Sad news

OK…maybe it’s not REALLY sad, but it is bumming me out today. Thanks to Lisa’s blog I found out about a post on the CCAA website which says basically that the average time from log in to travel approval is 12 months. Here I was thinking it was only 8-9 months, so this really took the wind out of my sails. I sent an email to my agency to find out what was really going on. They didn’t really offer a whole lot of hope. From my agency they are saying

6-8 months for referral (closer to the 8 months currently)

2 months to travel approval

1 month to travel.

 

Which, when you add it all up is 11 months. My agency did say that they were waiting for clarification from their representative that lives/works in China. They said they would write about this in their next update, which should come the end of this week or the beginning of next.   SOOOO it looks like I will not be getting to go to China until next fall, rather than early next summer like I was anticipating.

I am trying to not get too upset about all this, but honestly it’s heartbreaking. I feel like I’ve been working on this stuff for a LONG time and to be told it’s going to be an even longer wait that I thought is just about to kill me.  I’m trying to think positively, like now I’ll have more time to save money, more time to live the single life, more days to sleep in late.  But really, this just SUCKS.  I know things could change between now and then, but right now, I’m just majorly bummed out. WHAAAAAAA!!!!!

 

 

My nephew's first Halloween. Look, he's starting to smile!!  

Me and Shannon R, at a costume party. I'm the geisha girl, she's the gypsy. Don't we look fabulous?!? 

Why you should get gas BEFORE you get dressed up in your Halloween costume!!  

Still yucky

My stomach is still not a friendly place to be right now. But I suppose I will live. (let’s hope anyway)

 

I did get my final FINAL piece of paper back from the NC Dept of State this week. I have to make copies of that tonight after work and then put all those happy pictures of me on a piece of paper and I should (fingers crossed) be done with my dossier. I’m not doing the happy dance yet, more of a pre-amble. LOL

 

Other than that it is Halloween Weekend!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween. It is absolutely my favorite holiday. I mean ya, Thanksgiving has good food, and Christmas is fun, but they are both kind of stressful. You have to run around making sure you have enough of everything for everyone and you have to spend all that time with people you only see once a year. Usually there is a reason you only see these people once a year, and that is because you don’t like them, but maybe that’s just me. Plus, I’m not a fan of small talk. In fact I LOATHE it.  And Christmas parties are full of small talk, which makes me bonkers. Halloween on the other hand, is wonderful! You get to dress up and be someone your not. You get to stuff yourself with candy (remember how much I love chocolate!) People don’t ask you dumb questions like where are you from, but more interesting questions like How did you think of that costume? And did you see the guy with the weird costume?!?  And how do you sit in that thing?  Plus, it’s fun to see how creative other people can really be. It’s not boring at all.  So I have TWO Costume parties this weekend. One tonight, sponsored by my part time job and one tomorrow night with my good friends J & J.  Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures up here of me in costume. Oooh ahhh.

 

So everyone have a fabulous weekend. Be safe, have fun and eat some candy corn for me!!

 

 

Stomach Flu

I seem to have some sort of yucky stomach bug. It’s unpleasant to say the least. I’ll be off of here for a few days until I am feeling more human. Hope everyone is having a better week than me.  

 

YIPPEEE!!

HAPPY FRIDAY DANCE!!!   Why am I so happy on this Friday? Because I just got a package from Fed Ex and its OFFICIAL, I’VE BEEN BORN!!!  WOO HOOOO!!  All the appropriate people from the state of NY (love that place) have signed off on my birth certificate and I have received the official documentation back. YIPPEEE!!!!  Happy Dance! Happy Dance!  That was WAY faster than I thought it would be too.

 

So this weekend I will be making a plethora of copies of all my documents to go to my agency. I’ve never been so excited to use a copy machine!

 

Other happy things to dance about: my sister, BIL, and favorite nephew are coming to spend the weekend at my house! In fact, my cutie pie nephew is going to make the rounds of my office first, so I can show him off to all my co-workers. YAY!! Aren’t you jealous you don’t work with me today?!?!

DNA Testing?

