Repeating life all-over-again.

Hear we go again.

Hard to believe, but it has almost been a year since our home study.  Our social worker contacted us a few weeks ago to set up another home visit.  A lot has changed in our home since that time, and we haven't cleaned up much from it, so we will be spending nights and weekends rearranging furniture and painting and cleaning to get ready for her to come out to Chateau Lafond early in December.

I really feel like I've been living in a trance.  Time has flown by very quickly.

Since our social worker came out last time, the biggest shift in our home has been our room.  We had been in a smaller room, and our plan was our child would live in our master bedroom.  At some point, the dogs revolted against this plan.  We had had them sleeping in a bedroom on the main floor of our home, with us living on the second floor.  Beginning a month after they moved down there, they started waking me up in the middle of the night to go our, and wouldn't be sated until they were allowed into our bedroom to sleep the rest of the night.

Our small room, already packed with 2 humans and a lot furniture, was bursting at the seams.

So, we made plans to remodel the master room so we could fit everything and 2 dogs.  After a lot of paint, sanding floors, and staining, our oasis has been completed.  We really like how it turned out.  And a big plus is that our room faces east, and we get a lot of morning sun.

The major draw back is that I injured my back with the sander, and it has bugged me off and on since then.  Not fun.

I've deliberately resisted posting anything for the past few months because I knew it would be mostly full of complaining.  After the high of completing our homestudy came the joy of completing paperwork.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like doing paperwork - when I'm in control.  But a lot of what we needed to do involved sending a document into one government agency, and getting it back from another.  The worst was the FBI - they required 13 weeks to complete our fingerprinting.  From what I understand, the FBI is pretty busy - I know from watching the crime drama, Bones - but still.  One quarter of the year?  To find out we're squeeky clean?  It was really maddening to wait.

The good news is, as of Friday the 30th of July, our Dossier was on it's way to Colombia.  Good luck, little paperwork.  Now we wait for a child to be identified.  Timeline - 3 to 24 months.

Fly-by-night Weekend!

I have been waiting ever-so-not-patiently for the next step in the process to begin. Ever since we got the call from our primary social worker that the game was about to change, I feel like I've been at the starting blocks, waiting to take off racing, but no one can seem to find ammunition for the starting pistol.

Notice that I said 'primary social worker.' I got a call from another nice lady at Children's who is also our social worker. From what I gather, she oversees yet another social worker who will help us prepare our dossier for Colombia. So much for corporate structure! Or, we have confounded Children's so much that they require three social workers to keep up with us.

I have no idea who's who at this point. Just give us a map, folks, and we'll get at it.

She did give a bit of hope about the various processes - social worker #2, that is. We will be handed our child almost immediately when we get to Bogota. Then, 1 week later, we will meet with a social worker from the orphanage who will evaluate the bonding process. She said it generally takes the courts a week to review our file and confirm we are okay to adopt. However, she confirmed we will be there for 6 weeks, so I don't have my mind completely wrapped around the process.

So, we busy ourselves. This weekend was no exception. Friday started out with a dinner party with some very good friends. Sarah, the best man at my wedding, had suggested a good way to force ourselves to all get together would be to do some common good. We have formed a group under the organization Kiva, which provides small business loans in poor and underdeveloped nations. We will all pitch in a few bucks so that a baker in Afghanistan or a tailor in Uganda can start their business. They will pay back their loan, and we will reinvest in another person's business. I have heard the idea before, but kudos go out to Sarah for getting us to action.

So, there was good works, but there was also food, wine and beer: The breakfast of Chumpions. A fun time was had by all. The only problem - Joe ate all my tapioca! Kidding. I'm glad the dessert I brought was well received!

Saturday started out a bit more laid-back. I caught up on some laundry. Angie did some cleaning around the house. Our front windows tend to take a beating, because our beautiful cattle-dog tends to snarf on them as he stares longingly outside, looking to run free.

