Matched

Today was the day that we were officially matched with the waiting child that we inquired about and submitted on around Thanksgiving.

I have decided to name her Gabriel Theone Suliewei (last name). She is almost exactly one year younger than Jude, we know where in Bulgaria she is located and are quite excited about the upcoming travel in 2015.

Gabriel was listed on the waiting child list due to special needs that upon review are quite similar (though not exactly like) Jude’s. Unlike Jude who had been moved from the Plovdiv orphanage when she was 19 months old and into foster care; Gabriel has lived in her orphanage for her whole life.

Although not usual, I have included Jude in on every step of the process so far. Jude is enthralled by the videos and pictures of Gabriel and it has allowed a very natural dialogue about adoption in our home. She is very excited to get a little sister.

I am delighted to be given the opportunity to welcome another little Bulgarian-American into my heart and home.

Christmas Eve eve

The house is clean. The baking is done. The gifts are purchased and wrapped. The work of organizing the first Christmas is all complete and after an abbreviated work day tomorrow for me it will be time to settle down and enjoy.

It has been a busy but fun holiday season so far. We have our own little things we squeeze in every day like a little chocolate just before breakfast and carols (her favorite is The Little Drummer Boy) in the car each morning and evening. She enjoys some Christmas themed bedtime stories especially a Disney version of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.

She is still quite apprehensive about Santa, although she adores her elf “Yule.” She doesn’t believe that Santa Claus will come down a chimney but she did ask for chocolate and a Mickey Mouse for Christmas just in case.

6 months home

Jude has now been with us for 6 months. She hasn’t really done much physical growing from last month. She saved it all for her development this month.

We decided from the start to homeschool Jude. However her first year+ home would be an informal “unschooling” approach until we introduce a formal preschool cirriculum next September. The primary focus has been to get Jude used to family life here and work on her social and language acquisition skills before introducing academics. However, if she did take an interest in something we would of course foster that.

She wants to learn her “ABCs”. She decided about 2-3 weeks ago that she wanted to know the letters of the alphabet. Mostly she has been drilling them into her own head and looking for the ones she knows when we read stories. Right now she can recognize 8 letters.

She wanted to learn all her colors. And she has pretty much accomplished this. We’ve noticed that sometimes she calls a bright blue or a bright pink “purple” but otherwise she now identifies them all correctly.

She wanted to learn to count a little. She can now count to 3.

She can read 1 word: Disney. At first I thought it was just that she could recognize the font, but when it is handwritten or typed she can seek out and identify the word. (I’m in trouble).

Her English language has exploded. I cannot even begin to count how many words she knows. She mostly speaks in 2-3 word sentences. Although sometimes she says much longer ones and has actually said a few complete grammatically correct sentences now.

She can sing several nursery rhyme songs.

She is potty training. It is slow going, but she is determined and she self-initiated wanting to do this. She uses the toilet 25-50% of the time now. No little baby potties for her. She rather would get a step stool and use a flush toilet.

Quite suddenly all of our unbelievably difficult bedtime issues have vanished. It takes 2 stories and 5 minutes to tuck her in. She (naturally) may not fall asleep right away but she doesn’t cry unless something is truly wrong and she doesn’t fuss about it anymore. I honestly thought I would would be treated for chronic exhaustion before this day came.

Life has a rhythm to it now.

Here’s what I learned though:

Co-sleeping absolutely helped. Until it absolutely didn’t. Recognizing when it was time to move on from the attachment benefits of co-sleeping to the better sleep that having Jude sleep in her own bed was tricky and I didn’t get it right.

Holding my child and trying the “time-in” approach through tantrums didn’t work. In fact, it was making a bad situation a million times worse. Maybe this works for somebody but it was 110% wrong for us. Ignoring the tantrums and recognizing good behavior has been far and away more effective. That said, the adoptions books were right in that “time-outs” didn’t work either. Our best bet has been to avoid the behaviors in the first place.

Babywearing Jude helped on pickup trip only. Have a backup plan if you plan on babywearing a toddler. I heard someone describe it as attempting to strap a cat to themselves. It was a very accurate description of what we went through with Jude starting in July. I now own a wagon to cart her around the neighborhood when the weather is nice.

