April Fools!

Wouldn't it be great if we got a letter tonight that said,

"April fools! Come on and bring baby home! We were just kidding when we said we would wait indefinitely to complete his investigation at the cost of his physical and psychological development! HA HA HA!

Sincerely,
You Know Who"

60

60 seconds=1 minute
60 minutes= 1 hour

60 days waiting for a determination from CIS or the Department of State=Nothing. My baby is still in his crib half a world away. God bless him, and please give me strength for this emotional marathon. I love him.

What is my angle when I meet with staffers for my senators this week? Should I focus on the process in general, on Tu Du hospital, on attachment and developmental issues, on how my representatives are really the only way Daniel has any voice in this process? What next?

The Wallabies

Boy was it cold today! Scotty had fun, and watching 4-year-olds play organized sports is one of the funniest things. Good morning.

where's my brother....come on already !!!!!

smile

3 days to 60

Thankful that:
1) Scotty starts soccer tomorrow, The Wallabies 2) Spring Break started TODAY!!! 3) Swings: good for kids and adults.

Day 56

He will come home.

Edit: Whoops, I didn't mean to be so cryptic. We are still waiting for our I600 approval, and CIS doesn't seem to have any plans, at the moment, of giving us a determination because they are not investigating cases for babies born at Tu Du hospital. However, I believe, "He will come home". Sorry for the confusion Nesha. I wish!

LET ME BRING HIM HOME

I am tired of fighting the kids in my fourth period for their attention, Scotty about candy, THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT, should I just add "the man"? When I was 19, I had a list of everything I wanted to do before I died. It was a long list ranging from learn how to drive a stick (still haven't) to the last sentence, "fight injustice and oppression everywhere." G laughed for almost an hour when he read it. (I am an idealist, and he is, sigh, a bit of a cynic. We even each other out.) Geeze Louise, I didn't know that that last sentence was going to be a self fulfilling prophecy that would turn around to bite me in behunkus! So, here I am fighting injustice everywhere (granted at a slower and less effective pace than some of my more able and sharp PAP cohorts...You GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELVES!)

But, guess what, I don't want to. I just want MY BABY home. I want him home where I can make sure he is well. I want him home where he can have everything he needs for his development. I want him home where he can KNOW the love of a father, mother and brother that is unconditional and FOREVER. I am on adrenaline overdrive. I have resorted to phrases like HOLY MOLY and FOR HEAVENS TO BETSY for lack of a non-cussing word to describe my disbelief at the blind following some of my representatives seem to have for MISINFORMATION. PLEASE try to sedate me with information that at least seems plausible. Show me you have read at least ONE of my messages or know something about international adoption in general, please. I am trying to understand why you are attempting to make me feel guilty for wanting to help a 9 month old boy come home to a loving family instead of spending an indefinite amount of months in an orphanage. Just make someone really investigate his case. PLEASE. Don't leave him without a family because of a lack of information! I digress. I am so tired of fighting. COME ON JUSTICE. YOU FIGHT FOR MY CHILD. I BELIEVE IN GOODNESS, TRUTH, JUSTICE, HUMAN COMPASSION, INTEGRITY. I won't stop, but my idealism is taking a real beating.

Meanwhile, the year I met G., the year I made "the list", was the year my best friend died. Today. She was beyond true, good, compassionate. She was my touchstone for how life can be ok when everything seems upside down because she was an old soul, wise, beautiful. Even though she has been gone for 16 years now, it is for my dear friend, M, that I mourn today. I wish her here. God bless her family, because they are missing her, too.

Today I am thankful for my memories of M.:
1) Walking to school together through the woods. 2) Having our own language that no one could understand that we made on a bus trip when we were in 6th grade. 3) Making up dances with her (she was a real dancer). 4) Laughing in church. 5) Calling her from boarding school and college and feeling like I had seen her an hour ago. 6) The letter I got from her wishing me a late Happy Birthday the week she died.

How many days? 5 days until 60. (and one thankful to grow on)

Sea Monkeys

Jen asked what sea monkeys look like. Well, feast your eyes!! These guys aren't ours, but you get the idea :) Scotty is crazy about them. (They are a little yucky.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vK0Q86GQn0

6 days to 60

Come Rascal Around with Me, Little Brother!

