight so I can also eat it tomorrow for lunch and dinner.

3) Dove milk chocolate squares. Enough said.

4) I started to work on my FlyLady routines for work. I recently put together a control journal for home and am planning on getting materials together for my work one.

Grey skies

2006-07-16T18:22:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest, it's been a rough week, the roughest one for me since we started the adoption process. I have been very down about our paperchasing problems and delays. Like having-a-hard-time-getting-out-of-bed-and-sobbing-uncontrollably down. I mean, we knew early on about the delays on China's end (current rumors are that we will have to wait 18 months for a referral once our dossier is logged into China's system, which won't happen for another couple of months--when we started the process the wait was 9 months) BUT we never expected to face so many delays during the paperchase (in addition to the CIS stuff, our SW took an extra month to finish our homestudy report). I know that once we get our 171H and things start to move again I'll start to feel better, but that is then and this is now.

Today has been better than yesterday, though, which is good, and although it feels like we'll never get to be parents, I have been thinking about some post adoption childrearing plans. I've been reading a little about the possibility of breastfeeding after adoption via induced lacation. If I did it, it would be more to facilitate the bonding process rather than for nutritional reasons, as our child will already be used to formula and it's likely that I wouldn't be able to produce enough milk to meet all of her nutritional needs (although some woman have been able to produce enough through induced lacation). Plus, I would really love to experience breastfeeding for its own sake.

There's a lot of information out there on induced lacation and adoption, and enough China a-mothers are trying it to merit an entire yahoo discussion group devoted to the breastfeeding of adopted Chinese infants. Once the paperchase is over and I'll have to fill up my time with things to do during the REAL wait, I will probably join.

For now, here's some info about it from the LaLeche League (courtesy of American Family's new blog, Adoptive Breast Feeding).

Taking action

2006-07-14T11:58:00.000-05:00

Here is what we did today: 1) Via the USCIS INFO PASS system, we set up an appointment with an immigration officer at our trusty CIS office for next Thursday morning and 2) We sent our Congresswoman a letter expressing our concerns about the delay and asking that our case be processed ASAP.

This weekend, I will contact the various peope who are also waiting for their 171-Hs and suggest that they take the above two steps as well.

My SW got back to me today (she was out of town last week, which is why she wasn't in touch) and said that her agency had contacted the CIS office to get information but the CIS person told them that the office would only talk to clients and not to the SWs themselves. She does not understand this, as last Fall (presumably when the old director was still there) the policy was the exact opposite. She also told me that the CIS person said the 171-H delay had to do with all of the federal immigration and border security stuff going on, but she's not sure if that's the only reason.

Anyway, she told me to call the office myself (which I will do once she gives me the phone number) and to contact our Congressperson. All things which we have planned on doing, so I'm glad she affirmed our ideas.

Some news

2006-07-12T10:26:00.001-05:00

The person with the April 14th fingerprinting appointment emailed today to tell me that their SW said that CIS has just gotten through the April 27th appoinments and were in the process of mailing out 171-Hs to this bunch. This person also spoke with another SW,who said that the wait time was now around 3 months. Not sure if that is accurate or not, but the estimate seems to be in the general ball park.

So the 3-4 week estimate given to us by our SW was, um, a little bit off. To be fair, I know that it was 3-4 weeks at one point earlier this year (and in fact, last fall our CIS office was getting 171-Hs out within two weeks). Howver, if people in mid April are just now going to get their 171-Hs, the wait hasn't been 3-4 weeks for awhile.

On the down side, our wait will most likely be 2 months longer than we had anticipated. On the bright side, we've already gotten through half of it.

No news yet

2006-07-11T21:26:00.000-05:00

It's been two weeks since our 171-H form was "officially" late, and at this point, there is no end in sight to the delay. It will come eventually, but the office does not appear to be giving out information and its website hasn't been updated since June 13th.

We're going to bug our SW tomorrow about what she had found out, if anything, assuming she even called the office in the first place, which to be honest, I'm not sure she did. If she did, she hasn't told us about it.

