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.
Joint Council (on international children’s services) is asking all families currently in the adoption process with Vietnam to complete the Vietnam survey by Friday, August 22, 2008. Please pass this on to others you know who are waiting families.
You can see the entire announcement by clicking on “Joint Council” above.
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.
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.
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.
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?
OK, I give up. I give up on hoping that the MOU will be extended or that there will be grandfathering of dossiers. I am comfortable with that.
Time to move on.
Sunday we went to the zoo and had a really nice time. It was one of those days when we had nothing planned and it was too wet to work in the yard. So after checking the radar to make sure there was a few hours where is was actually not going to rain we set off. We go to the zoo pretty often, probably 6 times a year. Our membership is a good investment and always provides really nice, cheap, impromptu outings. We throw a lunch together and hop in the car and go.
It was not overly busy for a Sunday, nor too hot. The threat of rain kept the crowds at home. We fell into our zoo routine pretty readily, and now part of the entertainment is picking out the differences from our last trip. Three new beaver babies, a fresh paint job in the primate house, a new walk way to the african dogs over-look, that sort of thing. We were disappointed that the elephant moms had not delivered yet, a bit over due.
We had lunch in the food court area, our usual spot. We lingered a bit after lunch and my mind was wandering. I have been dieting and I was feeling pretty good about our nice heathy packed lunch, and how I’d been able to keep under 1500 calories a day for more than a week. But, also frustrated because despite that I’d gained a pound over the same week. Just as I was thinking, “Wow, I’m not even hungry.” a really tempting ice cream cone entered my line of vision. Creamy chocolate soft serve in one of those hand make waffle cones. Ugh! Now I’m hungry. I turned my head to avoid the ice cream only for my eyes to land spot-on a mother and her newborn. Double Ugh! I closed my eyes. . . . . day ruined? No, just made me think. It will be like this my whole life. If I keep up my diet at least I will be rewarded with good health and the energy to care for my family. If I keep myself from children I will have a hole in my heart my entire life.
When we got home I spent some time surfin’ the net.
This has possibilities.