7 more days until...

Thankful for: 1) Funny people who make me laugh despite myself at school. 2) Sea Monkeys (ours are finally doing great...third try). 3) My mom's tireless efforts to bring Daniel home. 4) Toenail clippers (What in the world did people do before? Yuck.) 5) My new thing: "Thank you so much for asking, and I don't want to be rude, but I get inappropriately sad when I talk about this at school; I just can't." Whew. Everybody is so relieved to be excused from that slobbering mess of craziness! 6) tulips 7) Dick Cheney helping with adoption? (Glad I have an open mind. We'll see.)

VISIT!!!

A mom from my agency waiting to travel to bring her daughter home from Daniel's same orphanage has a friend who is on a trip to VN. She visited the babies last week. Here is what she says about Daniel:

"Daniel had a bit of a cold- with some chest congestion, but good, non-colored nasal discharge. Like most of us in VN now, probably allergies. He is not sitting up by himself yet. Like A., he is very observant and loves to be held and kissed."

I cannot say how much I needed news about baby today. I am concerned that he is not sitting yet, and I am so sad that he is not feeling well, but I am so happy that someone was most definitely kissing him.

Please, please, please, please, please let me bring him home.

8 Days

The Circle

This weekend, my mom gave me my grandmother's ring. I can picture it on her hand. It makes me hear her voice feel her skin. Wearing the ring all day today, I was comforted by the thought of her: her poise, her beauty, her wisdom. It is probably the best present I have ever gotten. Her ring is gold with a large green stone, a circle.

We also attended a funeral today for one of G's best friends' dad. He left behind a family that celebrated his life, but they were clearly sideswiped by having him taken from them before they were ready for him to go. Our friend who lost his dad is expecting twins in two months. The babies will live a legacy of faith, love and integrity already embodied in their dad, now grieving a great man. A circle.

I have had many blessings in my life, but I have also had many losses. I have experienced losses from which I never expect to recover; they mean that I have had the opportunity to love as much as that loving hurt when I lost, and I don't want to forget that amazing love to recover from the loss. I am strong in the broken places. A circle.

My friend A., who was adopted and has been such a supporter of our adoption of Daniel, delivered a beautiful baby boy Thursday. He shines with new life and all that is pure. A circle.

My pregnancy with Scott, unlikely to have been achieved or maintained, was tumultuous with so many worries and chances for disaster, that he is a living miracle. I have loved him for much longer than I have known him. That is not because he grew in my belly or because he shares my genes. I have loved him for longer than I have known him because the minute I sensed that we belonged to each other, perhaps even before his heart was beating, my life became something different; I understood the world differently by loving him, unseen, so completely.

A prospective adoptive parent, I am sure that this feeling is EXACTLY as powerful. I can not leave him alone in the world. I love him. I have never held him in my arms, but just as much as if he had grown in my womb, I love him, not the thought of him or the idea of a baby. I love him. So, whether or not I become his legal mother (and I still have to believe that I will), we belong to each other. I am forever changed by loving him. I am just having trouble finding the circle in this one.

9 days until 60.

Thank You and Positive Thoughts

I want to thank so many people in the blogworld, in my family and friends, and from my agency for support, kindness, and hard work on our behalf. One great paradox is how the most difficult times yeild these blessings of love and generosity that renew faith in what is beautiful about life.

We will not give up on Daniel, and I have to believe that he will come home to us in the next months.

Families from my agency are getting their approvals. This is such wonderful news (some people have been waiting to bring their children home since their referrals last summer)! It is hard to get a count of actually how many approvals have come this week for my agency, but there have been more than 10, and up to this week there had only been 2. What a positive direction this week has taken for the families in my agency. Some of the approvals were dated much earlier (like December), and I have to wonder what would keep the government from waiting so long to send them...three months approved but not sent! It could be just a typing mistake, or it could be that there are serious deliberate or not deliberate paperwork issues happening in the US offices in VN. I guess it is silly to speculate. Either way, I just wish the process was more standardized, organized and transparent so we could all know what to expect next.

