A good, good Friday

Woo hoo. I had a very dramatic race-to-the-end of business Friday victory today and walked out of my doctor's office just before closing with all my completed forms. It started this morning with some back and forth calls trying to find out if test results were in. The results were in, but they were still waiting on the fax (do people still do that?). It was mostly me calling, and them politely telling me they would call me back. Finally, I went there forty minutes before closing, "I just happened to be in the area...". What a happy surprise, the doctor had everything ready to go. Test results were negative. The notary had her book out and was stamping my papers. Oh, the joys of small victories. At the end, the notary/office manager turned to me and said, "Okay that's $35 each for the forms fee and $15 each for the notary fee." Huh. At that point, I didn't really care. I had my required forms. Frankly, leaving the doctor $100 lighter is becoming a little too normal. So, I still love my doctor, but I don't really want to see her again for a long time. All required homestudy forms are in. Now I just need my social worker to type it up. Sadly she is not nearly as motivated as me. She actually has other families to write reports for! ;) I hope to be able to see the rough draft in a week or so. I guess we'll see if that's realistic or not... Repeat after me: All in God's timing, All in God's timing...

Monday Blues

Well, this day sucked. I was going to finally get the last of the homestudy paperwork. My husband went in to have his TB test read, and they decided based on that they need to do a TB blood test to decide for sure. Seriously, it was the size of a mosquito bite and he has no risk factors. Even according to the CDC, it would have to be 10 mm for a health care worker and 15mm for non risk patients to be positive. (Of course I already researched all this when I took my test!) Argh!! So because they want to be overly paranoid, now I have to wait for at least another week more test results and the last piece of homestudy paperwork. Although, technically, we are still waiting on one background check our teenage son, probably because he isn't in a database other than a birth certificate. How do you do a background check with no history? Also, our social worker is going on vacation and basically told me she wouldn't even start on writing the homestudy till next week. Sooo... God had different plans for this week than I did. And I have almost nothing that I can do for a week, no one to call and pester... At least I am getting stuff listed on Ebay. I sold some furniture too, so that was awesome. Not sure how I'm going to get the money together, but I'm working on it. I decided to have the kids start school this week because we all need something to do. It went better than I expected considering they've been off for six weeks. Of course, Child #2 had the inevitable meltdown once we did math ("Not BORROWING!"), but we got halfway through the lesson. For him, that is a good day considering his whole routine was changed up. I think we'll be back to whole lessons by Wednesday. Husband was finishing up another week of college Calculus, and it's hilarious how similar he is to Child #2 when it comes to math. I hear balls of crumpled paper being thrown at the wall and muttered swear words directed at the computer monitor, and I just know he is working on math. Except for him, it's derivatives and limits or something like that. Honestly, he left me in the dust after Trig. So I made pancakes and blueberry compote for dinner and called it a day.

Paper chasing at top speed

I have been busy busy busy! We have our homestudy meetings next week. I would have had them this week, but my husband rudely traveled out of town for business. Sadly, I can't control everyone else's schedules. I know I'm not the first paper-chasing adoptive parent to wish they could. "God's timing, not mine." becomes the mantra. In the meantime, I've stayed busy going to the doctor, handing out reference questionnaires, and sending away for vital documents. I received my first birth certificate back this week, and I was so excited. I've already been to the doctor twice (the TB test alone must be injected, then read two days later). I still have to go back once the blood results are in to get my notarized paperwork. I am grateful for my amazing doctor though. She takes a lot of time with her patients and really cares about them, plus she is Korean. I've written almost all the required letters and questionnaires for the dossier. I will soon run out of papers to chase, then it will be time to start notarizing and copying and saving. I have a good sized reading pile to work on (once I'm not distracted by the newest Evanovich book). Then I'm determined to learn some Mandarin. It's a real pity none of the Korean I've picked up from four or five years of drama watching will be of any use. But I'm pretty good with languages, so I feel like I can pick up at least a little bit -like twenty words - if I make it a priority. I think it's going to be a necessity after the update I got this week.

Yes, that's right, I got an update! It was actually just some follow up questions I had asked when we first decided on him, and there was some videos. I was kind of hit with a brick wall when I watched it. I was really excited and happy to receive video, but I had a panic attack when I watched the videos. All I could see were the unknowns and the worst case possibilities. He barely talked in the whole thing, and he was moving constantly. He smiled a few times and that was so cute. But all I could think was how much he is going to hate me. I got terrified again of that trip to China. How frightened is he going to be with what will be his third transition and these white people that don't speak his language. I sought advice from BTDT friends, doctors, and the social worker that visited him. Certainly, there are some real possibilities of vision being untreatable, of autism spectrum. I think he reminds me of Child #2 in some ways, and it makes me more afraid that he will have autistic traits.  I LOVE child #2, but life is so hard for him - with learning, with change and new things, with making friends. I started to doubt everything and I felt a weight on my chest. I had insecurity as a mother and a homeschooler. I told my husband that it felt like I was being attacked, and he said he was having those same feeling but about his job and place. I started looking at my kids this week and I realized we were having some spiritual attacks. Once I saw it, all my fears and insecurity were irrelevant. I still have trepidation, but my excitement is back. If God says he is meant for our family, then that means God says I am meant to love him. If he does turn out to have similar traits to Child #2, at least I already have some experience parenting that. If nothing else, I'm even more convinced I will need to put in more preparation. Knowing some Chinese could make all the difference in our first weeks together.

I'll leave you with my reading list, most were available at my local library:

• Wanting a Child, Needing a Son (almost finished, quite a dry read and some of it is outdated, but a good snapshot of Chinese adoption fifteen to twenty years ago)
• One Child - The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment (I'm looking forward to this one, it just came out this year)
• Wish You Happy Forever - What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains (written by the founder of the Half the Sky Foundation)
• The Connected Child (by the amazing Karyn Purvis, should be required reading for adoptive parents, I skimmed it a few years ago and need to read it again)
• Parenting the Hurt Child - Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow
• Fodor's China (and whatever other China culture and travel books I can get at my library)

If you have any good books or resources to add, please tell me!