I've been emailing my various aparent groups asking if others have been waiting for their 171-H from our local office, and I've gotten a bunch of responses. So it's not just us. And one person emailed me a few days ago to tell me they have been waiting since April 14th. So the CIS office seems to be VERY backed up if this person's been waiting for almost three months.

In addition to bugging my SW to update us on what she has found out, I think I may try to organize all of us waiting for the 171-H forms, and see if we can do some sort of collective effort aimed at the CIS office or at one of our Congress people who oversee the office. I don't know if that would help, but it can't hurt to let these people know that there are alot of frustrated adoptive parents out there who just want to get their dossiers off to China.

One form is all that is separating our dossier from going out to China. Just one. So that is why this delay is particularly frustrating and upsetting.

Anyway, I think I'll go eat some chocolate now. Yum.

My squirrel friend

2006-07-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true, I have a squirrel friend who comes by my work office each day for food. Here's the story of how me met. In October 2004, our department's office manager removed the air conditioner from my window. He didn't put the screen back in, however, so if I wanted my window open, I had to do it screenless. This wasn't a problem for the most part because A) it was October in Wisconsin and there weren't too many hot days at this point in the year(which is why I had my air condition removed in the first place) and B) I usually remembered to close my window when I went home at the end of the day.

But one Friday, I forgot to close my window. I also forgot to put away the bag of M&Ms that I had been scarfing down that day. So when I got back to my office on Monday, I noticed that my window was opened. I further noticed M&M crumbs all around my desk and floor.

Oops.

So I closed my window but it was too late. Later that day, a cute little female squirrel came by my window and stood upright on her hind legs looking at me, just waiting for food. I didn't give any, so she left a few minutes later. But then she came back a couple of hours later, just waiting quietly and patiently outside my window. This time, I gave in and fed her some trail mix. She was very happy to get some food and I was happy to have fed her.

And so my life as a squirrel lady began.

Almost two years later, I am still feeding her organic raw and unsalted sunflower seeds daily. She's made it through two winters now. I also recently took some photos of her. In late May, she disappeared for two weeks and I thought she had died. I was surprised at how sad I was, as I didn't think I had gotten THAT attached to her. After all, I didn't even name her. But then it turned out she didn't die (maybe she went on vacation or something, I'm not sure) and once she started come back, I vowed to take some photos so that once she did die, I'd have something to remember her by (see, I told you I was a squirrel lady).

I'm not sure how long she'll keep coming by, but at least I have these photos. They aren't great, but they do the trick, and squirrels--or at least this particular one--aren't all that picky about their photos, anyway.

So until I have a bona fide kid to talk about, I'm going to have to tell stories about my pets, other animal friends, and new pieces of furniture instead.

All I want is a simple, inoffensive ticker

2006-07-10T15:29:00.000-05:00

I belong to a mothers and mothers-to-be online group where lots of people have tickers in their signatures--tickers for how long they have been TTC, how long they have been pregnant, how long they have been breast feeding, how old their child is, etc.

So far, I've resisted getting a ticker because in many ways, it just isn't my thing. Today, however, I decided to join the others and get one. I assumed that I'd find some for adoption, and I was right.

But here's the problem. I'm not a particularly girly person. I would describe myself as feminine-lite. So when looking for a ticker, I wanted a something simple, something not too frilly or saccharine or cutsie.

Most of the pregnancy tickers that I found are, indeed, too frilly and saccharine and cutsie. However, there are a few that I liked and would chose for myself if I were pregnant. For example:

When it comes to the adoption tickers, though, my options are sparse (see my post below, for example). The most simple and inoffensive one I found is this one, and that's not saying much.

Because we all know that waiting to adopt a child is like boiling a pot of water for tea.

Things that make you go hmm.

2006-07-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

It's one thing to embrace the ladybug as a symbol of China adoption culture, as many U.S. a-parents and prospective a-parents do. It's another thing to blur the line between the symbol of this adoption culture and the adopted child herself. Although I'm sure the person who created this ticker had good intentions and just thought the infant would look cute in a ladybug get up, the image winds up--in my opinion--objectifying/dehumanizing/exoticizing the adopted Chinese child.

