Chin? Face shape?

They say that one of the ways the CCAA matches babies is by resemblance. What do you think?

I think she has my chin and general face shape.

 

A quick update

Okay we’re ready to go. Let’s GO ALREADY!!

Even as busy as I am, this month is killing me. It’s true (even though I wanted to smack people who told me this before we got the referral) that the pain of the wait disappears once you have her picture, name, ect. However this is a whole different kind of agony. I hope those TAs come fast! Even busy as I am, I’m still angsting. It helps to know that she’s getting good care in her SWI. The more I hear about this particular SWI, the better I feel. I think she’s in a really good one.

We’re getting stuff on our packing list and throwing it into a suitcase in the nursery. The red bags are for the gifts we’ll give to the SWI director, assistant director and nannies.

Paperwork is being notarized today. Visa applications and other paper-related goodies are being sent out tomorrow. In Belgium, my MIL is doing what she needs to do in order to come with us. This ship is getting ready to sail.

I went to my asthma and allergy doc this morning and am now armed with a multitude of prescription meds to ward off asthma and allergy related problems in China. My lung function is very good now, (thanks to her care), and she thinks I’ll be fine. Whew! I got the scripts for “just in case”.

Here’s a picture of my state-side immediate family giving a toast to Sophie. Her pic on the table.

From left to right… my mom, me, James, my dad & stepmother. My aunt was taking the pic. (WordPress always cuts off my pics. Sorry, stepmom! My dad doesn’t have it much better since he has a champagne glass stuffed up his nose.)

 

Okay, I’m ready!! Let’s go!

Please meet Sophie Fu Duo…

 

She’s pretty cute, isn’t she? 

Today I went out and pretty much knocked off our entire packing list…at least the stuff for Sophie. I feel so much more confident now that I have her age and size, and that I know she’s still drinking from a bottle, ect. I actually felt more or less like I knew what I was doing in the baby section of the store today, which was nice.

I have all the baby med stuff now, diapers, socks, onesies, and various other paraphernalia. I skipped the formula (because I think we can buy it in China) and the Pedialyte (I’m going to ask if we can buy that in China too…it’s heavy!)

Today I made an appointment with a ped. We didn’t have a ped look over her medical records before we signed the acceptance because, well…frankly, there aren’t a lot of records to look at. What there is all says normal, normal, normal. But who knows? We have to be prepared for things to pop up down the line and we are. Sophie is our daughter no matter what. Period. Both James and I feel that way. But the ped will give us prescriptions for things to take with us to China, ect. When we get back, she’s going to straight to a children’s hospital where they specialize in internationally adopted babies.

I also made an appointment for ME, since…yeah, Chongqing is pretty much not the place for an asthmatic. It’s one of the most polluted places on the planet. I’ll probably have to go on steroids and up my asthma meds. I’ll probably have to buy some air purifiers to take along and I might, just might, have to Michael Jackson it with a face mask. Joy. I already had one doc tell me not to go China at all. YEEEEEAAAH, that ain’t happen’, peoples. My docs just have to get me through a week. I don’t care how we do it.

I haven’t sent the care package yet. I’m going to do it tomorrow. It turns out that Sophie is very close to her crib mate, so we’re sending duplicate toys–so they each have stuff. Since we don’t know which toys will end up with Sophie, we’re sleeping with all them for a few nights. I have our agency on the case of finding out as much as we can about the crib mate. If that little baby is adopted, we’d like to keep in touch with her parents. But it depends on YunYang SWI and how willing they are in giving up info.

So, like, when do we go? I’m ready!! I can be packed in a hour!

BTW…all acceptance letters have been mailed to China! They went last Tuesday. Yeeha! The agency rep we talked to on Saturday says it’s competition between agencies how fast they get TAs (travel approvals) back. Go Our Agency! Go Our Agency!!

 

Emolicious, except forget the ‘licious’

James and I have both had PMS nonstop for the last two months. I’m not surprised to see this in myself, but I am surprised to see it in James. James is a guy and he follows the “guy rules”. I’ve been married to him for over ten years and I’ve seen him cry exactly…counting…three times, all for very, very good reasons — deaths and other major trauma. My point is that, in proper guy fashion, he’s pretty bad about showing his feelings or talking about them.