Children’s memories can be totally inaccurate. My daughter will see a photo of her foster mother and identify her as myself. Even when it is plain that I bear no physical resemblance to Jude’s foster mother she no longer can distguish between the two of us in her memory (even if I correct her she will tell me that I am wrong). While I gently say that it is Jude’s Layli and not me, I don’t argue with her. I’m not sure if there is anything more correct to do about it.

Keeping Jude’s care within the family has been difficult to cooridinate at times but has been ultimately the right decision. I didn’t coocoon with Jude. However I have kept all her daycare to her grandparents and my sister in her first 6 months. When I went back to work she never had separation anxiety as a result and as it has been easier to communicate ground rules in a small group she has had consistency that she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

It has been a roller-coaster 6 months. But I feel that we are settling in.

O Christmas Tree

Yesterday we took the annual trek to get the Christmas tree.

This tradition invariably resembles the first 10-15 minutes of the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Sans logging truck.

I started off the day by introducing Jude to the chore of the minon

checking and untangling the Christmas lights (mwhahaha I don’t have to do it anymore!)

We then proceeded in the truckster (with attached trailer as we were getting trees for 2 households) out to the Christmas tree farm. Now, I had told Jude that we were going to go to the woods and cut down a tree and put it in the living room. She looked at me like the crazy person I am (we all are) for wanting to do this. Then she pointed out the irony that we were driving for over a 1/2 hour through the woods (past trees, hello MOM) to go to “woods” to cut down trees. She lost interest quickly and demanded cheerios. Until we arrived.

I didn’t get the memo that all of central Maine decided that Sunday was the day for this activity. Never in 30 years have I EVER seen so many people at the tree farm. 2 years ago we were the only people there. Literally hundreds of people this year. Just wow.

Not only that but it was cold. Cold by Maine standards. ~20 degrees F with a wind chill that made it feel below Zero. Motivation to move quickly. I told Jude what we were going to do and actually in a stroke of good luck (or early hypothermia) we found THE TREE inside of 15 minutes. Then I informed Jude that her papa was going to cut it down for us. She danced and jumped all around the tree until it fell over.

“Uh, Oh…it fell down. Go boom”

So we hauled it off to the shaking and wrapping station. Loaded it in and headed home. Jude passed out. Once we made it home we got it in the stand (Swivel straight is the best invention in yuletide history) and let it sit to let the ice melt off while we took some time to thaw out ourselves.

We spent the better part of the afternoon adding the lights.
Then adding the bows.
The adding the ornaments.
Then learning that you can’t put all the ornaments on the same branch.
Then moving said ornaments.
And by nightfall we had:

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS TREE!

For the Trolls

Hi.

General wisdom is that I am not supposed to acknowledge your existence. “Don’t feed the trolls” they say (They being the rest of the internet, you should go look at it, it’s vast). But I am. You are here.

Hello.

You are reading a blog about adoption. I thought it was obvious in the title. I overestimated something somewhere. Oops. My bad. This is a blog that centers around adoption. Comments about things not related to it (even in a small degree) will be deleted. This includes (but is not limited to) pornography, sex toys, dating sites, mail-order brides, sending money to you to help you with your scheme so I can get millions of dollars in return (sorry Your Royal Highness…I forgot which country you said you were from).

Yes, that is right. All comments on this blog are moderated. That means I censor them. I know. I’m evil.

Would you like a look into my mind into what I moderate? In addition to above (which is generally known as Spam) I delete comments that are personal attacks with no basis in fact. I DO NOT delete comments that are divergent to my opinion but are well-constructed and intelligent. Unfortunately this has only happened once in 2 years.

In (probably futile) hope of lowering the amount of comments that I delete I would also like to point out to trolls, cyber-bullies, robots, etc. that your IP address is recorded when you comment. It is kind of like signing “Anonymous” in your own blood. Genius. (Fun fact: I even know where some of my more, ahem, frequent visitors are from, and what ISP they have. It takes about a minute to figure it out). Lesson: keep it civil, please.

But some of you have repeat pressing concerns (though typically not eloquently articulated). Let me address some of the more common themes.

Am I aware that there are better ways to help over 100 million orphans than adopting?
Duh.
But most of these ideas would require a far more advanced society based on a utopian-like empathy and kindness. There are excellent ideas. Absolutely stellar. But we don’t live in the “It’s a Small World” ride. It won’t happen in my lifetime. Some of these comments are excellent proof why the planet may be headed in the exact opposite direction. Where we stand, today, adoption is the system that we have to help. And I am able and willing to help. Full stop.

