For My Uncle Henry

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The Letter O

Scotty is the letter O in the letter parade for his preschool. Choices for costumes for the letter O include the following: Octopus, Oreo, Otter (Scotty's 1st choice), etc. In my quest for homemade costume materials at Eckerds tonight, I found a perfectly beautiful beach towel with an Ocean scene. Am I a dud of a mom because I decided to cut a head hole in the towel and get Orange goggles to go with the Ocean scene? I guess only time will tell. To be fair, I am totally UNcrafty, so whatever I made would probably have been pretty dismal. He seems happy with it, and he wanted to wear his goggles to bed. I love that little guy.

Also,

Tonight is 119 (I made a whoopsie last night and wrote 129...sorry to those who read that. I guess it just feels like an eternity, and in addition to being totally UNcrafty, I am math deficient and spacey. My good qualities are a literary mind and the capacity for great love which might also have contributed to the mistake. It sure is easy to put out misinformation. Hmmm. I digress.) days waiting for I600 determination, and Daniel's birthday is in 28 days.

A Beautiful Wish

My little sister recently returned from a trip to China. She was as close to Daniel as any in our family have been. While there, she left a wish for him. From her pen to God's heart, I hope. So many people love you, Daniel.

She left the wish prior to the earthquake. I imagine the whole wall, today, full of wishes for strength and health to those who are experiencing such trauma now.

Please click on the link in the post below to find out how to support JCICS in a campaign that works to ensure that ethical adoptions (which support the rights of children to home and family) will continue in Vietnam.

Daniel is 11 months old today. I love you so much, baby.

A Child's Right Campaign: JCICS

Please read about and support JCICS's "A Child's Right Campaign" to support the continuation of ethical adoptions from Vietnam.

http://www.jcics.org/Vietnam.htm

Did you know that...

"Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, Public Law 105-89) was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 19, 1997 after having been approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month . AFSA was enacted in an attempt to correct problems that were inherent in the foster care system that deterred the adoption of children with special needs... In greeting the final measure, Bill Clinton stated that the bill 'makes clear that children's health and safety are the paramount concerns.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_and_Safe_Families_Act

Daniel has been in his orphanage since July, almost 11 months.

Tonight is 53 days past the "60 days". Day 113.

109

49 days PAST the "60 days" from our Feb.1 acknowledgement waiting for I600 determination from CIS.

14 days past "60 working days" which was the new terminology used on subsequent acknowledgements for families receiving acknowledgements after Feb.1.

11 days past the "60 days" for an update from the March 17 nastygram preview to my agency about Tu Du being blocked.

22 days until the "60 working days" for an update from the actual March 17 nastygram about Tu Du being blocked.

185 days since our referral for precious Daniel.

38 days until Daniel's 1st birthday.

Please let this be our week.

Tagged and Tonight

I was tagged by momma pajama, http://bullcityemorys.blogspot.com/, and I am IT!
Three Random Facts:
1) My favorite bumper sticker said, "Visualize Whirrled Peas". I love peas. This bumper sticker was on a dent on the back of this huge (sorry environmentalists!) A-Team type Astro Van that was my mode of transportation for some time. I pity the fool.

2) Every pair of Birkenstocks I ever bought (Does anyone even wear those anymore? They were so comfortable.) got washed away, eventually, into the ocean. I just buy flip flops now.

3) Not too long ago when Scotty ran out on the bowling alley and fell, bumping his head, I instinctively ran after him. My feet slid out from under me, and I sailed into the air and then landed smack on my tail bone. It hurt so much that I probably would have cried if I had not been so embarrassed. That was one of my most recent most embarrassing moments. Scotty laughed. :)

I tag anyone reading who cares to participate.

TONIGHT: I pray that tonight is the night. Please let this be the night.
Tonight will be 106 nights waiting for an I600 determination. In that time Daniel has grown from 7 months to almost 11 months old. We have missed his infancy. He should be home with us.

The Place

There is one place in the world that brings me back to center. The place is not a city or a house. It is an actual spot on the earth. Who knows if I will be able to touch that spot every year of my life, but I have every year of my life up to this one. At the dune's crest on this sandy path is that spot. Something there provides, for me, a unity of matter, love and eternity. I have only felt peace, happiness, or gratitude on that spot, never bitterness or emptiness. I see my beautiful grandmother standing on that spot, watching the ocean. I watch my aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, sisters and brother running past that spot year after year with diapers, buckets, flip flops, surf boards, and with children of their own. I see myself sitting on that spot, among the sea oats, admiring the sun or moon. That spot helps me transcend thoughts of "the world" and I reach, if only for moments, another kind of understanding. I have been a little child, a teenager, a young woman, a wife and a mother there, but on that very spot, somehow, I am always the same person; someone more whole and connected to everything else. It is my amazing place.

Mother's Day and Questions

I adore my mother. She is an amazing human being and central to who I am and what I believe about life. Perhaps because of her example and her great capacity for love, I am driven to parent as well.

