Blue

Yesterday I spent a very long time scanning about 40 dossier documents. It took so long, and the scanner was so slow. Now I only have a few left to scan, and I will do that as they come in. My summer break begins on Monday, so I will be able to dedicate much more time to the paper gathering. I will call Mexico to see if my birth certificate has been processed...we can only hope, and get the bulk of our documents to the county clerk's office and to the secretary of state. We also have to figure out the NY and TX authentication process. I have come to terms with the fact that our dossier will not make it to Ethiopia before July first, now I'm only hoping that I can send it off to Mary before we leave on vacation. (by the way, I just spelled checked and was surprised to find that "no misspellings found.")

Fassica

I've been meaning to write, but it seems we are at a bit of a stand still. We are waiting for things to come to us, and we can't move forward until they arrive. The only thing we can continue to do is notarize documents that are already in our possession and scan them as we move along. It is excruciating. Because of this slow down, it seems that every time I see someone I haven't seen in some time, and they ask me about how it's coming along...I wish they would say "I see you've come along way, your blog is keeping us up to speed." It is so taxing to wait, and we're not even in the official waiting stage; questions make it more difficult. The whole point of our blog is to keep everyone abreast of the process, believe me, if there was more to tell I'd tell it. On another note, this past Saturday I met two wonderful women who are also adopting little girls from Ethiopia. I don't know if they would want me to share their names, so I won't. Marina and I headed to Fassica in Culver City. This place is fantastic. Anyway, just as we were getting to know each other, we heard a terrible car crash right outside of the restaurant. My two new mothers-to-be friends ran out and the owner of the restaurant followed right behind them. Marina and I stayed in the restaurant (no need for Marina to be exposed to gore). Soon after one of the moms-to-be ran back asking for a soda, and informed me that one of the people involved was the husband of the owner of Fassica! A little later everyone came back to the restaurant and the owner asked us to PLEASE stay. She would call her niece to care for us, and she would meet her husband (who is diabetic and was taken to the hospital in the ambulance) at the hospital. It took some convincing us, but we stayed. It took time, but we settled and continued to bond over our adoptions. We talked a great deal about all the blogs and laughed about some of what we all share over the internet with perfect strangers. In the end I left feeling like I had just met two beautiful women who I hope will be a part of our lives for years to come. I am also grateful for this crazy mode of communication. This online journaling has opened great doors to new and meaningful individuals whom I would have never known had I'd been using a paper and pencil...thank you to all of you whom have reached out...and to those of you whom read silently.

...or like her

I took the day off from work today so that I could do some important running around. After I picked up the final draft of our home study I went home to make some lunch for Marina and me. In the mail box I found an envelope from CIS...I got excited, but managed to make lunch before opening it. I was quite disappointed to discover that it was only a letter stating that they needed another proof of my citizenship because my passport (of which they had a copy) expired while they were processing our petition. I now have a new passport, so I'm sending them a new copy via overnight FedEx, because I think that is the last thing they are waiting for before we get approved. There is very little more for us to get done, so we hope we can actually send our dossier off to Mary before our self imposed July 1st deadline. Now I'm off to make copies and look into scanning paperwork.

She could look like her

So much has happened, but I haven't written in because it's going fast. Our FBI paperwork came back yesterday. We had enclosed a return FedEx envelope and tracked it while it returned back to our home. As soon as I got home I asked Fernando if he got the FedEx. He handed me the envelope and I ripped it open quickly. And there they were 2 sealed envelopes. I wanted to open them so badly, but Fernando ...voice of reason... said I should ask Gladney before I did anything "just in case." Also yesterday I talked to Kerry at Heartsent and she said I could pick up our home study whenever we wanted. So today I went to pick it up. They have already sent one to CIS and another to Gladney. When I got home, I read it through and through. there was one minor mistake, but as I have said before, Maggie is fantastic.
We are getting so close I can't believe that we may be in the official waiting stage soon.

Fairy gift

After a few e-mails to and from Carey (she's also adopting from Ethiopia) I decided to call Heartsent to ask if, when the home study write up was done, I could walk it into the CIS office. Kerry called me back immediately (as usual) and said that they had already sent it off to CIS and that it had also been e-mailed to Gladney for approval. Wow! that was so unexpected gift. Now, if Tonia approves the home study, we'll get the rest of the Heartsent paperwork for the dossier done. I hope that the rest of the agencies we are dealing with hurry up so that we can get all our paperwork authenticated. Two of our letters of recommendation have been notarized outside our county (one in NY and the other in SF), so we will FedEx them tomorrow to the county clerk and then to the secretary of state in NY and CA. I keep looking at our to-do-list and just trying to cross items, that are in our control, off. 19 days to go before my self imposed deadline.