I am an adoptee and I don’t agree with adoption/international adoption/think you are the devil incarnate etc.
You are entitled to your opinion. Some of you have told some awful stories and I empathize but so far 100% of you assume that I have never met an adult adoptee in my life. I am surrounded by them. My own mother is one. ALL OF THEM have been massively supportive of the adoption. Many of them are actively involved in my children’s lives. I am listening to the adult adoptees in my life and following their advice.

Couldn’t my time and effort be better spent helping birthmothers keep their children?
Part of my job is caring for a significantly large pediatric panel who has involvement with the Maine DHHS. In the 4 years that I have had this position though many of my younger patients have been in foster care; to date NONE have been permanently removed from their birthfamilies. Repeat: None. In short, I do spent a significant amount of time and effort helping to keep families intact. I even was a foster parent for two years and saw both children reunited with their birthfamilies.

Why don’t I just adopt from the US?
I have written pretty extensively here that I TRIED TO. I too saw the ads that “families are needed for waiting children” I took the classes and had the homestudy and had a glowing approval and submitted our homestudy for review of over a dozen waiting children/siblings all over the USA over the course of 2 years. We went nowhere each time. Simple truth: it is not as easy as advertised.

I shouldn’t have adopted if I work full-time.
Welcome to the 21st century. Women work. Mothers work. If I didn’t, there would likely be an equal amount of you upset that I was a single person who was unemployed.

I shouldn’t have adopted as a single woman.
Again, I can’t please all of you. I’m sure at least one person would be ornery if I got married.

People shouldn’t adopt if they have to use grants/loans/fundraising.
It’s awesome that somewhere out in the interweb people just have piles of cash lying around. I am not among these fortunate individuals. I make a good income. I’m not rich. I’m a nurse. I never will be rich. But we do make enough to live and have the things we need. And I am happy with that. I make enough to easily support children. So why shouldn’t I raise a family? Coming up with large sums is difficult. The cost of a child’s adoption in our case is comparable to the cost of a child’s college education. A parent isn’t berated if they cannot come up with the full amount up front in cash. There are loans and scholarships/grants to access to help defray the cost. People don’t have kids just because they cannot afford to pay for college in cash. Why is the adopting parent chastised when they attempt to access similar means to provide a child a stable home? Are family and education not equally important?

You shouldn’t have adopted if you have cats…
You, my friend, crossed a line. There is an unwritten rule of the internet that you never say anything bad about somebody’s cats. Remember Grumpy Cat? That probably started off as somebody making fun of her and now she is a megastar. I think she even has a TV series. Cats OWN the internet. And really, just what?

Random thoughts:

I understand spelling and grammar mistakes but sometimes I can’t even make out if you are speaking in English. Are you drunk? Are you Yoda? Did Google Translate have an epic fail? I don’t understand.

If I don’t moderate your comment right away something magical is happening: I AM LIVING LIFE IN THE REAL WORLD. Sometimes it is happy things like spending time with my kids and birthdays and going to the beach. Sometimes it is much darker like telling someone that they have cancer, or doing CPR, or trying to get an ambulance to someone’s home. This blog is what I do when I have super-free time. It is quite literally my last priority.

Funding Adoption #2

If you visit the “Financing Adoption” page of this blog you can get a fairly comprehensive idea of the budget breakdown of Jude’s adoption. Even with all my preparation and saving it wouldn’t have been possible to adopt Jude without outside help. This luckily came in the form of the second grant we applied for. We couldn’t have been more elated.

From the time of Jude’s referral I have been doing whatever planning I could for a second (and final) adoption. We anticipated that we would start this adoption next summer. With that timeframe I anticipated that I would be able to fund 100% of the adoption expenses myself, drawing from various resources. Frankly, drawing from ALL the resources at my personal disposal.

Then I saw her…
Life changed in a moment.

I knew that things would be tight coming up with her fees as they come due. That we weren’t as ready as I wanted us to be. At the same time she is perfect for us and I feel that we are perfect for her. Was the timing perfect? No. But that is life. Already we have had some help as our placing agency has discounted their case management fees due to her special needs.
Drawing from the same resources on our new timeframe I should be able to cover aprox 80%+ of her adoption expenses myself. But we are not fully funded. By the end there will be several thousand dollars that I will need to come up with (out of thin air?).