Unfortunately, there is still at least one family who got an acknowledgement letter in November (20) and has been placed on indefinite hold, like we are, because of the Tu Du letter. They are, rightfully, overwrought, having watched their child literally grow up in pictures without any clear knowledge about what is going to happen next. My hope is that the sweeping generalizations made by CIS about paperwork because of a LACK of information (not fraud) will be a red flag to many of the politicians who have been contacted. We really need their help holding CIS and Dept. of State accountable. Those organizations should not be allowed to make these many children collateral damage for the sake of the process. These are children. If the objective of Orphans First is to protect children, then child welfare has to be its outcome, not preservation of the process (that seems to be uncovering little evidence of fraud but is surely keeping many children institutionalized for far longer than they should be).

I believe that my government will help us. Although I do not always believe that our government is perfect, I believe in the ideals of a representative democracy where good people will work for the people they represent. I believe my representatives will help my family.

I also believe that the good objectives of Orphans First will eventually win out over the mechanism monster that seems to be driving everything now. I think people who will be applying for I600 approvals in the coming months will have a much better experience.

Today is day 48 waiting for I600 approval. I should have been getting some determination within the next 12 days. I do not expect that to happen now, but I am still thankful:
1) for the innate goodness of people 2) for personal e-mails from staffers of representatives in response to my inquiries instead of the form letters I got at first 3) that all children are designed by our creator to be loved 4) that stores of love grow the more it is given it away 5) for every minute with Scott 6) for the losses I have had that have given me strength 7) that Spring Break is in a week 8) that Scotty loves books 9) for rice crispy treats 10) that a friend waiting for her child at Daniel's orphanage has a friend who is going to visit them soon 11) for the colors in a sunrise 12) for approvals for new friends who will have the miraculous moment of holding their babies in their arms very soon.

Day 48. 12 days until 60.

Petition

Please read and sign this well written petition that details many of the issues preventing Daniel from coming home. Signatures remain hidden to the general public.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/AmericansforVietnamOrphans/

E-Mail Just Came

Everything as copied in post below except in our letter they changed update status of case in 60 days to 60 "working" days. Of course. What is going to happen to our baby? This is so wrong.

Day 45 of now a 130 day wait for a "status update".

I Have Not Received This From CIS Yet, But I Am Told to Expect It (probably on day 60 of my I600 wait)

"The USCIS office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is in the process of reviewing your Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative (Form I-600), to determine whether the child qualifies as an orphan under US immigration law.

Please be advised that Tu Du Hospital administrators and Vietnamese officials have prevented the U.S. Government from conducting an inquiry into the status of the child identified in your petition. This interference will add significant time to the processing of your case while the U.S. Government seeks to resolve the problem or find alternative ways to conduct its inquiry. You should know that this interference could result in a determination that the child may not be eligible to immigrate to the U.S. as an adopted child.

In all cases, USCIS strongly recommends that you do not travel to Vietnam until USCIS has provided notification to you that the child qualifies as an orphan. Traveling to Vietnam prior to getting this notice from USCIS will not advantage or prioritize your case, and may result in a prolonged stay in Vietnam. The USCIS office in Ho Chi Minh City will provide you with an update on the status of your case in 60 days.

If you do not wish to wait until such time as the Vietnamese authorities allow the U.S. to proceed with a field inquiry in your case, you may request a final decision on your petition based upon the incomplete record. Please note that this may result in a denial of your petition.

Alternatively, you may wish to consult with your adoption services provider or attorney to consider the other options that are available in your particular case, including, but not limited to, withdrawing your petition, filing a new Form I-600 after identifying another child for adoption, filing a new Form I-600A and selecting a different country, or filing a written request for a change of country with USCIS. Please note that these options may require a new or updated home study and/or incur additional fees."