Also read Mr. ZGirl's extended commentary on this ticker.

I Heart Fly Lady

2006-07-07T12:21:00.000-05:00

My long time friends and family will tell you that I've never been a particularly clean and organized person. Yes, I've come along way since high school, but, honestly, that's not saying much. However, several online friends recently turned me on the Fly Lady, the cleaning and decluttering guru. I've applied some her basic principles to cleaning and decluttering my house and OMG the results are amazing. My house is, like, always clean now and I'm doing about 30 minutes--if that-- of cleaning a day.

Once I get more used to my home routine, I'm going to start incorporating the principle to my work life and office. I can't wait!

Mr. ZGirl's got a blog!

2006-07-04T14:30:00.000-05:00

It's called The Snow Monkey Life. Check it out.

Forms and fireworks

2006-07-03T23:40:00.000-05:00

I'll be checking in with our SW in a couple of days to find out whether the agency has learned anything about our extended CIS wait. Luckily, I am immersed in work projects this summer, so I have other things to keep me from obsessing about the wait for the forms. That's cool with me. My obsessing about the adoption ebbs and flows. I have gone through phases where it's all I can think about and all I can read about and all I can talk about. And then I get tired of obsessing so much about it and move onto obsessing about other stuff. Like work, whether I'll get tenure, and what my career choices will be if I don't get it. You know, fun stuff.

But for now, I'm going to put both topics aside and go to bed. We just got back from our city's fireworks display over Lake Michigan, so I can fall asleep thinking about the pretty fireworks that we saw and listening to the rogue ones currently being set off by our ever-so-thoughtful college student neighbors several houses down.

More sighs

2006-06-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

Not to keep being a downer, but this 171-H process isn't going well. Turns out that the CIS office has a new director, and this director evidently, is, um, a bit disorganized when it comes to processing the international adoption forms. We were fingerprinted May 30th, and were told to expect our 171-H in 3-4 weeks. Well, it turns out that the May 11th folks still haven't received their 171-Hs, and today, a woman who was fingerprinted in late April emailed me and told me that she still hadn't received hers yet, either.

What does this all mean? Unless something drastically changes at the CIS office, we're probably looking at another 4-5 weeks before we get the 171-H.

Sigh

2006-06-27T11:48:00.000-05:00

The 171-H form didn't come today, so now it is officially late.

New stuff

2006-06-20T10:30:00.000-05:00

Well, we may not have a kid yet, but we did just get a new buffet and dining room rug yesterday. I'm very excited and happy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not equating a kid with furniture, but I have to say, never underestimate the power of retail therapy. New things may not make your life more fulfilling and complete in the long run, but they can definitely make fine temporary hole fillers.

Next on our list: a new chandelier to replace the god-awful ceiling fan that hovers over our dining room table. And a new picture to go over the new buffet.

Still waiting

2006-06-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

We're stil waiting for our 171-H immigration approval form to arrive. Until that form arrives, there's not much we can do on our end except read Rumor Queen and hope that The Grouchy Lady Bug will start back up with his/her satirical musings about U.S. chinese adoption culture. Like soon.

Sigh of relief

2006-06-06T10:46:00.000-05:00

I got the "NO" filled in this morning. So unless something goes horribly awry with some other form or whatever, things are good again.

I'm not feeling so hot

2006-06-05T21:32:00.000-05:00

First off, tonight was the series finale of one of the best shows EVER--Everwood. Mr. ZGirl and I are very bummed, and I spent most of the two hour finale either teary eyed or sobbing 'cause the show is that good and moving.

In the middle of the show, however, we got a phone call that gave us another reason to feel crappy, but in a different sort of way. My SW called and said that she just looked over my medical form and noticed that my doctor didn't answer the question about whether I was taking any medication (the answer is no). So after going back to the doctor today for the FOURTH time to get her to fill in the "YES," I'm going to have to go back tomorrow for the FIFTH time so she can write "NO."