I had a piece up at the mosaic shop that I was looking to finish. I popped up there around 2pm, and made the rounds to look at other peoples work. It's part of the unwritten code of the studio that you must compliment everyone before you start working - plus, it's a good way to get a few ideas for new projects.

My project was another colored-glass type piece. My only disappointment with my last piece is that it looks a little dark. I wanted the next piece to be back-lit. My idea was to put the piece on a shadow box and wire a light behind it. So, I grouted the piece at the studio, and brought it back to my garage workshop. I had an old table leaf that I had saved from the scrap-heap that I chopped up to make the box. The light wired in easily - I had picked up a 'Make your own lamp' kit from Menards. A couple of screws one quick Snap, and it was all together. Check out the finished product below:

The photo doesn't really do it justice - thank you, cell phone camera.  But I am really happy with how it turned out.  I think I will try to do another soon.
 
Sunday was a day that I was first worried about, but it turned out very well.  We've never had a real dinner party over at our house - so I got a bit nervous.   But I've always wanted to show off a few dishes I had up my sleeves, so I warmed up to the idea.  I whipped out a basil-marinara sauce I'd played around with over the summer, and let it simmer for a few hours.  I had been experimenting with a stuffing for chicken - onions and celery, with apple for a bit of sweetness, and cranberries for a bit of tartness, with some sage thrown in for good measure.  A LOT of sage.  At the last minute, I decided the only thing it was lacking was walnuts.
 
The last dish is the eye-popper - celery-root casserole.  What is celery root?  This:

Ugly.  And tasty, when shredded and boiled in whipping cream, and baked with lots 'o parmesian cheese!
 
Suprisingly, all the dishes were finished at the same time, a few minutes after everyone arrived.  My favorite comment was from my father-in-law: 'That was some stuffing.  Really nouveau."

Worn out!

Wow, with all the blogging we're doing lately, I'm getting worn out! Heh!

meh.

I really am going to try to do this more, if anything, just to keep a good record on where we've been and where we are going.

Recap: In the beginning of January, we were confident we were headed to Ethiopia to round up our future kiddo. It seemed like a go. We bunkered down expecting a 2 year wait, which would give us some time to wrap up some last-minute projects. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago now.

As I've alluded to before, while we we're meeting with our social worker, she mentioned the possibility of Colombia for a quicker solution to adopt. She mentioned that the wait could be anywhere from 4 months to 24 months. So, it would either be quicker or just as long. Seemed like a good angle, and we asked her to pursue it for us. The only catch would be we would need to be open to African-Colombian children - which, seriously, why would we be against that? But, apparently people are. The other side catch is that we have started to form a group of friends who are pursuing Ethiopia. So, our support group of adoptive families has shrunk to null. C’est la vie. She shipped us via the internets a packet o’ paperwork and we started getting truckin’ on it.

This past Friday, I got a call at work from our social worker. She's really neat, and was full of energy for making a 'Let's change the game again!!' call right against the weekend. She had news that another orphanage in Colombia was begging Children’s for adoptive families, and she wondered if we would consider the option. The orphanage is known for placing younger children, so it is likely that we could get an infant quickly. The catches? It would cost about $2500 more. Seriously, after all we paid so far, not a big deal. We would also be guaranteed a six-week stay inside Colombia waiting for the adoption to be finalized. Which we expected anyway. Oh, and catch number 3? Stop all paperwork, ‘cause we’re sending you a different packet to start filling out.

So that’s where we’re at. I sent a confirmation email to our social worker, which she forwarded on as: "Meyerson/Peterson-Meyerson is a go for (insert orphanage name here)!"

In the mean time, we’ve started attending a monthly support group for families in the ‘waiting’ category. We felt like fish out of the water attending, because most people had their plans set, and we have had our plans put through the blender. One woman had just received notice that she was referred a child from Ethiopia – she had been waiting 44 months. Yikes. She was single, so it was likely that we wouldn’t have had to wait that long, but still. Another woman (again, single) was in the final stage of adopting from Kazakhstan. Stop thinking about Borat.