Here are 10 beautiful "my mom" qualities that I hope I can live up to in my own life as a parent:
1) Selflessness for the good of my child
2) Hope for my child
3) Loving my child unconditionally
4) Having an unfailing perseverance to protect and support my child
5) Devoting time for my child to be the center of everything
6) Providing an education for my child
7) Providing a warm, safe home for my child
8) Accepting my child for exactly who he is, and celebrating his unique qualities
9) Providing an example of how to live with integrity and faith
10) Deliberately and often, experiencing joy with my child

All of the talk about ethical adoptions and what people should be doing in this crazy situation seems to be lacking in one area.

What does an ethical adoptive parent look like when her child is relegated to an orphanage with no proof of fraud, nor any accusation of such?

Does she shrink from the discussion because people throw around words like fraud and insinuate that every adoption from a country is tainted because the word has been used like a gavel in a courtroom?

Does circumstantial evidence of some cases of fraud (even though NO fraud has been found in cases similar to her child's case...cases of children now united with their adoptive parents who waited for up to 120 days for an I600 APPROVAL) make her lose the hope that her own child will grow up in a warm, safe home?

Does her unconditional love wane when she notices that her child is experiencing developmental delays after spending the first year of his life in an orphanage?

Does she stop crying HELP US PLEASE to anyone and everyone who might be able to help her child come home?

NO. An ethical, good mother will have the qualities listed above.

Show me proof that his life mother is searching for him, or give me a travel approval. This stalling tactic of form letters sent to large groups of waiting parents about blocking of investigations is a smoke screen for a job poorly done. My child has been waiting for us to bring him home for 101 days longer than he should have waited. His rights, the orphan's rights, have not been "first" in this debacle. He is almost 11 months old, and he IS suffering because this process is flawed. How can we, as an adoption community, be allowed to scream ethics while simultaneously ignoring that our own children are having their rights to a home taken from them because of this BROKEN process? How can we consider ourselves ethical parents if we ignore that most of these children ARE orphans who should be home with parents who already love them so very much.

Let me bring my child home.

Sigh, Not Last Night

DAY 98 Waiting for I600 Determination----

It is difficult to believe that I still, after 3 and a half months, think every night might be the night we get our approval. I still wake up at 3 or 4 AM to check my e-mail, and I still get devastated every morning. The impact this waiting is having on our lives is huge. We are a family in perpetual limbo. What the officials conducting this I600 investigation fail to understand, I believe, is that we simply cannot give up. Asking us, at this point, to allow our child to grow up in an orphanage, would be similar to asking me, if I were pregnant with Daniel, to simply walk away from him. I am one of his mothers even though I am not legally, yet. That means that I will never stop loving him and working to give him what is best for him. That means if his life mother is found, and if she has been searching for him, I will gladly and with celebration love him from afar as he goes to live with her. But, it also means that I will never abandon him to institutional care. Although he clearly he loves his caretakers, and they love him, all authorities recognize that a child is best served physically and psycholgically by growing up in a family. He needs to be with a family. I really cannot believe that I have watched him grow for 6 months now, in pictures and video, and I still have no way to reach him. Something is very wrong. This has been another extremely difficult week. Next week, it is time for action again. If someone with some authority is reading this post, expect another flurry of e-mails and letters from our family next week. We will not abandon our child.

A Precious Gift Today

Hope Hope Hope Hope Hope

Love.

Bamboozlement?

We just finished watching Juno on DVD b/c G has not seen it yet. I love it. I guess because I actually love most kids the age of the protagonist (my job, and as corny as it may seem, my passion), I have a special affinity for the life mom, and I feel a connection to the step mom and the mom mom as well. The whole movie is kind of cathartic.

So, here I am thinking about Daniel's life mom, like I do almost every night. I wish I could know her. Here is the real. I will search for her some day. I would like, if it would not harm her, for CIS to find her. I want Daniel to have the understanding of how much she loves him. However, I don't get any indications (from my extensive inquiries) that anyone is really searching for her. The only information that I have is that he is still in an orphanage, and that our case is still considered "in investigation" and "blocked/ Tu Du". What is being done to investigate his individual case? No one can or will say. We are all (Daniel's life mom, Daniel, and me) being bamboozled. Otherwise, at least two of the three of us would be together right now.

Nevertheless, I am working on close to zero information here, so I would be so happy to be wrong if his case is actually being investigated, and we could get a determination soon.

I believe people, all people, are basically good.

I love Daniel.

Scotty had a great day. He told someone who asked about our adoption today, very matter of a fact, "My brother is still waiting in Vietnam." He has a soccer game tomorrow, but I am starting to think that baseball may be more his sport. In fact, though, he is more of a scientist than anything (go nerds). I'm so crazy about that kid.

92 days. 32 past 60. The weekend.

31 days past 60

We have now waited for 91 days for I600 determination. We are still so hopeful each night that we will get some news. We love Daniel.

We have one night to hope before the weekend.

Happy birthday to my big brother.

Happy journey to my little sister who is traveling tomorrow.