And ME, little-miss-Cancer-with-the-psychology-degree, is all about expressing my feelings and expressing in general. (As an aside, I totally wish I could cry “pretty”. You know, with the whole crystalline teardrops sliding down pristine cheeks. I don’t cry pretty. When I cry my face gets all splotchy, it swells up and my eyes turn all “demonesque”. Plus, once I start crying, I…cannot…STOP!) Not that I’ve been crying about the adoption, I haven’t. That was just a tangent.

So it’s been all emo, all the time for a while in our house, but James manifests it differently. He just channels emotion differently than I do. I’ve been having to read his behavior and make my best interpretations because he’s not a big talker. And who says women are hard to figure out? You need a friggin’ guide to understand the male of the species sometimes. The bottom line, we’re both feeling lots of stuff right now. This is bound to continue for quite some time too. Heh.

Right now, as related to the adoption, we are:

1. Looking at travel agencies and airlines. (We really want to fly premium economy. Really, really, really!)
2. Making packing lists
3. Figuring out how and when to send the gifts for the officials and working up letters to FD’s SWI to be translated.
4. Reading beaucoup baby books.
5. Picking out adoption announcements

What I’m not doing:

1. Learning Mandarin, not even a little. I feel really guilty about this too. There’s just too much on my plate right now.

What I still need to buy:

1. A crib! (A gift from my stepmother and father. Should be coming soon)
2. An ergo
3. An excersaucer
4. Clothes

Other than the medicines and other smaller items, I think we’ve got the baby stuff issue handled.

I think we’ll get the referral on Monday, Feb 5th…

It is 15 days, 10 hours, 8 minutes and 43 seconds until Monday, February 5, 2007 (New York time)

I think we’re the only family on the face of the earth who would turn down a referral for twins, dudes. (Okay, we wouldn’t turn it down, most likely. We would freak out A LOT, however.) Let’s hope…no twins…. PLEASE, Universe, no twins…

 

The Good, the Bad and the Cute

The good news…

The glow-in-the-dark stars came! I was going to paint them on, but I have zero artistic ability so I opted for the sticky kind instead. Here is part of the ceiling with both the sticky-on-the-ceiling stars and a few hanging ones. I have circled a few of the hard to see sticky-on-the-ceiling ones for your edification (because I’m sure this is a life-altering event for you).

Don’t mind the bare light bulb, J needs to hang the ceiling fan.

Think we’ll create an irrational fear of clouds and stars in her?

Also in the realm of good news…

The Hannah Andersen order came. Here is one of the outfits I bought. Yay! Pink sheep! Every little girl needs a onesie with a pink sheep on it!

In the realm of bad news….

It appears that the referrals did not ship from China on Friday. Apparently they are working over the weekend (which is pretty damn nice of them), but are taking the first part of next week off. The bottom line is, who knows when we’ll know about the next batch? We are rapidly approaching a new record for number of days between batches. Whoo! (That was sarcasm)

My expectations at this point are pretty low and I think I need to keep them there. I think it will be a small batch that we had to wait extra long to receive. That’s my prediction. I know I’m a pessimist and that’s supposed to be all bad and I’m supposed to put on my positive happy face, but that’s not what I’m feeling. I have yet to be happily surprised by a batch in the last 15 months.

When I’m happy — When I’m sad — Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotions.

Anyone who can name that movie quote gets a virtual cookie.

Today is our 15th month anniversary of being LID, btw. We are also close to breaking a record because my agency said the longest anyone has ever waited for a referral was 16 months. (during SARs). Of course, I shouldn’t whine because (unhappily) those who are LID after us will wait much, much longer than 16 months.

Also in the realm of bad news. Damn it! We’re out of red wine.

Now the cute…

He just climbed up on the ladder in the nursery and knocked down a star. But can I be mad at him? You tell me.

 

Pulling myself away from the dark corner

Here are two things from the world of adoption that made me laff today.

This is a picture of the new CCAA building in Beijing.

(Note the snazzy doorman)

This is a close up of the sign on the building:

Notice anything…strange?

