Due Date Blues

My pregnancies were easy... no morning sickness, no elevated sugar, no bed rest... Other than the discomfort each time of having a humongo belly filled with a dancing night owl, pregnancy was good to me. And the best part about it was that there was a guaranteed time line... a due date that most doctors won’t let you go very far past. My babies were all early birds by 12-16 days, sweet things!

Oh but adoption is so different... you start off in control of almost everything. You decide when you will “get pregnant”. You decide the sex of your child, its health status, its age, even what color eyes it has if you want to go that far...

Soon you realize one thing is completely out of your control: the time line... there is no due date. An adoption can go on and on and on and on... mountains of paperwork and appointments...then waiting to take a trip over, maybe two trips, sometimes three or four trips to a foreign land where you are desperately trying to figure out what it will take to get the judge to sign those papers...

In the beginning you believe you have some control over the timing. You scheme and plan and add up the weeks for this or that and you create a false due date in your mind. Mine was set for late July.

But then a notary makes a tiny mistake, a town official refuses to cooperate, a set of papers is apostilled together rather than individually, your translator gets sick, your facilitator’s workload gets backed up...

Before you know it, it is August 1 and nobody is offering you a c-section.



Patience, I tell myself... after all, as Sylvia Plath put it, “(I’ve) boarded the train there’s no getting off.” And I know that eventually it will pull into the station where my little darlings are waiting for me.

(To all my friends on this same train, take heart... before you know it we will be celebrating together at TGIF’s)

The Happy Dance

Can you see me? I am hopping up and down, tapping, turning and twisting and shouting “Yay, Yay, thank you God!” I am doing the happy dance.

Our dossier was submitted yesterday, and the adoption registry officer told our facilitator that Peach is in the database. Our little baby is cleared for international adoption and ready to go.

And on top of all that, there is a chance my amazing sister-in-law will come from MI (or TX, wherever they are calling homebase now) and watch our kids while we are gone. I have to tell you, being away from my children for five weeks is scary to me. Knowing they are home with people who are great with them is a lot off my stress list.

So for those of you who haven’t done this already... it means we are now just waiting for our date to leave. I am so excited. Tap tap, wiggle hop wiggle, tap wiggle hop, happy happy happy dance.

The Grandma Book

Mallory’s Grandma Book is done. It was a lot of fun to make and I am happy with the way it turned out, though the parts I translated may be a bit rough. Our facilitator translated certain things for me, so at least grandma and grandpa will have some idea what I am trying to say, lol.

This is an 8” by 8” scrapbook. The album is Creative Memories (donated by my favorite CM consultant) and the rest of it is a mish-mash of scrap products I had in my stash. All the smears you will see are just me smudging out personal info so that I could post these pics on the Internet.

Cover


And, no don’t ask me if that’s her real name... you know I am not allowed to answer that question.


Inside Cover


You’re going to have to wait to find out her middle name :-)


Renaissance


The top part has her real Russian name and birth date. The bottom section has her American name and her adopted on date (the actual date will be hand-written in once it happens.)


Where is Mallory



Chez Nous



Inside Basics



Mom and Dad


The writing is “Father & Mother” and our wedding date.


Gecko


The word is “Brother”.


Jade


It says “Brother.


Our Girl


The words say, “The girl we chose” (I hope ;-)


Waiting


It says, “Waiting for Mallory”



Mallorella




The Grands


On the picture it says, “Grandpa & Grandma” and the other writing is the date of the photos.


Kimani Page1


It says, “Sister”


Kimani Page2



Peach


It has Peach’s American name, date of birth, and also says “adopted with Mallory”.


Promise Letter


The letter says that we will always love Mallory, that she will have a good life with us, and that we will teach her about her grandparents and tell her they love her.


Contacts



Album Back Inside Cover

Peach's Surgery

This morning I was told that Peach had her full heart reconstruction done last Friday. She is back in the orphanage today.

This surprising news comes not from the surgeon but from our facilitator who got it from the caretaker who was with Peach for the duration of her stay in the hospital.

It is hard to be someone’s mother yet not be their mother at the same time. I want to ask the doctor questions. I want to know exactly what was done. I want to see her echo results and know her blood O2 levels. I want to tell them not to lift her up from under her armpits.

