Tired of waiting

I am. Today, especially.

We live in a very Chinese apartment complex. There are nice gardens, a pool, and a pond with a bridge over it right downstairs that we can see from our balcony--it's lovely. In the early evening, all the grandparents and some of the moms and dads venture outside, toting their little ones. The toddlers amble around wherever they want, and the guardian closely follows behind, fanning the precious child (or babe) the whole time. Today, as I was walking back from getting a foot rub, I saw a new mom and her nanny carefully caring two little babies. The mom spoke English (!) and told me they were twins, and "one months" old. This means that it very well could have been one of the babies' first trips outside the apartment, as the Chinese do not think mother and baby should leave the apartment for at least one month. I asked the mom if it was a lot of work having twins, and she said "YES. Extremely tired, especially at night."

So--I've missed that part. Some people point that out as a good thing, but I would gladly go without sleep to have her here already. Our baby girl turns three months this week. Who knows what kind of amazing things she's doing now, and we're missing it. During the week she's on my mind, but I have loads of activities and work to keep that part of my brain otherwise occupied. Over the weekend is when we want her here, NOW. We often wake up in the morning and talk about what we would do if she were here. What we will do.

In the evenings, we'll be downstairs. Fan and all.

NEWS

I wanted to title this post "Sneak Peek" as I've seen others do, and show a tiny little foot or her cute little lips...but alas, Blogger is still blocked here, so I am unable to post pictures. Oh well!

We have a baby girl waiting on us! She is 2 months old and the only photos we have show her sleeping. She must need lots of it like her mama. We have known about her since July 15, but did not have her medical report. We received her HIV report (negative), but the rest of the bloodwork was not done. So, we proceeded to wait (again) for another medical report. It finally arrived on August 10th, after we got home from Bali. Instead of sending it to the adoption doctor specialist in the States, we took it to her future pediatrician here, and she reviewed it. No red flags, so we formally accepted Baby Girl on August 13th.

This referral was a bit different than Baby A. We were expecting it, so it was not a surprise. The day we were sent her photos I did have to wait about 4 hours to open the email with Shannon. That was not easy, but I managed. When we opened the email, we were both shocked at how young she was. Barely one month old! That is tiny! I wanted to tell everyone I knew, but after Baby A, we were cautious. I didn't send her photo to anyone until last week. Although lots could still happen between now and the time we pick her up, the acceptance is a big deal. I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that she's OURS, but we're getting there.

We are very close to finalizing her name...I will announce it soon! We are going to keep her Ethiopian name as her middle name. I'm not allowed to post her name or picture before we pass court, so that will be awhile. In the meantime, we begin another wait, but we're close to the home stretch. :)

4th of July in China waiting for Baby Girl

Poor Shannon woke up with a sore throat today, so we had a quick change of Independence Day plans. From hearty American food (buffalo chicken and potato salad), to Indian (creamy Tikka chicken and eggplant dip). I thought the spicy would help cure Shannon. It was also inspred by my homemade yogurt that I made yesterday/last night. Delish! It is hard to find real yogurt here in China, and it's expensive. Just like cheese. That will be my next project.

No real news on Baby Girl. We think that she is at one of our agency's care centers, waiting on the results of the medical. Every morning I wake up at 6 am thinking, "Today could be it! Stay alert for the phone call!" Or, if that doesn't happen, I think maybe they bypassed the phone call so I hold my breath while opening Gmail (provided that Google isn't blocked that morning. Still holding my breath.

Our friends here that started the process with us passed court this week! They will picking up little T at the end of this month or the first week of August. This makes me happy and a tiny bit sad as we would have most likely been on the same time frame with Baby A. Still, I'll be very excited to meet their little one when they get back to China.

Even if we had stuck to our 4th of July fare, we still would have missed the fireworks. You would think that I would have had my fill during Chinese New Year, but I still miss them. Or maybe it's just the people I miss, as we skipped our annual trip back to the USA. Sniff. xoxoxo and happy 4th!

No news and no blogger

Nothing yet. We still think it could be any day, but maybe not. We're at the top of the list, so the next baby girl brought to IAG could be Baby Lyon Haggard. Most of the time I'm okay with the wait, but sometimes I think "Hey! I want her already!" With Baby A, it was all so fast, we didn't even have to wait at all. Now, we're not only waiting for baby, we'll probably have to wait out rainy season and other unforeseen complications. Thankfully, in a couple of weeks we'll be waiting in the mountains of Yangshuo and on the beaches and rice paddies in Bali! I can think of worse places to be.

First we have to finish summer school. It's better than expected. The kids seem pretty focused and are working hard for the most part. Shannon has a group of cuties in his class and is loving it.

Blogger is still blocked. This makes it difficult for me to post, besides the fact that there is no real adoption news to post.

Keep your fingers crossed for exciting news that will make a more interesting next post.

Baby A's Story

It's been a rough week.

The good news is that I was looking forward to getting to finally share our referral story, and I can do that now. However, this one won't be our baby. Instead, I can look forward to telling our second referral story--hopefully not too far down the road.

