Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Zoikes!

I received the following from my adoption agency in response to my inquiry about my dossier status.

Megan, just received your final paperwork last week. We are currently authenticating it, and we will send to Russia as soon as that process is completed. Hopefully we'll have it back from the Secretary of State's office before we go off for the Thanksgiving weekend so it can be sent to Russia on Wednesday. If it doesn't come back, then it will go to Russia next Monday. It then takes about 3 weeks for translations and authentications, and then registration. From December 29- January 10 is when the Russians celebrate their Christmas, so pretty much nothing goes on. So, I would guess that you would be invited to Russia sometime during the last part of the month of January for travel in February or early March. Certainly that could change depending on the availability of children in Moscow District, but since you are open to either a boy or a girl, I am fairly confident you will be traveling before March of 2008, most likely in February.

After the initial visit and acceptance, we wait 6 weeks and then go back to Moscow to bring Baby the Great home. So maybe mid-March to April will be the last step? Wow. I'm a bit blown away at the moment. China was so vague and so far away and now it looks like I will have be dipping B the G's toes in the Atlantic Ocean this summer.

Once bitten, twice shy and I still hesitate to get too excited or buy baby furniture or send out announcements or choose names. I think Justin expected me to be more excited and I am, but I still feel wary. Cautious. Nervous. Will I feel this way until I'm flying Aeroflot back to the ATL with B the G on my lap? Definitely if we are forced to fly Aeroflot, but that's another story. In relation to B the G, probably, just in lessening degrees of intensity. But I will allow myself to do the Cotton-Eyed Joe dance in the privacy of my own living room, when nobody else is home. Dig if you will a picture....

Monday, November 12, 2007

Last Piece

My I-797 arrived in the mail last Friday which gives me the federal green light to adopt internationally. Not only that, it arrived about 3 weeks earlier than I expected. I didn't even check the mail that day. Justin brought it in when he came home from work, which made it all the sweeter in it's surprise arrival. Usually I'm a mailbox-watching bloodhound, when it gets close to expected delivery times for these documents, bounding out of the house as soon as I see the truck. My mailman thinks I have a crush on him.

This little piece of paper is the last piece in the puzzle and my dossier should be ready to ship as soon as my agency receives it. I Fed-exed it Saturday, needless to say. According to them, in 2-4 months after the dossier goes to Russia I will get my invite from Moscow. So say it gets to Russia at the end of November. Could be possible travel in March or April. Even May or June factoring in hurdles and glitches. Unreal. What was so far is now faintly visible, dare I say imminent. I'm nervous.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Flash Gordon


I find myself trying to draw comparisons and gauge my abilities to parent B the G in the most ordinary and unusual situations. Like with Gordon. Gordon is my dog. I know very well that Gordon is not a child and there is no need for anyone and everyone to comment that having a dog is in no way like raising a child. I KNOW that. But it's really all I've got and like I said, I'm busy drawing comparisons with what I've got to work with. And frankly, and I always speak frankly on la blog, I think it's quite legitimate to draw a few parallels here.

Unlike B the G, I got to choose Gordon out of many, way too many, other beasts at the dog pound. All these beasts desperately need a good home much like all of the orphaned and institutionalized children out there. And there are just so many, it's hard to single out just one to help. But one is all I can manage, financially, emotionally and physically. Am I talking about dogs or kids? I don't even know. When you begin the adoption (child this time) process you are bombarded with photos and documentaries and websites featuring beautiful, diverse, babies and children. You want to read about each one and find out about each country and fantasize about each story. And somehow fate and finances, contacts and research, lead you down a path that starts to fit you. The path gets narrower and narrower as you choose country, agency, which then chooses region and orphanage. And at the end there's this little being that's going to call you Mom for the rest of your life. It's extraordinary. My path towards B the G is still narrowing and really won't end until right up to the time I get to Moscow, and see him/her.

It's different adopting from Russia because you don't actually get assigned a child until you get to Moscow. You get an invitation from Russia to come on over and they will have a baby there for you. Which baby, they're not saying. My agency says that the good news with this is that if I'm not happy with the health of the child with the first referral, they will assign you another child while you are there. This is a little troubling to me but brings me back full circle to Gordon, which is why I started this post.

Walking through the kennels, looking at dozens of dogs, I saw Gordon's sad face behind a manic shepherd mix that was bouncing up and down in front of me. Gordon looked like a sad clown. And I say that because I could tell the potential for a happier face was there, but had been beaten out of him by his circumstances. Plenty of other dogs there wore this same face and anyone who's ever been to a shelter knows this look. Gordon also had other things working against him. His tail for one. Half of it was gone and half of the half that was left had been shaved down and was scabby and mangled looking. It looked like a fresh sausage was stuck onto the end of his tail. How's that for a visual? Really not appealing. He had some sort of skin condition that was making his hair fall off in patches around his face and ears. They had just put him on flea and tick meds at the pound, but he still had a nice heaping helping of bloodsuckers on him that I tried frantically to pull off while Justin wasn't looking. Justin is not big on ticks. Oh, and he had contracted some sort of kennel cough while there and had developed a hearty, hacking cough accompanied by a green, runny nose.

Justin thought I was mad and asked me repeatedly if I was sure that I wanted that one. But I knew Gordon was in there, underneath the stupid "Ritchie" name tag they put on his kennel. And more than that, I knew that nobody, but nobody was going to take this sad little clown home if I didn't . So, cut to the chase, here we are three months later, and that's three months of cleaning up spit balls hacked up as we battle the upper respiratory infection, and wiping up snotty green piles from his leaking nose, and bathing him terrified and shaking in the tub and putting betadine on the skin condition that turned out to be ringworm and is very contagious to people. Three short months and I've got a honey of a dog who is healthy, happy, loyal and cracks me up every single day.

I'm not touting all of this to say what a hero I am to all of dogdom. But I am going to draw a puppy/people parallel and say that as nervous as I am about B the G's health, disposition, and personality, I know that a majority of the kids available for adoption are like my Gordon and that if given a chance, a home, some patience and some parents, they too can become slobbering, blissful, sleeping sacks of love that fulfill and enrich as they are enriched and fulfilled.