I just got the weirdest phone call from a co-worker. He wanted to know if our lab did DNA testing, to determine family ties. (we don’t for the record) Turns out he is 62 and was adopted and just found out he may have 2 half sisters.  They are trying to find a place to get DNA testing done to see if they are really related to each other. Of course, I blurted out that I was in the process of adopting, because I mean, how coincidental is this, that of all the people that he could call, he calls ME?  But he didn’t sound that supportive. He said his parents are the people who raised him, of course. But that he is 62 and doesn’t know what nationality he is. And he even told me to be sure to tell my child, or to try and find out her nationality. I told him, well I’m going all the way to China to pick her up, so I’m pretty sure she will be Chinese, but I’ll keep it in mind.   This man has lived in the US his whole life. Why does he not consider himself AMERICAN??  Is it that big of a deal to be Irish, or Italian or insert adjective here American???   I guess I have always just taken it for granted that I know where I come from. But if you didn’t know, does it haunt you your ENTIRE LIFE? I mean this guy is 62 for crying out loud. I would have thought that by now, he would have just come to terms with it. Maybe it isn’t something you ever come to terms with?   He did say something, like when he found out he was adopted, so maybe he didn’t find out until he was much older. That was the trend back in those days.  So I guess that might be different.  Emily will know all along. I’ve already bought books and junk, and I plan to be very upfront about the whole thing. And of course, there will be no way I could pass her off as my biological child, so that isn’t even a possibility (and I certainly wouldn’t do it even if we looked exactly the same).   But now, my head is spinning. I want to call him back and grill him, but that is probably really rude to do, right?   Maybe it will come up again, or he will let me know the results of his DNA testing, and we can talk about it from there.   My brain is on overdrive….so much to think about!

 

 

 

Moving On

So my adoption agency never called me back. So I called them AGAIN yesterday afternoon.  It turns out that I still need a little piece of paper from the secretary of state of NY, so I sent off my birth certificate yesterday.  I also found out that I don’t have to send anything to a Chinese Consulate; my agency does that for me.  So thank God for that.  So now it will take about a week to get my birth certificate back. Meanwhile, I will go ahead and make photocopies of everything else, and get the envelope all ready to go to my agency.  I’m so glad this bit is almost over.  And I’ve gotten very zen about this whole thing. If there is a snafu with my birth certificate and it delays by DTC date it is because it is SUPPOSED to be delayed. My Emily will come home when she’s damn good and ready and not a moment before. ( I give you all permission to whack me upside the head with this statement come May when I’m flipping out about where my referral is!)

 

MOVING ON…I had a perfectly fabulous weekend in Atlanta with Shannon R as we stormed the Ikea store. People, if you have not ever been to an Ikea store, I seriously recommend that you make plans to go. It was AWESOME. I got a TON of stuff, a coffee table, runners for my stairs, a dresser for Emily’s room. I think I even found a crib that I like. ( I just didn’t have enough dinero to get it this trip) But it was SO cool. And I’m almost glad that the store is 3.5 hrs away, otherwise I would be there every weekend and totally broke.

 

We also got to meet live and in person The Shanahans, Eammon and Lisa. They have a great house and fed us scrumptious food and we had a blast hanging out and chatting with them. J  Plus, Shannon R has a horrible British accent, which entertained us for hours as she tried to mimic Eammon’s own, very real British accent.  I didn’t even attempt any accents, because I know what I sound like, and it ain’t pretty!!!

 

All in all it was a perfect road trip and I’m still worn out from it!!

 

 

Adoption Paperwork Hell

I have officially entered the top level of Adoption Hell, the penthouse if you will. Not the “you won’t ever get a baby level” but the “you will be mired in meaningless, ridiculous, notarizing, red tape paperwork for the rest of your life” level.   I can’t figure out what the heck is going on with my birth certificate. I went home, after Friday’s flip out, and looked at the birth certificate. It has a raised seal. It has a stamp on the back from the NY State Dept certifying it’s an exact photo copy of the original. It’s all signed and dated and junk too. What I don’t have is an ANSWER FROM MY ADOPTION AGENCY that this version of my birth certificate COUNTS.  And although I called Friday evening and left an urgent message to have someone call me this morning, no one called. So I finally broke down and called myself only to be told the woman who runs the China program is off today until 1:00. *SIGH*  So OK fine. She will call me later. We will get this figured out. It’s just right now, every single person I have spoken to about this has told me something different. And if one more person tells me to read the instructions from my agency I swear to God I will drive over to your house and kick your butt. And I have a black belt, so that is a legitimate threat.  I DID read the instructions from my agency and they told me the state I live in would accept a photocopy of my birth certificate as long as I notarized that it was a true copy. But that didn’t work.  I have no idea what the difference, if any, between certifying something and authenticating something. I have NO instructions from my agency to send anything to any Chinese Consulate anywhere.  And at this point, I DON’T CARE!! I just want this stupid, idiotic paperwork to be done!  I want Emily to COME HOME NOW.  I’m tired of this crap. It’s insane. I am a good person. I pay taxes. I hold down a job, a house, and I run a Brownie Troop. Someone should give me a break!!!