1) I will not be filing a new I600 for another child because I do not see children as commodities. This child needs a home, and I love him. One child is not the same as another; a mother cannot just go to the store and choose a different model if the first one is temporarily out of stock. I will not have him grow up in an orphanage because he was referred to me and my government has seen fit to take much of the first year of his life to decide that because they cannot strong arm private information from health care professionals that he is not going to be able to come home...now almost 9 months old and less likely to be adopted by a couple from another country. Thank you for telling me my "options" though.
2) Change the name of this procedure. Orphans First my a**.
3) Senators, quit dismissing me with "DHS and D of State say 'blah blah blah.'" How many letters do I have to send to get you to READ one? I want my child's case investigated. I just don't want the people investigating it to be taking for granted the PRECIOUS nature of life and childhood. I don't want them maligning the people of my child's country of birth. I don't want them lying to my agency about how investigations are taking place. I want YOU to help ME, your constituent, and quit giving me the party line propaganda. I know what CIS is saying! I probably spend 20 out of 24 hours a day researching this.
4) Someone please tell me what to tell my 4yo son who recognizes his brother and is waiting "so much" for him to come home.
5) Is it LEGAL to hound hospitals for medical information about people who have given no consent for you to have it? Could you (CIS and Dof S) do that in the USA?
6) I know that I do not have the RIGHT to a child. I have never thought that was the case. My objective in adopting a baby is not to glorify myself as a parent or to take a baby from a mother. If CIS was saying, we have learned that your child's mother was wronged, I would pray that he could go home to her. That is NOT what is being said in this letter.
7) Although I do not have the RIGHT to parent Daniel, I have the desire to do so, and I will not be ashamed of that. I feel like his mother, and good mothers LOVE and want to PROTECT and PARENT their children. Please quit telling anxious PAPs that this is all for the best for ethical reasons. I want ethics, and I want the investigations(to be efficient and to also be held to ethical standards), but I am not ashamed to also want my child HOME SAFE with ME instead of in an orphanage.
8) You will let me know the status of my case in 60 days? Another arbitrary increment of time that means JACK.
9) Daniel is going to be 9 months old in a week.
10) I got physically sick because I was so upset today.
11) What is the next step?
12) If we moved to Vietnam could we adopt him there?
13) Could I get a job teaching in Vietnam?
14) Would there be a place for Scotty to go to school?
15) How crazy is that?
16) I'm a mess.
17) G is a mess.
18) We were supposed to have 18 days left until 60. %^&^*%^(&$&^#%^$*&

Today a Video

We got a video of Daniel in the mail today. Squishable, loveable, kissable Daniel. What a gift and a treasure to have two videos as documentation of his life in Viet Nam.
Scotty said, "How long do they want to keep Daniel, Mom?"

Hmmm.

Off to bed.

22 US Places I Would Like to Visit

Anchorage, Alaska; Portland, Oregon; Yosemite,California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Flagstaff, Arizona; Moab, Utah; Sante Fe, New Mexico; Vail, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; Badlands, S. Dakota; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; New Orleans, Louisiana; Everywhere, Hawaii; Grand Tetons, Wyoming; Boston, Massachusetts; Killington, Vermont; Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Bar Harbor, Maine; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Adirondacks, New York.

22 days until 60 days.

Day 37 and 23 Days to Go

Here is what I think. I think that we are going to get our approval in the last week of March. Why? I think this will happen because 1) that will be 60 days 2) I have thought for about a year that April would be when we brought our child home. 4) CIS and DofS have to get things moving eventually. Otherwise, they will be buried in applications.

How can people who have been waiting since November for approval keep it together? This is a really crazy wait. I have literally pinned so much hope on the last week of March that if the approval doesn't come then, I might turn into a nut case. Not kidding at all.

Kids Know Better?

Today was The International Festival at school. Every year, my very international school pays tribute to the many rich cultures that make up America. Each country of origin has a booth, and the kids bring food, artifacts, etc. to share with everyone. Then, students perform traditional cultural dances in the center of the gym while a crowd watches, happy to be out of class.

Israel and Palestine were on different sides of the gym. This year, South America had to split up into different booths, still close together, but distinct. In Japan, people can play that dance game where you have to step on the arrows, etc. Italy made a mural of Venice and took pictures of people in the painted scene. India, as usual, had the best outfits, and France had Brie! Yum.

Then the dancing started. There was Irish dancing with girls bouncing up and down like pogo sticks. The Indian dancers were graceful and poised. From Thailand came a beautiful traditional dance that looked like a flower being born or something? Palestine gave an amazing performance with veils and lots of hip shaking. The Greeks had a sort of mock chariot race, and Columbia, Venezuela, etc. had some great salsa dancing. Everyone clapped; everyone was laughing and smiling. The kids felt so validated, and it was fun.