So in the mean time, we are starting to plan adventures to keep our minds off of the business. We have a vacation scheduled over Ang’s spring break to beautiful Bonaire, so we can get the last bit of scuba diving in before parenthood sets in.

And I went for my first Ice Fishing Tournament in what should be known as downtown Brainerd during winter: Gull Lake!

The fishing tournament is an annual event for my brother-in-law. He and a couple of buddies do it every year. He’d asked me to go last year, but some fertility junk came up and I couldn’t go… boy does that sentence look bad now that I’ve written it, but I think I’ll leave it as it is. I was lucky to not go last year, because downtown Brainerd had a high temperature of -35 degrees during the tournament.

I was happy to note that the temp was a balmy 25 degrees this year when we got rolling on tournament morning, but happiness melted during the day thanks to the addition of freezing rain that lasted for 3 hours, followed by the equally buzz-killing weather called ‘blinding sleet.’ The weather was not fun. At the beginning of the event, before the ‘soaking to the bone’ set in, I asked my compatriots if they would rather have -35 degrees, or freezing rain, to which they all shouted, ‘RAIN!’ I polled them again a few hours in to the event. The most memorable response was, “This. Is. Miserable.”

Truer words were never spoken.

I had received as a gift some pocket warmers that really helped keep my hands warm for a while. They stop functioning when they get filled with water. I know this, because they stopped working.

There was one fish caught in the 50 yards surrounding our fishing holes, and it was a half pound perch, caught by my brother-in-law. Good on him. The winner of the event was a man who nabbed a 6 and a quarter pound walleye. It was a beast!

The highlight of the event for me was tracking down the food booths. I knew I was in heaven when I found a little bit of ambrosia: cheese curds fried with slices of jalapenos. That warmed me up for about an hour.

The insult of the weather added to injury as we were leaving. They had bused us in from several points surrounding Gull Lake, and we were supposed to exit at the same place we entered. The problem being that everyone apparently chose to park at the same park ‘n ride we did, but the event organizers failed to recognize this population explosion. So, we sat in line trying to get off the ice for 2 hours, while other lines empty much more quickly. Oh, and for kicks, it started raining again. At some point as we reached the exit, they had fixed the problem and added a few more busses, but our moods had soured beyond repair. I don’t think the Brainerd International Fishing Tournament is in my future again.

Other than that, Angie got me interested in a bit of art she was doing - mosaic.  We have a mosiac shop down the road from us. It's fun and easy to do, and a good release. If you are in the area of Snelling in Midway, check out 'Mosaic on a stick!"  Here's my piece.  I grouted the left side, so it looks a little different now.

 

24-Hour Rule

I sat this morning listening to a podcast of a news report from Haiti and the aftermath of the earthquake. There were stories of sadness and survival, the wailing of family members as they mourn their loved ones, the pleading of others as they beg the buried to hold on. It was just too much. I broke down in tears of frustration, sadness and empathy. For a country that has so little, they been given so much sorrow. I gave money to UNICEF a few days ago, but it seems so little. The burden the Haitian people have will be difficult to recover from even with the generosity of magnanimous people throughout the world.

It sickens me that there are people in this world using this tragedy to score political points against the President of the United States while Haitians are desperately struggling to unearth their loved ones. Glenn Beck stated that he believed the President was moving too quickly to give aid in comparison to how slow Beck perceived the President had moved on an Afghanistan War strategy. Rush Limbaugh mused that the only reason the President was providing aid was to gain favor with African Americans. He even discouraged listeners from giving money to efforts to help the Haitians because, he said, we give enough through tax dollars already.

These people are sociopaths. There were people struggling to survive, praying for a fast death and there were bodies yet to be exhumed from their tragic graves, and Beck and Limbaugh disgustingly accused the President of political posturing and mismanaging priorities. They should be ashamed of themselves, but as they have no hearts, they are not capable of such emotions.