So I have started researching adoption grants (again). Due to a combination of factors (none of them related to income) it would appear that our family is eligible to apply for 3.
Dozens (if not hundreds) of grants out there for adoption and we can only try for 3. While I am hopeful, I am also realistic. Our odds we not good at getting a grant last time. When we did it felt like we won the lottery. Today I filled out an application to start a fundraising platform for this adoption, hopefully we can get this up and running in the very near future.

I know extremely little about fundraising. And the fundraising efforts of Jude’s adoption were minimally successful, and felt awkward at best. It will be an interesting next year.

She is worth it. She is worth the grant letter writing, she is worth the asking for help.

Any child is.

She’s a Maine-ah!

Jude’s birth certificate as issued by the state of Maine came today. Yes it looks a bit different than a native born birth certificate but still. When she is an adult she can have the same fun with the vital records office as everyone else does around these parts.

Jude was already a Maine-ah before this though.

One of her first English language words after we arrived home wasn’t “car” it was “cah”. As it should be.

She has gone swimming in the Atlantic ocean until adults had to forcibly remove her from the water because her lips were turning blue. Once she returned to a normal color she was allowed back in (Maine swimming rules)

She loves camping. She has her own (LL Bean) sleeping bag. In one of my parenting fails she thinks that tent stakes are called “dammit”.

She has been molded to recognize that the only kind of baked beans are B&M baked beans.

She is already getting pretty good at ripping apart her own lobster (yes, my toddler will eat lobster, how cool is that!)

Part of her daily routine is helping her Grammy Kitty with the chickens.

She has already figured out (in the past two weeks) that she can only wear her winter boots outside now. She knows to take them off immediately upon entering the house.

She is starting to associate the Channel 6 storm center music with snow. (They can never change that music, generations won’t know what to do if they did)

She has learned to wave at people in cars when you cross the street.

This weekend we will teach her one of the most sacred of Maine traditions: how to go out in the woods and hunt…for the perfect Christmas tree.

Happy Meetcha Day!

In a few hours it will be 1 year since I met little Jude.

Here is the story: I was nervous and kinda had that you-were-airsick-yesterday-and-now-you-aren’t-exactly-best-friends-with-food thing going on. I think I managed a little bit of mint tea and a piece of toast. I am still quite annoyed that they don’t have Ginger Ale east Newfoundland. One can of Canada Dry and all would have been right in my world. I digress. After breakfast our translator told us the place where we were meeting wasn’t far, just a short walk. I was happy to walk. It calmed my nerves. We got a little lost so were a few minutes late. At 10:02 I walked into the the small waiting area of the social services office in Hisarya and there was Jude with her foster family. Right there in the waiting room! I hadn’t expected to run into her like this (and I don’t think the social services people had expected it either). So out first meeting took place right there. What did she do when she first saw me? Nothing. Kinda ignored me actually. We were able to snap our first photo about 15 minutes later when all the paperwork clearances had been signed.

What have I learned since that day? Well, first off. I have never seen Jude as sick as she was on that trip. Turns out she had influenza/pneumonia while we were there. She actually napped in the morning during one of our visits. Knowing what I know now and how often she naps/sleeps she must have literally been on her death bed. If I had known, we would have visited a different week. The only other time I have seen Jude sick was during pick-up trip she was recovering from the Chickenpox. Since then she has (knock on wood) been super-healthy. She hasn’t even caught any of the viruses I have dragged home from the medical clinic.
I knew how painful at the time having her in the visit room was. She hated it. What I didn’t understand was that we were somehow (barely) containing a force of nature. If you asked me today to keep Jude in that room for 3 hours a day for a whole week with up to 9 adults I would respectfully request to be drunk or medicated (or both) first.
I have learned that Jude liked me from the first day. I knew that she had warmed to me by the end of day 2 when we were on that trip. It wasn’t until I had her home for some time and rewatched the videos (after I knew her well) that I understood that she really did like me within the first 30 minutes or so. She LOVED us by day 2.

I have learned that I can and will do anything for my child(ren). I have learned what I can endure. I have learned what true patience is. I have learned that love is stronger than blood. I am the luckiest Mom in the world.