The funny part is by the end of the day, all the kids were sitting at different booths. India was all mixed up with Turkey. Italy never really had one set of kids, and they sort of abandoned post to dance at Japan. China and Taiwan melded into one booth, and Israel and Palestine were comparing hummus.

Suddenly, there came over the DJs multicultural speakers "The Soulja Boy". (I guess this is sort of like my generation's Beastie Boys or Violent Femmes...just dirty enough to feel dangerous but not so bad that parents and teachers can really understand or complain). Have you seen the dance that goes with the song? One of my Public Speaking kids did her "how to" speech on it last semester, which is why I know ALL the moves. Half of the gym was in simultaneous motion. "Superman...". Song ends, start Macarena. Imagine the most bizarre and colorful wedding you could ever attend where everyone is 14-19 years old. They were all dancing, even the kids who get left behind, mostly.

What a world.
Maybe kids know better.

New Pictures

Teething! No wonder he was all tongue and drool in the last pictures. What a smile :)

Day 35

When Spidey, the policeman, and Batman ran away, I knew we were really in trouble. Who will help us now?! Come on approvals.

Day 34

Thankful that
1) NyQuil exists
I get to teach the following great stuff to great kids (at various times): 2) Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet 3) Life is Beautiful 4) To Kill a Mockingbird 5) The God's Must be Crazy 6) The Crucible 7) Things Fall Apart 8) All Quiet on the Western Front 9) Patrick Henry's "Speech to the Virginia Convention" 10) Julius Caesar 11) excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamesh 12) The Odyssey 13) excerpts from The Mahabharata 14) any Hemingway short story 15) any Whitman poem 16) Frankenstein 17) "The Scarlet Ibis" 18) "The Norwegian Rat" 19) "I Have a Dream" MLK 20) "Manifesto on Ars Poetica" Frank Chipsula 21) The Education of Little Tree 22) Red Scarf Girl 23) As I Lay Dying 24) Thoreau 25) Wordsworth 26) Coleridge 27) Langston Hughes 28) Gwendolyn Brooks 29) the funny pooting part of Canterbury Tales ...and many more. 30) When Scotty walks up to strangers and says "Excuse me sir, did you know the sun is a burning ball of gas?" etc. It is not entirely safe, I know, but he is so curious and so adorable. Be sure that I keep a close eye on him! 31) This is a little embarrassing, but I have been really digging Neil Diamond's "Cherry, Cherry" on the way to school lately. 32) I got caught singing "Cherry Cherry", and I mean rocking it, in my car at a stoplight; I decided not to care, turned the radio even louder, and continued to sing my head off. 34) Getting older makes me less self-conscious.

COME ON APPROVALS!
Sing it, Neil. http://youtube.com/watch?v=SpE389LnQQI

Blankets for Babies

Please take a look and consider donating to the Ethica project raising money and supplies for children suffering in North Vietnam. http://www.adoptionintegrity.com/2008/03/03/blankets-for-babies.
Day 33.

11:00 in Viet Nam...Getting ready for lunch break...

Does anyone else do this every Sunday night? At 8:00 PM, I start imagining the staff of the Adoptions Unit CIS or Dof State getting situated in desks, settling down to computers, and looking at my case. I envision someone marking the list: check, check, check...ok, let's e-mail this family. I start checking my e-mail every 30 minutes until I finally fall asleep (and, shhhhh, sometimes I even get up in the middle of the night to see if the magic e-mail has arrived). This is all very ridiculous. People from my agency have been waiting 60 days LONGER than me with no magic e-mail. Nevertheless...

We have been waiting 31 days. Half? I guess not. In CIS time (no holidays or weekends), we have been waiting 14 days. Almost half of half sort of. Ugh.

On a more positive note, I am recovering from the real FLU. It was awful! Being really sick was somehow cathartic. I feel glad to be well and a little less emotionally raw.

Let's hope this is a good week for everyone waiting. We could all use some evidence of real progress.