How did I miss this? How did my doctor miss it? How did she not answer two questions when she had my forms last month?

Yuck.

"Yes"

2006-06-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

I finally went to the doctor's office today and got her to fill in the "yes." She did it on the spot, which means that we're just waiting for notarized home study report (this should be coming within the week) and the 171-H.

Fingerprints

2006-05-30T09:32:00.000-05:00

Our fingerprints are done. Now we have a 3-4 week wait until we get out 171-H form. While I was getting fingerprinted, I asked the CIS official why the fingerprints expire after 15 months. She said that the government's fingerprint database had to be cleaned out periodically, as it wasn't big enough to keep everybody's fingerprints indefinitely. WTF? This sounds a little weird to me. Doesn't the FBI keep files on people it's tracked, like, forever? Also, the government can spend billions of dollars on wars and weapons but it can't make its database bigger? I don't get it.

Categories of Waiting Parents

2006-05-25T21:33:00.000-05:00

I don't have much time to post tonight, as I just got back from a four-day trip and am leaving tomorrow morning for another one and I way too exhausted to do much of anything except babble. Nonetheless, here's a post to hold you over until I return.

The Naked Ovary has come up with the following classification system for waiting parents. It's a fun post and sheds light into a particular facet of IA adoption culture. Of course, she acknowledges that these are caricatures and that most people, like herself, have embodied different waiting personas at different points of the adoption process, but there's definitely a lot of truth to these styles.

Even though I am not yet a waiting parent (I'm waiting to be a waiting parent, if that makes sense), I see myself in some of these types, as putting together the dossier still requires a lot of ,well, waiting. Although I'm trying to be the Groovey Oedipus (hence my blog's name), I also have tendencies towards the Food Whore and the Eeyore Wannabe. Two types that are not one NO's list but should be, at least when it comes to me, are the Internet Addict and the Reading Junkie. Although these two categories overlap, as they both involve lots of text, the Internet Addict is one who is constantly surfing IA/China adoption message boards and blogs. The Reading Junkie, on the other hand, buys and consumes lots of IA-related books and magazines.

So that's it for now. I'll post again after we get our fingerprints done on Tuesday.

It's here

2006-05-19T22:08:00.000-05:00

Yay! We got our fingerprinting appointment today. I really didn't think the letter was going to come, so I was pleasantly surprised:-) Our appointment is on the 30th, which is 11 days from now, so that's pretty quick. So another baby step completed.

USCIS

2006-05-17T10:36:00.000-05:00

Still no word from the USCIS about our fingerprint appointment. Mr. ZGirl and I are going on vacation this upcoming Sunday, so I really hope we get the letter by Friday. According to our SW, Friday is supposed to be the latest that they could get back to us (3 weeks after they received the homestudy report). It's all for a good cause, I know, but really, all this waiting sucks. Pass the chocolate, please.

I know,

2006-05-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

I'm a loser. I still haven't gone the doctor's yet to get the "Yes" filled in. I will do so by the end of the week, I promise.

The other saga

2006-05-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

With all the hoopla going on with the SW stuff, I never got around to talk about the hoopla with my medical report. It seems that my doctor (who, like my SW, I love in many ways) doesn't know how to follow instructions when it comes to filling out forms. I've had to bring back forms to her office twice already because of things she forgot to do. The second time that I returned the forms to her, I even typed out an instruction sheet.

So when I picked up the report for the THIRD time a few days ago, I really thought this was it. At first glance, everything looked great. Her writing was legible. The date of her signature matched that of the notary. All good, I thought. But today, upon closer inspection, I realized that she forgot the write "yes" to the question asking if she thought I was a suitable candidate for adoption.

Grrr.

After I saw the omission, I considered writing the "yes" in myself. I mean, it's only a yes. I even practiced writing yes in a script that resembled my doctor's. When I told Mr. ZGirl about my plan, however, he said that forging was probably not a good idea. Hmph.