I have no right. I have no access. I have no voice.

Could it be true that it is done? All done and she breezed through it? I pray that it is so.

The Price of Love

More than one jaw has dropped at the answer to a question I am often asked, “How much is it to do this?” Drum roll please..... $31,803

The next question is inevitably, “Why does it cost so much?”

Here is my answer...

$2000. - Homestudy. The homestudy is completed by a licensed social worker who is employed by an accredited adoption agency.

$275. - Love offering and application fee to Reece’s Rainbow, the organization that finds and lists children with Ds for international adoption.

$696. - Paper... copies of birth and marriage certificates, 42 documents county stamped ($3 each) and apostilled ($10 each).

$397. - Mailing fees... the cost of sending the paper, 118 for the first batch, 118 for the second, and 161 for the rest of the dossier.

$140. - Doctor visit co-pays... everyone had to go to the dr to prove their health status, mom and dad had to go twice.

$140. - Fingerprinting fees for state background check.

$75. - The cost of renewing my expired passport.

$830. - cost to file the i600a form with USCIS, includes biometrics fee.

$5000. RT airfare for 2 adults to our destination city.

$1500. One Way children tickets to US.

$10500. Facilitation fees. 8500 for the first child, 2000 for the second. The cost of their agency fees, attorney fees, translation expenses, court expenses, etc.

$2000. - The in-country transportation expenses. A driver is assigned to take us to and from the orphanage and to all of our legal appointments. Their version of a rent-a-car.

$1500. - Required orphanage donation. 1000 for the first child, 500 for the second.

$3800. - 38 days of lodging and food expenses. Estimated 3 weeks for the adoption to happen, 10 day waiting period, 7 days to get children’s documents in order to leave the country.

$1100. - Visas and medical exams for the girls.

$1200. - Passports for the girls.

$500. - RT airfare to fly childcare (MIL) in to babysit while we are away.

$150. - Standard thank you gifts for the girls’ groupas (caretakers) and the facilitators.

Priceless - the lives of two human beings.

Calling All Fine Art Lovers

Melissa at the Piano


This award winning [best of show] Cibachrome 4” x 6” framed print from artist Gail Nadeau’s 100 Angels series will look gorgeous in your livingroom. Ms. Nadeau had only 5 Cibachromes made of this mixed media artwork. This is the last one, and there will never be another one like it.

When the artist contacted me and told me that she wanted to give it to us to sell or use in any way we choose to raise funds to bring our two little girls home, I was flooded with gratitude (uh, and I admit I did spend about two minutes fantasizing about it hanging in my livingroom).

After I convinced myself not to keep it, I brainstormed ideas about what to do with it. I could sell it outright (the original price tag is $550) or I could auction it off, or I could raffle it. If I sell it or auction it off, then only those with a lot of extra money have any chance of getting it. If I raffle it off and sell a zillion tickets (here she goes fantasizing again) then that also limits your chance of owning this work of art. So what’s a girl to do?

I’ve decided on a limited raffle... selling only 250 tickets... to ensure you good odds. Raffle tickets are $10 a piece and you can buy as many as you’d like through our Chip In fund (Paypal) on the right or through Reece's Rainbow (Paypal or check, and it's tax deductible... be sure to mention that it is for Mallory & Peach). Take a chance on winning this stunning masterpiece and help save our baby girls in the process.

Gail Nadeau is an upstate New York artist whose work has been shown in numerous galleries all over the Capital region as well as in New York City and Seoul Korea. She has received multiple awards, and was recently selected as one of 10 masters by the Albany Institute of History & Art as part of their Tomorrow’s Masters Today exhibit.

And the Winners Are...

Rissa Roo over at These Three Remain did a giveaway during our matching funds campaign. She held the drawing today and the winners are:

Jaqueline DiPasquale
Kelly Butler
Jennifer Baker

Head over there to see what you’ve won and find out how to claim your prize.

As Rissa Roo so eloquently put it... thanks to everyone who donated, Mallory and Peach are the real winners because you are helping to bring them home to a family who loves them.