As a writer and editor, I just couldn’t let this slip by. With a husband whose first language is not English and through my own fumbling French, (and sometimes English), I am very compassionate about mistakes like this. However, to actually bronze the mistake…well, that’s just priceless. Also, besides the typo in the word “adoption,” I can’t be sure where they’re going with the “edited by” portion of the sign. *tilts head to side* Hmmm.

On a more serious note, here is the matching room. Is our dossier on someone’s desk or still on a shelf? This was taken on December 11th.

Do you see the collage of little faces on the cubicle wall? I enlarged the photo and every cubicle appears to have one. I wonder if they’re babies to match with families?

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The second thing to make me laff today was the post “She Asked for her Bottle but I was Already There” over on Pomegranate. Since I also have a definite lack of baby song knowledge, I’ll probably end up “baby-izing” songs like they did.

Heh heh. Pour Some Congee on Me…. *snort* and You Cried All Day Long (you know, She was a milk machine/ she kept her tummy clean/ she was the best damn baby that I’ve ever seen …). Heheheheheh.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Finally…these pictures were taken from the Love Without Boundaries site. It’s one of my favorite charities (if you’re looking for another worthy one and need a recommendation). They do good work.

 

Happy Holidays!

Merry Chrismuhanukwanzicayule!!!!

 

Pick a card…any card.

Sometimes when I’m in a bunch emo and I can’t trust my intuition, I pull a single card from a tarot deck that I’ve shuffled while thinking about my situation. I don’t read tarot, but I do collect decks of cards.

My favorite is the Osho Zen Tarot deck. It’s not the prettiest one out there (though it is very pretty), but I enjoy the card decriptions.

Since everything seems to be in flux right now and since I’ve come down from my little cloud of we’re-in-the-batchness, I pulled a card. I got nothingness. Ack, right? It’s scary at first when you look at it — completely black — and scary when you think about it from a western point of view. But if you look at it from a Buddist point of view, it’s actually very beautiful.

Here’s the description:

Being ‘in the gap’ can be disorienting and even scary. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of direction, not even a hint of what choices and possibilities might lie ahead. But it was just this state of pure potential that existed before the universe was created. All you can do now is to relax into this no-thingness…fall into this silence between the words…watch this gap between the outgoing and incoming breath. And treasure each empty moment of the experience. Something sacred is about to be born.

….

Buddha has chosen one of the really very potential words - shunyata. The English word, the English equivalent, ‘nothingness’, is not such a beautiful word.

That’s why I would like to make it ‘no-thingness’- because the nothing is not just nothing, it is all. It is vibrant with all possibilities. It is potential, absolute potential. It is unmanifest yet, but it contains all. In the beginning is nature, in the end is nature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? Why, in the middle, becoming so worried, so anxious, so ambitious - why create such despair?

Impressively apt, yes?

I’m going to do my best to relax into this time before the referral and treasure each moment of this experience, knowing that something sacred is about to be born.

 

Annoying/Stupid Things People Say When You’re Adopting

I’m actually not that offended by…well, most…of these. I just think they’re boneheaded things people say. Can’t wait to hear some of the comments we’ll get once she’s home. *snort*

• Why are you adopting? Can’t you have any of your own children?
• I’m sorry you’ll never be a real mother.
• Oh, you’re a saint for adopting. That’s so good of you. (or, variation) She’s so lucky!
• I bet you’ll get pregnant as soon as the adoption is final. That always happens. *gives consoling pat to hand*
• Wow, that must be really expensive.
• You’re going to love that child just like she’s your own.
• How, lovely! Asians are so smart, well-mannered, nice…or some combination of stereotype.
• International adoption is so fashionable these days. (Yep, I thought FD would go nicely with that new outfit I bought last week…)

 

Cute

Heheheheh…this is really cute. I’m getting ready to send a care package to the little boy we sponsor for foster care in China. I got this back (from one of his case workers in China) when I asked what he needed:

“I would like you to suggest you buy winter outfit or a hottie or socks or a worm blanket for [child's name].”

I think he’s a little too young for a “hottie” and a worm blanket doesn’t sound very hygenic. I’ll probably go with the winter outfit and some socks. Hee.