I actually agree with Mr Z.Girl. I'ts just that I dread going back to my doctor's office for the THIRD time. Well, actually the fourth, if you count the first time that I went in for my exam. I just know that I'm starting to seem like one of those high maintance patients that the doctors like to avoid, although most likely, they probably already view me as one, as I've already had them redo the forms twice.

But it's just a yes. That's not too hard. And it's clearly her mistake, not mine. So that's what I will keep telling myself when I go back to the office on Monday. Wish me luck.

The homestudy report went out to USCIS...

2006-05-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

on Friday. It wasn't Tuesday, as SW said it would be, but at least it got out last week. Now we have a 2-3 week wait until we hear back from USCIS with a date for our fingerprinting appointment.

Good news is good news

2006-04-23T18:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, so things are getting better, I hope. The SW called and said that she'll be sending off a shortened version of the homestudy report to the USCIS on Tuesday and the completed report to us and our adoption agency on Wednesday or Thursday. I think she means it this time. I told her very nicely that the delay has stressed us out, and that we're really happy that the report will finally be done this week. I also told her that if she is unable to get the report out by the aforementioned dates, she needs to call us and let us know that this is the case, as not hearing back from her has also been stressful. She said she understood our position and feelings, and sounded very certain that she's going to get things done this week as promised.

I feel that a weight has been taken off my shoulders. Let's just hope that she sticks to her schedule. If she does get the reports out this week, this is what will happen next: once the Milwaukee USCIS gets the report, they will send Mr. ZGirl and I letter stating that they received the report. The letter will also provide the date/time of when we need to come in for our fingerprinting appointments. After we get the fingerprints done, the USCIS will send us our 171-H adoption approval form. Based on the USCIS's current pace, it should take 6-8 weeks from the time that the SW sends in the report to the time that we get the 171-H. After we have received the 171-H, we will send it and our homestudy report to our Secretary of State for certification. That should take about five days. Then, we will drive our forms down to the Chinese Embassy in Chicago for authentication. That should take about 2 days.

So let's see, if it take 8 weeks for the 171-H report to come, another 10 days to get the forms certified and authenticated, and, say, another 7 days to get our dossier together and sent off to our adoption agency (which will then send it of to China), we should be DTC on either July 7th or July 14th (our agency sends the dossiers to China every Friday), and our LID (our dossier's Log-in-Date with China) should be another 2 weeks after that. Thus, if China is able to get back to 12 month referral waits (which is uncertain at this point), we'll get our referral in August 2007 and will most likely be travelling in October 2007.

But before I start getting excited about all that future stuff, I just need to stay focused on the homestudy report saga, which will hopefully end this week.

No news is not good news

2006-04-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

Not to be a downer or anything, but things aren't going so well here. The SW didn't call on Thursday night, nor has she called in the days since then. I called her yesterday and nobody was home. So I guess this means our homestudy report won't be done by the end of this weekend after all. It also means that we don't know when it will be done, as she hasn't bothered to contact us. What was supposed to take 2-4 weeks has now hit the 8-week mark. This is not good.

I know that I've gone on and on about this issue, but here's the thing about adoption: So much of the process is out of your hands and in the hands of others--social workers, adoption agencies, government institutions, orphange directors, even fed-ex delivery people. If things go wrong or get delayed on their end, there's not much that you, the prospective aparents, can do to get things back on track. Yes, you can rant and rave and talk to people's supervisors, etc., but in the end, you're still dependent upon them to get your child. When the process is going well, you feel great and on top of things. But when these people start messing things up by not getting forms back to you, losing the paperwork, or whatever, it can really leave you feeling helpless and out of control. Certainly, there's always going to bumps along the way, problems that arise with which you've just got to deal, but when the people causing the delays aren't even calling you back and it's been week after week of unprofessional behavior and incompetency, there's only some much you can take. And Mr. ZGirl and I have hit this point this weekend.

So what are we going to do about this situation? Good question. We're still trying to figure it out. If the SW doesn't call us back today, we're going to call her back tomorrow and tell her how we're feeling about this situation. We also want her commit to a new deadline--the end of the week, more specifically. If she can't commit to this, then we might tell her that we'd like someone else to write up the report. Or we might call her supervisor. We're not sure yet. On the one hand, we want to be firm and let know know that what she's been doing is not okay. On the other hand, we don't want to cause problems that may delay us even more from getting the homestudy report completed.