Pray for the people of Haiti.  Pray for the children who are waiting to be adopted.  Pray for the families of the dead and dying.  Pray for relief from the suffering.

And for God's sake, pray for Limbaugh and Beck to shut the hell up.

Changing our minds again?

My letter to our social worker - when she brought up idea of adopting from Colombia - and I have to decide in less than a month - since I am 39 next month...

(XXXXX) -

Thanks for coming to see us and being our partner in this adoption process.

I want to let you know we have this message and I was talking with Charlie last night.

We both have had some "grieving" about now changing our plan from Ethiopia as we have been so excited about adopting from there... me grabbing onto any magazine - a Smithsonian magazine article of late that related a journalist's experience of culture in Ethiopia- and I felt like I was there. And- I know that Charlie has been the one excited about Ethiopia from the very beginning. So it is a bit tougher decision for him.

Of course the idea that jumped into my mind was that we could still go to Ethiopia - for our second adoption and how happy I was that our wait time could possibly be less. I was also excited that I would be able to "brush up" on my Spanish- speaking and be able to communicate verbally much more effectively with our first child since my Spanish would more likely be better than my beginning Amharic.

We still have a couple of more discussions to have and I have to check out the reality with my principal as our school didn't make academic yearly progress the third year in a row- and I love my new school and don't want to change/make a new job change again when I feel that this environment is one that fits so well. We are doing a restructuring rather than moving teachers to different schools. With the restructuring, teachers must sign a contract that says they agree to work with the new plan for the school and do whatever professional developments that come up with the new plan - We are scheduled for ten days professional development this summer, but there has been no schedule posted - we don't know if it is happening for 10 days in a row or if they are scattered through the summer.

So this is the new news.

I've done part of the professional development already - as most of our restructuring plan has to do with becoming interdisciplinary teams schoolwide and I joined the one interdisciplinary team that the school had already established - so it may be that some of my prof. development from last summer could count for this.

Now that we are a "waiting family" :) I feel like I can share this with my principal and we can come up with a plan- I think he will understand and figure out a way that I can complete prof. development on a flexible time scale.

I will have that conversation with him this coming week and then talk again with Charlie and we'll have an answer for you soon.

Thank you again for thinking about us and how we would best become a happy adoptive family.

Angie (XXXXX)

Dreams Change

This probably won't be the same as the first thing I was typing as it ended up lost before it was saved - darn computer!!!!... but I think the emotions that I had at that moment are still real enough for me to try and rewrite this one. Lesson I keep forgetting: Type in Microsoft word and save save save...then copy and paste!!!

"We are a family in waiting. I can't..." was the only thing saved. Let me try starting with this again ;p

We are a family in waiting! I can't believe the feeling of relief or how stressed I had been until I promptly fell asleep on the couch, taking a solid nap from 7 pm to 9 pm that evening after the last home study meeting with our social worker.

The reality is a bit like the reality of my engagement was after receiving the ring from Charlie. I feel surreal as if I'm walking on another planet, taking in the sight of grass that is the color of bright red or deep purple and tree trunks are green and the leaves a sienna brown!

The things that seemed so inaccessible to me: true love and children of my/our own have now become reality.

When it was apparent we were suffering infertility, I decided I wanted to adopt right away - I had always wanted to adopt- not that I wasn't suffering or grieving the loss of being able to produce a child physically - that was huge. But having a child, I could see at the beginning of our infertility experience, was the point ... and not only the point, but the key to our fulfillment as a family. So I was ready to jump on a plane for eight weeks in Colombia. New in our marriage, Charlie wasn't ready for that. And with a partner, you become a unit - decision maker - conscientious of the needs and evolution of the significant other.

That and a doctor telling you that your ovaries (at that point) were not completely consumed by the endometriosis and you still had a chance.

As a young person in my twenties, conscious of health news, always proclaimed that if I ever had issues having a child, I would NEVER do fertility drugs. So here I was... confronted and feeling the time ticking ever since I turned 29...