News from Gladney

Today I received a few bits of news from the staff at Gladney. One dealt with a meet and greet hosted at The Gladney Center (in TX). Needless to say we must regretfully decline the invitation being that we are in California. Then there was the adoptive criteria changes that are being suggested are:
1)Adoptive parent(s) must be between 25-55 years of age.
2)Adoptive parents must be married for at least TWO years.
3)Married or single heterosexual individuals must have 5 biological or adopted children or less in the home.
4)There must be a 2 year age difference between the adopted child and a biological child.
5)Both parents are expected to travel to Ethiopia to pick up their child/ren, unless extenuating circumstances are presented and approved.

The last point worries us because we had planned on Fernando staying with Marina and making sure she maintained a sense of normalcy. We'll see what the Ethiopian government considers "extenuating circumstances," and go from there.

The last bit of news came in the form of a phone call. Elizabeth called to inform me that our Gladney application was COMPLETE! The only thing they are waiting for is Maggie's home study write up. Happy doesn't begin to express how feel. Any way, now we're only concentrating on the completion of our dossier. Dossier...that word makes me nervous, and laugh at the same time. Nervous because I want it to be done already. But it makes me laugh because the girls in the office are sick of the word...this little word that was unknown to us until 3 months ago.

E-mail can yield disastous results

Today I went to Kaiser and everything went great. I had arranged it with the notary to meet me 5 minutes early (just to make sure we were on time) because I didn't want to upset our MD. She was SO fantastic, and patient, and efficient and took her time...quite the turn around from my last entry. I think that e-mail is incredibly difficult to read. One person's "emphases" CAPS is an other's SHOUTING, which makes me believe that it really depends on how a person reads this blog whether they get us or not...for all I know we come off incredibly foolish. One of my friends seemed quite appalled when I told her I was writing an on line journal. She said, "I don't know, what makes you think any one wants to read your journal" (she said it in a tone of self reproach). Because I know her, her voice inflections, the look in her eyes, I know this was more about her and the way she always seems to minimize her fabulousness, and less about her thinking I was the most self-important person she could imagine. Fortunately our exchange happened in person!
On another note, I turned the last bit of paperwork to Heartsent; the notarized physicals for both of us, and a color photocopy of Fernando's passport, not to mention the post placement fee. This means that Maggie has all the information she needs to finish her write up and send it to CIS. Now I only need to wait for my birth certificate and get other little things notarized and authenticated for our dossier. I really hope all is done by my July 1st deadline.

Our Doctor

You know how in the past I said I love Kaiser? The Statement still holds true, with some minor exceptions. When Fernando and I first joined Kaiser, our doctor was fantastic. He has now moved on to the Sunset office, where he has gone up in rank and responsibility. We love him, and hope that he is enjoying his new position. Our new doctor has very big shoes to fill. She is quick, impatient, somewhat impersonal and very curt. During my physical, she was very vocal about how I should have come earlier so that she could have looked over all the paperwork from the different agencies (never mind that I told the appointment center and the intake nurse why I needed the physical and they didn't seem to think I needed to be told to come earlier). Anyway, then she redeemed herself by ordering Fernando's labs (to save time) and telling me we could just arrange to meet at lunch with the notary so that I didn't have to make an appointment. This week, I e-mailed her (through the Kaiser on line message exchange) and left a message with the nurse, just to remind her about our adoption needs. this is how she answered our e-mail: "Hello, Please excuse the delay. I was out sick yesterday. You can come in on any day next week at 12:30 in the afternoon to get the paperwork signed. Please let me know which day you are coming in so I can tell the nurses to look for you. P.S- you don't have to call AND email, I just wasn't in the office to take care of your message. In the future, please make sure to give me time to respond to your messages.Take care." Wow, great bedside manners. I will be meeting her on Monday (with the notary).
Anyway, on another subject I sent our our FBI request, and should be hearing back from them in about a week. I called them just to make sure my request was correct. The woman who helped me asked me to call them three days after our FedEx was delivered to them.