Anyway, it's time for me to get some work done. Hopefully I'll have some good news soon.

Same ol', same ol'

2006-04-21T08:43:00.000-05:00

So I know you're probably tired of hearing about the social worker and home study report saga. I know I am. Now, as I have said before, I like our social worker. I really do. She's warm, funny, smart, and very knowledgeable. She believes that prospective aparents need to learn about the politics and ethics of transracial/IA adoption, which is very important, as many prospective aparents think Chinese adoption is all about red threads, rainbows, and ladybugs. With this type of mindset (which can be exacerbated by social workers who don't teach them differently), many parents aren't prepared for the reality that they will be white parents raising a child of color in a predominantly Euro-American and racist society.

Despite her wonderful qualities, our social worker is proving herself to be unreliable. Remember my last post in which I stated that she said she'd call last night to get the rest of the information that she would need to finish up the home study report? Well, she didn't call. And I am, of course, really frustrated right now. It probably doesn't help that, when letting ZDog out this morning, I wound up locking myself out of the house while still wearing my pajamas, and because Mr. ZGirl is in Chicago for a conference (why is it that EVERYTIME I have locked myself out of the house, M. ZGirl has been in Chicago for a conference?), I had to walk three blocks to a friend's house to get a spare key. Still, I think my frustration towards my social worker is more than justified at this point, and if I were a more confrontational person, I would do something, well, confrontational. Like yell at her or something. But that is not my nature, so I'm going to have to take a different approach.

Update on homestudy report

2006-04-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

Our social worker called last night to tell us that the county background check has finally arrived. Yay! She also said that she is currently working on our report, will call us on Thursday to get information about our prospective child's guardians (my brother and his wife), and says that our report will be done this weekend.

The only bad thing about her calling was that she did so during the last ten minutes of Everwood. The only reason why I even picked up the phone was that I heard her voice on the answering machine, and based on our past experiences, I worried that if I didn't take her call, it could be a while before I would have the chance to speak with her again. Luckily, there was a videotape in the VHS player and Mr. ZGirl had enough sense to record the rest of the show for me. (If I were in his position, I would not have thought to do that, as I tend to be on the flaky side).

Speaking of Everwood, Rose and Harold Abbott (a 50-something couple on the show who have two grown children) are applying to adopt from Africa. There must be someone behind the show's scenes who has experience with IA adoption, as the show's depictions of the process so far (interactions with the social worker, all the file folders for the countless documents, the use of express mail, concerns about whether Rose's recent bout with cancer will disqualify their application) have been, for the most part, realisitic.

Puppy Porn (ZDog Photos)

2006-04-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

I'm procrastinating this afternoon, as I have a bad case of writer's block that even a healthy dose of hershey kisses hasn't been able to cure. So I've decided to post some photos of my beloved ZDog instead.

A Response to Last Night's 60 Minutes report

2006-04-17T14:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a great response to last night's 60 Minutes report on China's growing gender imbalance and the ways in which international adoption contributes to it. I agree with much of Stephanie's post, especially her critique of how the show depicted China's view towards girls.

SIGH. I wish I had the time and energy to write thoughtful posts such as this. Gosh dammit, I feel that I barely have the time to do spell checks and grammar checks. Maybe this will change once I get tenure or at least feel like my book is far enough along or am able to take a more relaxed approach towards work. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to live vicariously through the other cool blogging a-mamas out there.

Our mailwoman

2006-04-16T19:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the latest issue of Adoption Today arrived in the mail. This is a quarterly magazine to which I first subscribed back in January. Yesterday's issue was the second one I have received.