I remember the moment. I was at St. Joan of Arc Church and the father in front of me was a ferris wheel, arcing his daughter into the air. And still at the top of the ferris wheel, I looked into her face - she smiling back at me--- and, flashback... boy, I mean girl, she looked like me when I was a child. I saw my baby picture and tears suddenly flooded my eyes ...and knew that I wanted to be a mother.

I did the fertility drugs. And over and over - we tried for nearly a year.

The endometriosis got worse and worse (especially from the estrogenic drugs!!!) and we failed time and time again to have a physical pregnancy. Now on the mend from the issues I put my body through, I know through this experience, that this infertility goddess, has learned now to always take care of herself, give her body what it needs - good nutrition, rest, less refined sugar, and art time/walking and activities amongst the busy times of work and play.

I come first...

Without me, there will be noone to care for my Charlie, Cassie and Foster...there will be no Ang to care for a new son/daughter who will be the best blessing to both of us....

So here I am.

So here we are. Together, and one. After even this experience - more ready to be parents than ever before. Perhaps, all parents should have to go through a bout of infertility. However, I would wish it on no...not anyone. Not even someone I despise.

The biological dream has died for me. I think in this last December, I have been happier than ever for the short days. Slowly, the wisps of the old dream crept away, evaporating like water to the clouds or the sun's rays on Solstice day. Away and into another time continuum. It is no longer present here on this earth.

The term coming from our social worker's mouth " You are a waiting family". I felt a beginning of a new dream - sun rays coming down, bringing a new possibility and a wondering so strong as to what our new child will look like. Whomever she or he is, you are going to be a blessing to us.

The social worker mentioned Colombia as a possibility. Charlie and I had started to have our hearts set on Ethiopia and yet, the wait time for an infant had become two years with that program recently.

Since we are open to a child of African descent we could possibly have a wait time anywhere from four months to two years in a Colombian adoption, but more likely on the short end because of all the Afro-Colombian kids/infants waiting for a home.

We grieve another time - we had started to dream of Ethiopia.

Again, though, the rays started to shine earlier for me than Charlie - ah, four months? A possibility of having the possibility to build our family in 4 months rather than 2 years??

Wow. Wow, I whisper reverently.

and I hope.

Waiting

We are officially waiting parents, and not just waiting to be parents.  The home visit is finished!

Well, that was easy.  As often is the case when you worry about something, it doesn't end up being as bad as your imagination.  Our social worker came by our house a little bit early - just as we were picking up the remaining doggie waste from the front yard.  Nice to see you, want to shake hands?

She took the grand tour of Chateau Lafond.  It was quick and painless.  No white-glove-dust-check. 

The memorable part for me will always be a short conversation we had on the way downstairs.  I was mentioning something about the house having a few things I wanted to fix up before the child arrived, to which she asked if the house had any weapons.

The house does have a set of katana blades, but it promises to sell them before we get a referral.

We sat and chatted for an hour.  She would ask us a question and we would respond, and then she'd ask if we would like to add to our response.  Apparently there was a word-count that we didn't reach for our essay.  We eventually stumbled through it.

We asked if there was anything in our house she suggested we take care of right away, and she politely and diplomatically said we should continue to allow our ideas for remodeling to take shape.  In other words, get to painting!

Phew.  That part is over - now to the unbearable lightness of being patient!

P.S.  We've (or I've) decided to refer to our child as 'Guido' for now. Just so we don't have to refer to it as 'it.' 

P.P.S. Angie's lukewarm on the idea.

Countdown

Big day tomorrow.  Our evening was spent putting the final touches on what we will show our social worker. It's not perfect by any means.  But it'll do.  We took it easy, had some pizza from our neighborhood pizza shop, vacuumed, scrubbed some floors, put away the laundry, etc, etc.  I think Ang and I both wanted to keep it as low key as possible.

