True to Holiday Form

I’ve been bouncing ideas around in my head for that annual form letter to send ’round to the more distant family and friends. You know the one, where you try to sum up the whole year in a single clever page? Usually goes something like this.

Hey Folks!, We are all Hallmark happy and fuzzy here.  Everything is a Kodak moment and we are all thinner, happier and better employed than ever before.

I don’t write a holiday letter every year.  But, I do actually enjoy getting them.  It is so nice to hear how well those people you knew (better, once) are doing now.  I especially like the ones with lots of photos of the kids.  Christmas cards are nice, they are pretty, you can hang them up so you can play “Look how many people care enough about ME to send a card.” with visiting neighbors.  But I prefer the letters, even a form letter seems pretty intimate compared to the flourish of a signature you only see once a year.  

Currently, the only person we get a card from that contains more than a single handwritten line (All the best in the New Year!) and a signature is from the woman we bought our house from more than 10 years ago.  She normally fills that whole left side of the card with a real hand written note.  She writes about the weather in Florida, what she noticed about our house the last time she came North to visit friends, just random, unimportant stuff.  But strangely I treasure those cards.  So, much effort just to say “Hi” to someone she hardly knows.  I guess that is I why I feel like a form letter is the least I should produce. Not to mention that maybe somebody else might be sappy enough to enjoy it.

I’m a bit more motivated to write it this year because I have real news to share.  But it is bad news.  Do I break the “Happy Hallmark” tradition and just put it all out there?  ”Adoptions in Vietnam have closed.  We are S.O.L and feeling too beat up by the process to continue on to other options.”  Or do I continue the illusion that tradition demands?  Those who know us well, know the situation.  Should I just send a cheery note saying “We are GREAT!  We are doing just GREAT!  No need to worry about us.”  and ease the minds of those who care?  But, that leaves the vague masses uninformed, and leaves me answering the “Are you still going to adopt? and Why not?” questions for a long time to come.  That may not seem like a bad option until you consider that emotionally those questions sound like “Hey, how’s that dead baby doin’?” to me.  

Realistically, I just need to pretend that all is hunky-dory.  That kind of news is just not meant for a Holiday Greeting.  But it sure would be nice just to unload that baggage because I am so tired of lugging it around.

 

Status Report

It has been a whole month since my last post.  So much has happened, but what is most significant is what has not occurred.

School has resumed and with it a flurry of activity that has been both blessing and burden.  Blessing, because I have not had time to wallow in self pity, which has certainly been a temptation.  The course of events we became a part of really just blows my mind.  Burden, because I have not had time to deal with our loss.  It has taken me the whole month to realize that it is just that, a loss.  We have planned, dreamed, and assumed that a little girl would become a part of our family. Even if we decide to pursue adoption via another route the child we expected, thought of as a member of our family, will not be the same child that we eventually bring home.  I have come to realize that I need time to grieve for my girl from Vietnam.

 Unfortunately, our agencies “bridge” offer to another program will expire before I am ready to move on.  We only have until October 1st.  I have made brave efforts to get over it, only to burst into tears and retract whatever I just said or did in an effort to prove (to myself) that I have moved on.  The fact is that I haven’t.  I began reading blogs again today for the first time in two weeks.  I don’t think I will be doing this again soon.  Those who received referrals are chugging along getting ready for their children, a few have made hopeful posts about new efforts on Vietnam’s part to come into alignment with Hague policies and new agreements, most are just quiet.  I’m tempted to hope for some sudden miracle that I know is foolish.

I would like to be just quiet for a while.  I need to get to a place where the sight of little girls doesn’t make me feel empty, where the donation box for foster/adoption on the Wendy’s counter doesn’t make me feel the need to empty my wallet into it (great charity but, not a healthy impulse), where the process of adoption won’t make me a numb, heartless, bitter person.  I’m not that person, I refuse to give in, but I need a little time. 

I have decided to pass on programs for Korea, and Taiwan; I don’t have the energy for beat the clock.  I need time that I don’t have in those programs.  I have not gone beyond that decision.  We have an appointment with our agency later this week to hear about domestic adoption.  But, I am fearful of a second mom in my child’s life and don’t know who would select our “aging” family over all the cute, energetic, perky, families I see all over the internet.  I think my experience with adoption will work against me unless I can hide the fear that experience has created in me.  Mostly the thought of starting ALL. OVER. AGAIN. makes me want to go to bed and not get up.  

The idea of doing a seventh and probably an eighth home study exhausts me.  It is not the physical work and the pile of papers that is so daunting. It is the asking again and again our friends, family doctor and others, who care less, for help, a little piece of paper, a permission slip, for approval to become parents.  ”Hey! We are still miserable, can you fill this out for me!  No, no it’s nothing YOU said.  Ha Ha.  This time for sure!”  Honestly, how many times can you ask?  Do you know anyone who has completed six home studies and only has one child for their efforts?  If I had attempted IVF six times how many children would that have produced?  O.K. NOW  I’m giving into the pity, just stop!

Update on Tu Du, Ho Chi Minh

JSICIS posted this announcement on their site today.  If you have a referral, and the child originated from Tu Du Hospital, this is a must read for you.

On a personal note, my son was born in this hospital in 2001.  I do not know how I can ever share this information with him.  I also know I cannot keep it from him.