Getting this magazine in the mail yesterday made me reflect on past year of our efforts to have kids: beeping basal body thermometers at 6:00 in the morning, followed by a slew of negative pregnancy tests, followed by lots of fertility testing, followed by lots of bad test results, followed by research on adoption and fertility treatments, followed by lots of talks with family and friends about what to do, followed by our decision to adopt, and followed by where we are currently at, which is waiting for the home study report so we can get immigration approval, etc.

This line of thinking is what made me think about our mailwoman, who has been delivering our mail since we moved to Milwaukee in June 2003. We don't see her very much, as she delivers our mail during the day when we are at work. I also don't think I've ever learned her name. All I know about her is that she's white, slender, looks like she's in her 40s, and wears a walkman when going house to house delivering the mail.

Although we don't know much about her, I often wonder how much much she knows about us just by noticing the kind of mail we get. She probably knows, for example, that we like TV, movies, and pop culture, as we subscribe to US and Entertainment Weekly. She probably knows that our politics lean towards the left, as evidenced by our subscription to The Nation.

And this is where that issue of Adoption Today comes in. For if our mailperson has been paying attention, she has probably also been aware of our 14+months of trying to become parents. She's probably noticed the slew of letters and bills that we've gotten from assorted reproductive health clinics. She's probably noticed the info packets from various adoption agenices that we requested. She's probably wondered about all the official-looking documents that we've gotten from numerous Secretaries of State and other governmental agencies. And in recent months, she's probably noticed that we are now getting Adoption Today.

Of course, I'm not sure if she has realized that we are adopting specifically from China. If she has, then I'm really impressed.

A must-see documentary

2006-04-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

Here's the link to a new documentary coming out soon that examines the cultural politics and ethics of Chinese adoption. Click here to see several dozen clips from the film. This is a film that all aparents (adoptive parents) and prospective aparents of Chinese children should probably watch.

Here's how the filmmakers describe the documentary's focus:

This is a documentary illustrating the complications involved in the adoption of chinese girls. We intend to convey the many perspectives we've discovered by filming interviews, sharing empirical data and posing some hard questions to our viewers. We will examine the complexity of the issues surrounding transracial adoption with a focus on this new generation of Chinese American adoptees and comparing it to historical culture of Korean adoptees. Our greatest hope is that that this film will inform, provoke discussion and give a distinct voice to the various people and perspectives touched by the phenomena of transracial adoption in the United States.

A light at the end of the homestudy tunnel?

2006-04-13T09:29:00.000-05:00

Our social worked called and said she's hoping to have the report done by the end of next week. I'm not going to hold my breath, but it's the first time frame she's given us since the four-week turn around time that she gave us in March.

A (very tentative) "Yay."

The homestudy report saga continues

2006-04-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

Our social worker called on Friday evening and left a message for us, as we were not home. Basically, she said that the report wasn't done, the County had still not sent the background check, and that she was going to resubmit the forms to try again. When we called her back the next day, she wasn't home, and we still haven't heard back from her. I have no idea what's going on at this point or when we should expect our report. All I know is that it was supposed to be done by March 27th, so it is now over two weeks late.

Good thing I have lots of other work-related things to worry about. Otherwise, I'd be more stressed about this homestudy thing than would be good for me. I think I can manage a couple of more weeks in this limbo state of not knowing what's going on. But if it gets to be May and things are still up in the air, I am going to be really p***ed and upset.

International Adoption 101: How NOT to Approach IA

2006-04-08T22:14:00.000-05:00

International adoption (IA), especially when it is also transracial, is not just a family building process. It's also an ethically, politically, economically, socially, psychologically, and culturally complicated--and in many ways problematic--process.

I will be writing much more on this subject in the future, as it is something that Mr. ZGirl and I discuss a lot. For now, though, I want to share with you a funny, yet very poignant satire of how NOT to approach international adoption. Unfortunately, the more I immerse myself into the world of IA/Chinese adoption, the more I have come to realize that elements of this article ring true when it comes to how some people view the adoption process and their prospective child.
Oh, and this article is from a recent issue of The Onion. Surpise, surprise.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46949

We called...

