Thursday, October 25, 2007

Hope Floats

I realized that for the past three or four months I have been getting my period. Just getting my period. Sounds simple and routine, but it has taken me a very long time in the mental process of beginning a family to get to this point where I am not counting days and peeing on sticks and strategically planning sex dates with Justin while trying to make him think I am just horny. I know you would think that in the many, many steps that lead up to international adoption, at some point you let reality seep in and release the hope of getting pregnant and float over to the hope of just bringing home a baby. From the hospital or from the airport. But letting go of that hope doesn't just happen with the decision to commit to adoption. Especially in my case with no firm diagnosis on my infertility.

However, somewhere in the past few months I guess, I floated and my period is now just...a period. It's such a relief to be here now, with my period without all of the angst that used to come with it. I used to curse it and question it and cry from it and I confess, pray to it. "Please don't come period...please don't come when everything has been so very carefully put in to place to make sure you don't arrive." But she came. She always came, welcome or not.

Lately, and for the love of all that is good it's taken me a long time to get here, I just stopped caring about the old girl. I have no idea what day I'm on in my cycle, and was actually caught off guard by her arrival this month. It sounds ridiculous and insignificant, but it's a tremendous shift in thought for me. And the fact that it has happened rather unconsciously (i.e. without group therapy, drugs or the threat of divorce) is a a little pat on the back for me in the quest to get to B the G. My energy, my thoughts, my work is focused now on the next step in my path to adoption, not necessarily the next step in my path to adoption because I can't get pregnant.

I dreamt this week that a voice whispered in my ear right before I woke up, "You are exactly where you are supposed to be." Of course this is open to lots of speculation and analysis depending on where your leanings are in spirituality, dream interpretation and the effects of red wine and Eckhart Tolle before bed. But it was such a crystal clear voice, very female and very matter-of-fact. I like to think that perhaps it was the Period Goddess giving me a little nudge, happy to be innocuously back in the fold, so to speak and celebrating the new absence of clocks and calendars and curses.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Tree In The Wind

On the advise of my clever little adoption agency, I have decided to renew my 1-600A, which is the equivalent of a bathroom pass from the USCIS to adopt a child internationally. They are however, much harder to come by than the high school bathroom pass. This is where all the parts come in - the home study, which is the holy grail for adoption, the birth, marriage and divorce certificates, and the appropriately filled out forms accompanied by a pleading, but well-crafted letter explaining why I am making this request.

I have acquired all of the parts needed to re-apply for this pass and have sent them off to my local USCIS to ask for re-permission to adopt. My agency fears that I may overlap the time limit put on the 1-600A and accompanying fingerprints while I wait for my referral for B the G. I think it's quite funny that your fingerprints expire after 15 months with USCIS. How can that be? They are still your fingers, right? Do they think you'll be able to slip some new ones on there with 15 months of research?

But with my newly-possessed, tree-in-the-wind frame of mind, which I do believe comes from being at this process for two years, I just bend over and take my shot as they ask me to do. All of this is just processing, just time, while they put me in line, find my old files, and update my requests in their database. And on the bright side it means going to Moscow a bit later in the year when possibly, maybe it just might be a bit warmer over there. Justin is trying to avoid his busy season at work in April/May for our trip to get B the G. This may be a problem for him, which translates into a problem for us. But there's no point in worrying myself about it now. Tree in the wind, tree in the wind....

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Cue the Chorus..

It's here, it's here. My precious, precious home study. Waiting for me in my mailbox like a valentine. Forgive the sentimentality, but these forms begin to take on a life of there own, especially as they are linked so deeply to the getting of your own little life.

I raced to the post office to get it to my agency toute suite. While completing my transaction, a mom with baby carriage struggled to get in the door. I held it for her and she handed the clerk a $20 that she said she found in the parking lot and that someone had probably dropped. The sales clerk and I both looked at each other astonished and then back at the mom as she exited with me holding the door. "You are such a good person..." was the only weak comment I could manage. She just shrugged and went on her mommy little way. The sales clerk says to me "What am I supposed to do with it? Nobody is coming back for this, they probably don't even know they dropped it." I agreed with her and again expressed my amazement that this woman would take the trouble, baby carriage and all, to turn the bill in. The clerk said, "It breaks my heart that there are such good people out there. People who are so much better than me. " It does break your heart. In a good, heart-breaking way.

I hope whoever dropped that bill comes back in for it and realizes that sometimes life IS fair. Or if nobody does come back for it, I hope that sales clerk gives it to someone who needs it more than she does. Or if she needs it, then I'm glad it came to her. I took the whole event as a very good omen as I sent my life history with stamps and seals and degrees from a myriad of different people on why I would make a good parent off to my adoption agency.