No Extension for the Current MOU

Families waiting for a Vietnam Adoption are hoping official referrals arrive prior to September 1st.  The “long shot” plan “B” for many was to hope that the current Memo of Understanding (MOU) would be extended allowing families with dossiers in the system to complete their adoptions despite the program closure.  This letter posted by JCICS indicates that hope for a plan “B” is dead, but there is encouraging progress for the future of Vietnamese Adoptions.  Please have a look.

Suddenly . . .

After months of low key nagging on my part we suddenly have a date for our family vacation.  We leave in 6 days.  All of sudden summer is over in a rush of preparation and travel.  Between now and Monday, the following must occur. 

• Grocery shopping.
• My yearly gynnie appointment that due to my complications takes 1/2 a day. Following this I will need to  . . .
• Pick up prescriptions.
• Laundry.
• A trip to the Boy Scout Council Store for updated uniform bits.
• Buy stamps, sunscreen and a half dozen other random items.
• 2 days of cub scout camp.
• 1 day of office wrangling to be ready to hit the ground running when we return.
• At least one visit to my grandmother who is in rehab care. (Two would be better.)
• Make hotel reservations.
• Pack for S and J’s scout camp trip.
• Pack for the whole family’s vacation
• Get the car to the garage for an oil change and to find out what the hissing sound is when the vent fan is turned off.
• Help J mow lawn.
• Arrange for someone to feed the cats.
• Water the house plants and the garden.
• See if my Mom can watch S during Aug. while I prep the Fall courses.

The schedule is kind of nuts.  J plans to leave at 7AM Monday after coming home from Scout Camp on Sunday afternoon.  We will drive 4 1/2 hours to a water park in VA, GO TO the water park that day and spend the night in the area.  Yikes!  I can see the meltdown already, and not just S, all of us.  When we get home from this hastily planned vacation we will leave again in four days for a three day camping trip with friends. A week and a half is all I have to spiff up my courses and design scenery for the first show. After that I start having scheduled activities on campus for the start of the Fall semester, another half week and 2nd grade starts for S.  Oh man, I’m tried just thinking about it all.

I have been so inactive for about a year and a half because I have walked away from almost all the work offered to me in the hopes that I would be caring for a baby girl.  That did not happen.  At first, it was torture, being idle was really hard for me.  It was about nine months before I started to adjust to my new (lack of) schedule.  Now, I’m so laid back I would describe myself as lazy.  It looks like that all ends tonight.  

I am fortunate though.  All the people who have offered me work in the past are still offering. This kind of lull in employment should’ve been career damaging.  But it wasn’t.  Two schools have basically given me the pick of their seasons and a more classes to teach than I can actually physically handle.  It will be easy to dive into all this work and never look back, or at least pretend I’m not looking.  I really do enjoy teaching; it is the only thing I’ve found that rivals parenting in the potential for satisfaction.   The next 40 days will fly by and then I will be up to my eyes in courses and shows and plans for two student trips and preparation for our new building and harvesting the garden and getting S off on the right foot in 2nd grade and J’s stepsister’s wedding and and and . . . . . I may drown.

I have not done the research on Taiwan; I don’t know if I am still actually holding onto hope for Vietnam or if I just want to have some time where I don’t feel like I’m teetering on the edge of bliss and disaster all the time.  There are days when I think it would be OK to have just S.  (Like yesterday when he entertained me by improvising an entire cable system of TV shows centered around slugs to my too loud protests of “GROSS” and “STOP” and my pantomime of a remote control.)  But, when I think about doing something, anything with the baby’s room, I am paralyzed.  The door is shut, I don’t go in there, I don’t look in there.  When I have to deal directly with the possibility of there not being a baby girl E ( yes, I have had a name picked out for about 5 years) I can’t do it.

So, all of a sudden we are down to 40 days.  I read on the DOS web site that they expect to have referrals for about half of the 1,700 pending dossiers prior to the Sept. 1st deadline. It all seems like such blatant fiction.  If they can do that why don’t we have a referral already?  Our dossier has been circulating orphanages since late January, nearly 6 months. How is it they expect to complete 850 referrals in little more than a month when some have been in the system for such a long time already?  

Maybe it will all happen very suddenly.

“Why was I adopted?”

A question I have been waiting to hear.  Until yesterday I only had a vague idea about what I would say.  Then I read this post. The Truth as You Know It

Ok, good, thank-you, I won’t make that mistake. BUT, what DO I say? The next post on my Blog Surfer was this, NO LIE!    Thank You

“Because I wanted her to be safe.”  That simple phrase is so full of truth, and the love that ALL parents have for our children.  We all spend so much energy and worry about their safety each waking moment.  This is the truth as I know it.  Is this the whole answer?  No.  But it is the core, the seed from which logic springs in a world that frequently defies logic.

Thank-you to both of these women for sharing with all of us.  It is so hard to work through these issues alone.  The advice and experiences of others are so valuable to me.  

 

BTW, I received word from our agency that one family has permission to travel.  The first one in a year.  I pray they are safe as they travel.  Today on Tin Que Huong two posts about Vietnam.  One about a Dengue fever outbreak.  The other about a US human rights group pleading with Vietnam to not interfere with the funeral of a prominent (dissident) religious leader.  What mother wouldn’t worry?