2006-04-07T09:48:00.000-05:00

AND...her husband answered and said she couldn't come to the phone because she was putting her children to bed. I politely told her husband that we would be up for several more hours, so she could call us later in the evening if she wanted. She didn't call back.

Every time I call her house, her husband has picked up the phone and tells me that she is either not there or unable to come to the phone. I think he is her personal phone screener so she doesn't have to face us about the now 10-day late homestudy report.

Tonight's the night...

2006-04-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

That we have the showdown with our very nice but somewhat flaky social worker.

And this weekend, Mr. ZGirl and I will finish taking the casual but strategically posed photographs of us that we need to include in our dossier. The CCAA folks like to see photos of the prospective parents doing everyday life sorts of things: hanging out in the house, participating in their hobbies and other favorite activities, vacation photos, etc. They also like to see photos of the house. Good times.

More baby steps completed

2006-04-05T11:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we received another batch of documents that were authenticated by the Chinese Embassy in Chicago. Yay! At this time, we have all of our paperwork completed (filled out, notarized, certified, and authenticated) EXCEPT for the homestudy report and our 171-H form, which is a U.S. Immigration Services adoption approval form.

On the one hand, we are very happy to be so close to the end of the paperwork phase. On the other hand, we just want this stupid homestudy report to be completed, as we can't start the 171-H approval process until the homestudy report is done. The 171-H approval process takes 4-8 weeks, so we'd like to get the homestudy report as soon as possible (and no, our social worker did not call us last night with an update).

Given that tonight is a heavy TV-watching night (America's Next Top Model, Lost, and The Amazing Race--all of which I refuse to miss), we decided to give our social worker one last chance to call us before we call her. So if she doesn't call today, we'll be calling her tomorrow. Grr.

Well, it might not be as bad as we first thought

2006-04-04T09:47:00.000-05:00

The latest rumors/news are that the referral delays are temporary, and that once the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) gets through another batch or two of dossiers, things will be back on track. By back on track, though, I mean a 12-month wait from the time your dossier is logged in with the CCAA until you get your referral. So while this new projected wait is not as short as it was last year (the wait then was about six months), it is much better than the two-year wait I mentioned in an earlier post.

Mr. ZGirl and I have been hoping to get our dossier off to China (DTC) in May so that we get a June log-in date (LID) . This would mean going to China late next summer. However, I'm not sure this will be possible because of our still overdue homestudy report. Our social worker was supposed to call us last night with an update, but she never did. So now I have to decide how many days I should let go by until we call her ourselves. Probably Wednesday.

I'll keep you updated, of course.

More delays

2006-03-30T11:00:00.000-06:00

Well, our home study report is officially three days late as of today. Our social worker called this morning to update us on the situation. It turns out that our county background check has not yet come in, and she can't finish our home study report until they get it. She did say that if they didn't get the county form back in the next couple of weeks, she would just use the state background check, which, evidently, she has already gotten back.

Of course, this begs that question that if is willing to use the state background check if the county one doesn't come in soon, then why doesn't she just use the state one now so that she can finish up the report. But because she called just as I was stepping out the shower, and I was naked and dripping wet when I was talking to her, I wasn't in a position to ask too many questions.

Hopefully when she calls back on Monday, I'll be dry and fully dressed. That way, I'll be ready to do a little bitching if I need to.

The Long Road Ahead...

2006-03-28T13:06:00.000-06:00

When we decided in December 2005 to adopt from China, the wait time was about 8-9 months from the time the parents' dossier was sent to China until the time that they received their referral. Parents could expect to travel about 8 weeks later. Based on this time frame, we figured that we got our dossier into China this May, we'd be going to China in late spring/early summer 2007.

For reasons that people in the adoption community are still trying to figure out, things have changed a lot since then. Wait times for referrals have slowed down tremendously. If they continue at the current--and projected pace--we won't get our referral until June or July of 2008, which means we won't travel to China to get our daughter until August or September of that year. That means a 2 1/2 year wait from now until we can be parents. We're committed to seeing this thing through, though, so like I said, we have a long road ahead of us...

my new blog

2006-03-28T12:56:00.000-06:00