On April 16th, around 7:20 am we got THE CALL from our case worker--we had a referral of a baby girl! Baby A could be ours. Age: 3 months, with an actual known birthday (rare in Ethiopia). I woke Shannon up and we looked at her little pictures. She had a big round head with a curlicue on top, and we started calling her Cabbage Patch Baby. Her medicals were a bit off, and we were waiting for a 3rd blood test. Still, she looked healthy and happy and we watched her turn 4 months, and then 5 months. I was following her development in What to Expect the 1st Year.

A few weeks ago, Shannon had some serious concerns about how Baby A came to be at the orphanage. We had very little information, but our agency assured us that what we had was all they had, and that before she entered the care center the government agency had reviewed her case. We wrote an email requesting more information, and voicing our concerns. We sent it off and were waiting for a reply, hopeful our questions would be answered.

Two nights ago we received another call. It was something we had feared in the back of our minds: Baby A's mother returned to take her home. Although we had heard of this happening, it was still shocking. Evidently it happens about 5% of the time. Now we know.

It was a sad night. I really thought I would be her Mama. BUT, she already has a mama, and her mama wants her. That's the bottom line. What if we had taken her too soon? We're glad she's getting one-on-one attention. I bet her mama is thrilled to see that big smile. How can we be sad about that? Really, we can't.

Today, I think we’re okay. We'll think about her for the rest of our lives, and hope and pray she has a wonderful life. But I don't feel the loss that I expected to feel. Somehow we know this is right, and there's comfort in that. I truly believe that Shannon's concerns a few weeks ago were placed there deliberately to prepare us for this. It's either that, or believe in the strangest of strange coincidences. We know better.

House huntin'

I've acquired a new obsession just when my previous ones started to get old: looking for new digs. It has been a strange process figuring out how to go about this, but now I know--I have to do it myself. Which is fine, because that way I am Totally. In. Charge. I was first under the impression that I must wait for my oh-so-powerful-school to make all the arrangements, but alas, I was deceived. You know what they say, right? In order to do something right...really? Have I turned into that person?

So, in a few short minutes I will go meet mystery real estate person C and look at what seems to be Perfect on Paper. "Open Kitchen" is even part of the description. What? In China? Plus, the complex has a sweet pool and is close to my school. Fingers crossed.

Of course, along with searching for a new place I have also had to think about decorating it. I believe this may be called nesting. I have an intense desire to paint Baby Girl's room, find soft stuff and make it pretty. Mind you, I have not been able to really do this (decorate/settle) for 4 years. We have had a total "on the move" mentality, and that unfortunately has meant little to no wall hangings, 3 pots only, and suitcases nearby in case we need to jet. Now, I don't care about that. I don't care if we will be in this new place for one year only. It will be Baby Girl's first home with us, and it has to be nice. I have resolved to keep simplicity at my core, but I'm ready for the Next Step. Now, how to get Husband on board?

Balance

Cambodia WAS all that, and more. Loved it. If you haven't already seen these, you can check 'em out: http://picasaweb.google.com/lindsnol/CambodiaAndSingaporeVacation#.

As for adoption...I'm just going to go ahead and get it out there: I can be obsessive. This is not the greatest attribute a person can have to begin with, but I think adoption can cause the most laid-back person to obsess on a daily (possibly hourly) basis. As soon as I get a response/answer to one thing, I'm on to the next. And oddly, when it feels like there is nothing I can obsess about, I feel worse than if I were doing my thing.

You see, there are very few things that adoptive mothers/father-to-be actually can control in this process. If I were actually pregnant I could do all sorts of productive things every day, or at least every week. I could start buying stuff and getting the baby's room ready without feeling that I would jinx myself. I could tick off the days and see my belly grow and think about my baby at each stage. I could read books...well, I'm doing plenty of that.

The paperwork phase was good for productivity. There was a mound of requirements, and I could tick each task off neatly as accomplished. Now, everything depends on someone else, or someone's government. We were told that our dossier was supposed to be in Ethiopia by the end of the week. Well, end of the week is here and haven't heard anything. Why is this important? Because now I can start waiting for a court date!

And here's another thing: I'm an extremely optimistic person by nature. With that, I'm just going to go ahead and think that it's possible for us to get a court date before rainy season. Now my brain also tells me that this is unlikely, and I shouldn't set myself up for disappointment and...more obsessing. But really, is there any other choice?

At school, a good day involves me actually doing my planning/grading during my planning period, and leaving school feeling like I was actually doing my job properly that day. Sadly, that was the case probably 2/5 days last week. It takes so much willpower not to...

1. Write the mysterious lady at USCIS twice a day and ask her about our fingerprints
2. Search through my agency's bloglist and older posts for information on...you name it
3. Look at Ethiopian/African baby names online
4. Research Ethiopian climate patterns from the last 10 years
5. Look at flights to Ethiopia...

And the list goes on.

But, when I get home, and talk to my husband, I find sanity. We drink a beer together, cook dinner, and listen to music. We talk about other stuff--holidays, moving, gossip, family, school, AND adoption. He balances me.