Have I introduced my family?  Angie you know.  Our dogs are Cassie the English Setter (above left) and Foster the Australian Cattledog (above right.)  We have three cats:  Simon, our gregarious champion - he battles the dogs daily;  Booda, the crotchety Yoda-esque cat who 'meeps' at us; and Ellie, the sweet little girl who likes to nibble on Q-tips.  He have a lot of animals, and a lot of hair.  Our hairballs have hairballs.  We also have a corydora catfish and a hissing cockroach - both of which are unnamed. 

That's the fam.  We're an odd bunch.  Can't wait to add to it.

Scrub-fest 2010

Our social worker is coming to our home on Wednesday the 13th. I am slightly nervous that it had to be the 13th - not that I'm superstitious or anything.


So, this weekend was spent doing some much needed organization. I was in the 'let's shove everything in the basement and clean what we can' camp, while Angie had a better vision for where she wanted things to go. We got a few rooms straightened out, and we got Angie's art supplies laid out in our basement. Kudos goes out to Angie's sister, who spent a few hours cleaning our kitchen.

I was happy to spend Saturday inside, but had some serious cabin fever on Sunday when the mercury hit 20 degrees. I love Minnesota in the winter, but not so much when it's below zero. I can even handle the bitter cold temps every once in a while, but not for as long-term as we've had them, and not with the added sucky-ness of the wind. Hopefully, we'll have a nice spell of 20-30 degrees for a week or so.

There's still a little bit to do before Wednesday, but a great big chunk was completed over the weekend and I'm feeling quite a bit more positive than I was last week.

On a lighter note

My company is really good at rewarding milestones:  Anniversaries, Birthdays, and the End of the Year.  We get giftcard bonuses everytime a big event rolls around.  I'm lucky enough that all three of these events happen around the same time of the year.

So, with the bonuses and some money I had saved up, I bought the wife and I a Wii Fit, and a few extra games.  I have been letting fitness slide a bit for, oh, about 2 years.  I am a regular at our YMCA, but it hasn't been enough to make up for the caloric intake as of late.  I blame the Blue Door Pub in St. Paul.

Okay, how can I blame such a fine establishment?  Only have myself to blame on this one.

Anyways, I'm getting use to the system.  It's great to have an option for workout, without leaving the house on a frigid January evening in Minnesota.

A new year in Ethiopia

I woke up on New Year's Day incredibly stuffed.  One must hit the rewind button to figure out why.

Angie and I visited her Dad and Step-mom at a great little sports bar in Maple Grove called 'The Lookout.'  It's everything you'd expect from a once-small-town-to-now-thriving-suburb sports bar.  The Lookout is named such, because it sits on a hill.  Creativity at its best.  It also used to sit in a swamp, but the swamp has been recently filled with McMansions, so it has that going for it.  It apparently has a great view of Minneapolis from it's perch, but it was frigid outside, and I've seen Minneapolis before.

Being a sports bar, the Lookout served a very brown meal.  I choose the Broasted Chicken and Ribs option, with a side of mashed potatoes.  There was a small salad bar, and they had a wonderful selection of iceberg lettuce and toppings (bacon bits, eggs, french dressing, etc.)  Later on in the evening, they had a free snack bar, to get people through to New Year's.  The bar included swedish meatballs, hotdogs, fried chicken, etc. 

Please notice the lack of ruffage in this meal.

So I woke up full, and the first thing I thought of was Ethiopia.

Since our decision was made to focus primarily on Ethiopia for our path to parenthood, I  have kept an eye on whatever news briefs I can on our future child's country.  Of concern was a report that Ethiopia will most likely experience a major famine starting this year, as they have been in the midst of a terrible drought.  As is the case, the Minister of Truth in Ethiopia, or the Disaster Prevention Minister (what he is normally titled), came out and issued a statement that everything is fine, move along.  Sure people are hungry, but not THAT hungry.

So, I said a prayer for Ethiopia and it's people.  I have no idea how this famine will affect our chances of adopting, or the war that is constantly bubbling up with Eritrea, but I said a prayer for the people of Ethiopia.