 

See in the stages of my little nightmare I have moved nicely from Denial to Anger. I think next comes Bargaining, and if that means I agree to let someone put a raised notary seal & signature on my ass, and all this stupid paperwork goes away, I’m seriously considering that as an option.  See…I’m moving right along in my stages. Aren’t you proud of me???

 

 

 

 

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I’m going to cry. This is so freaking complicated!! Every single person I’ve talked to today has told me something completely different! I finally got a hold of someone in NY and they were all if you have raised emblems on your birth certificates, you don’t need them notarized. Then I called my adoption agency, and she said the raised emblems don’t mean anything and you have to send the copies you have back to NY for them to get authenticated.  WHAT THE HELL!! It’s just a birth certificate people. How can a record of my birth be this complicated??? Doesn’t the fact that I EXIST NOW, mean that at one point in time I was born??? I’m going to start swearing like a sailor in a minute.   And WHY does my book of instructions from my agency NEVER MENTION that I have to send something to NY for authentication. In fact it says the exact opposite of that!!!! It says I don’t have to do that all! I just have to make a copy and get that notarized. grrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

I’m going to have a meltdown. Right here, right now. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yes, I realize this is not that big of a deal. I’m just stressed out. This too shall pass. Just right now I need a drink and a chocolate bar.

 

i'm having a stroke

I got my documents back from the state of NC today. And now I’m having a stroke. Apparently there is some issue with my birth certificate. I wasn’t born in NC, but my agency told me to make a copy of my birth certificate, and then have it notarized that it is a copy of the original. Sounded fine to me, but the state of NC says I have to have that done in NY. How NY is supposed to authenticate a notary from NC is beyond me at this moment.  So now I’m listening to a steel drum version of MARGARITAVILLE  while I’m on hold with the NY dept of vital records. GOOD LORD.  As if finding this out, now while I’m trying to rush isn’t stressful enough, I have to listen to STEEL DRUMS PEOPLE!!!!!

 

Wish me luck.

 

OK...Here are the details

So on Monday I got a phone call from Sandy at my adoption agency. She asked how I was coming with my dossier. I told her everything’s ready to go to the state dept to be authenticated, but I’m not really rushing because I know that you couldn’t send my dossier in until Nov/Dec anyway.  And she said, well if you can get here in the next couple weeks, we could send it in the end of this month. THIS MONTH? Like OCTOBER???  YOWSERS!  So I spent Monday night running around making copies and getting Fedex envelopes ready.  I double/triple checked my paperwork and found out I had to get one last thing notarized, so I went to the bank yesterday, got that signed off.  I also took a picture of Joyce, the lovely notary who has signed off on most of my documents. Since I’ve been in there like once a week for the last couple months, I feel like we bonded. Plus, it will be something to put into Emily’s life book.  I told her that for all intents and purposes, coming to see her was like a pregnant woman going for check-ups with her doctor. LOL  I’m just glad she didn’t have me escorted out of the bank for taking pictures. HA HA HA HA

 

Anyway, I put the Fedex envelope in the box yesterday afternoon. I have to tell you, part of me was really excited, and part of me was FREAKING OUT. I mean, I’ve been thinking about this for over a year. Now it seems like it’s finally really truly going to happen.  I kind of wanted to throw up with happiness.  You know what I mean?

 

So today, I will be stalking the Fdex website, tracking my package to be sure it arrives okay. Once they get it, I hear it only takes 3-4 days to process. So hopefully I will have the package back by next Tuesday or sooner. Tonight after work I’m going to get all pretty and go have passport photos made of me for my dossier. I already have a passport, but I think these are for the folks in the matching room to use. I think Karen warned me to look cute, since the Chinese officials often look at the faces of prospective parents to get a feel for what kind of child to put with them.  So think good hair day thoughts and send them to me!!

 

 

 

HAPPY ADOPTION NEWS!!

OK…I was right about having adoption news on Monday, although it turns out to be WAY bigger than I thought. I thought I was going to tell everyone that I’m mailing my paperwork off to the NC State Dept today. What I get to add to that is that my adoption agency called this morning and said that if I rush making copies when the stuff comes back, I could be DTC THIS MONTH!!!!

 

HOLY FREAKING COW!!!  HERE I COME EMILY!!!

 

I’ll write more once I calm down!!

 

 

The new man in my life, my nephew Colin. Isn't he a big boy now?  

TGIF!

This week has been long. It seems that with the sun coming up after I get out of bed, the days seem longer than normal! In any case, I’m certainly glad today is Friday! On the agenda for this weekend: going to Mom’s house for another round of Camp Sheila!! We are having a cook out to celebrate the birth of my nephew, Colin. It’s kind of a come and meet him sort of deal. It should be fun. ALSO, my sister, mom and I are scheduled for pedicures/manicures in the morning, so we will be all beautified for the party. I LOVE getting pedicures, so I’m really looking forward to that. I’m also hoping to squeeze in a visit to meet Miss Gwen of GwenBlog and of course to see Karen. I’m really looking forward to that!

I have no news on the adoption front…but I should have something to say on Monday. Ooohhh ahhhhh. Hope everyone has a safe, fun weekend.

What's in a name?

I’ve been thinking lately what if I get all the way to China and meet Emily, only to realize that Emily is not her name? I mean, what if I meet her and she very clearly is a Maybeth(horrors!)  or an Eva or Laura or something?  Or what if I see her and she should be a hippie child with a name like Moonlight or Summer or something!!!  Will she just have the wrong name her whole life? Should I be more flexible and have like a LIST of names I could live with? I’ve been calling her Emily for so long now, I’m not sure if I could change. But I don’t want her to have one of those faces where everyone goes, gee you don’t LOOK like an Emily! 

 

This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands and not enough real things to worry about. Or in my case, when I have hundreds of other “real” things  to worry about, but worrying about then stresses me out, so I pick something lame like this to worry about instead.  Yes, I’m a freak. I admit it. You know you love me anyway!!!

 

 

still a blogger moron

As you can see, I’m experimenting with my blog. The background right is supposed to be a really pale lavender. I don’t know what you see, but what I see is WHITE. I obviously have no idea what I’m doing. Never fear though. I am not one to easily give up, so keep checking back, you never know what color it may be then!  

 

Lost comes on tonight, so even if I don’t get my blog fixed today, at least I will end my day on a good note! Is anyone out there as addicted to Lost as I am?

 

I AM A BLOGGER MORON

In attempt to get rid of the green background of my blog, which I decided wasn’t really working for me anymore, I changed templates. Don’t EVER EVER do this if you have all sorts of fun stuff saved on to your blog. Now all my fun stuff is GONE forever and I have to find it again and figure out how I got it up there in the first place and try to put it back on here. GRRRRR!  That is the last time I’m changing my template. I’m going to love this blue background until I die. Period. End of story.

 

In other, happier news, I’m back from Texas after having a super fun weekend with Erica.  We literally shopped till we dropped for baby clothes. We hit not one but THREE children’s clothes consignment stores, and I racked up the loot!  I bought so much stuff that I had to have Erica ship it home to me because it wouldn’t all fit in my suitcase!! Before you all have a stroke, I only spent $56.00 (I just did the math) so I am super proud of my shopping skills!! And Emily is going to be one well dressed chickie!! I’m doing good too, by buying stuff that is at least 18 months or bigger in size. I figure, no matter how old she is when I pick her up, she will eventually fit into these items. And if she is way younger than that when I get her, I’ll just have to go shopping AGAIN. LOL(twist my arm, make me shop!)   Plus there was the baby shower for Erica, which was the reason I went to TX in the first place. And that was just so much fun. Her friends are really great and they got her some practical stuff, some fun stuff and some really CUTE stuff, so it was great for her. I was really happy that I could be there and celebrate with her. It’s hard to imagine my best friend since we were 13 as being someone’s MOM, but that’s what’s happening. Hee hee. She said the same thing about me, no wonder we’re pals still after 17 years!!

 

Off to catch up on work. Later folks!