Filed under: reading
To pass the time while Jackie and I wait for a referral (for the Chinese government to match us with a child, in non-adoption-speak), we've both been doing some reading on adoption and China. I’m going to start sprinkling book reports in among the postings here. A lot of times, however, the book may just be an excuse to talk about something else.
I’m going to put all the book reports in the “reading” category, so they will be easy to get at.
We had another non-milestone yesterday. We received our “brown envelope.”
The brown envelope is, well, a large brown envelope. It’s from the US consulate in Guanghzou. It tells us that USCIS has told them to approve our child’s visa when we go to pick her up. It also has some forms: “Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative,” “Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration,” medical forms, and a few others with similarly exciting names. Some of these we’ll need to fill out just before we go. Others we’ll fill out while there.
Why do I say this is a non-milestone?
Well, first, the letter is dated Feb. 8. But they don’t send them until after the Chinese government has acknowledged our petition, which happened March 3, and then they wait a little longer. By the time you actually receive the brown envelope, it is anti-climatic. Also, our agency has warned us that not everyone even gets a brown envelope and not to worry about it if we don’t get one.
Still, it’s a sign of progress of some kind, and since we’re looking at a long wait right now, any kind of forward movement is something to celebrate.
I wrote earlier on why we decided to adoption. At the time, I didn’t feel that I was expressing myself very well. As time has gone by, I’ve been less happy with it.
Of course, I could just go back and edit that posting, but that seems wrong. The web may be an impermanent medium, but that just smacks of egregious revisionism. (Speaking of egregious, how about that last phrase?)
Instead, I will probably keep coming back to this topic. I’ll worry at it and pick at it until it’s been done to death and we’re all sick of it. Maybe by that time I’ll have it figured out. Probably not, though.
My thoughts, and my dissatisfaction with my earlier posting, have recently focused on my inability to express the fact that—although we came to adoption chronologically after trying to have a family naturally—I don’t feel that it is in any other way secondary or that we’ve somehow compromised anything in choosing this. My feeling is that this is how our family is meant to be put together by adoption, but we just weren’t bright enough to figure it out at first. That says more about us than it does about adoption.
Note:
There are several other topics that I want to deal with on an on-going basis, the way I am writing about this topic. When I first post on such a topic, I’ll create a new category for it, and when I later post on that topic, I’ll tag each posting with that category. For example, I’ve created a category called “Why Adoption,” and I’ll tag both this posting, the previous one, and any future posting on why we chose adoption with that category.
On 13 October 2005, we went to orientation at our agency, CCAI. Actually, the orientation was officially on 8 October, but my wife and I are Seventh-day Adventists, and we weren’t comfortable with attending the orientation that day. Because of that, and because we had things to do at church that day, we asked them if we could handle the orientations another day or another way. The CCAI office here in Georgia was very helpful and agreed to orient us the next Thursday.
We had gathered some documents together to bring with us, things like a floor plan of our house and copies of our passports. Most of the things we already had, and we just needed to make copies of them. Fortunately, we’d recently bought a multi-function office machine, so making copies was as easy as moving our cat Elsa off it. That’s not as easy as it sounds, because our cat really likes sleeping on it, but we managed. (In the picture, we’ve covered the multi-purpose machine so it won’t get completely clogged by cat hair.)
The people working in our agency let us know more about the process and what we need to be doing. When we left, we had our marching orders, and it was time to get busy.
In the next episode, the bewildered explorers are lost in a paperwork jungle….
Saturday evening, 6 May, we went to a potluck for waiting families in the Atlanta area. We were all at different places in the process. Most of the families there had been waiting longer than we have been (we’re in our second month), but one couple were still doing on their paperwork, so the waiting hadn’t even officially begun for them yet. Most of us didn’t have any kids, but the family hosting the event, another waiting family, and the speaker (who is not waiting) were all on their second or third adoption.
Since we’re vegetarian, we made sure to bring something that we could eat. Jackie fixed a casserole and some egg salad sandwiches. There were a few other things we could eat though, and the deserts were very good.
We met a number of very nice parents and parents-to-be. And I had a big surprise when I recognized the lady who opened the door. When we went to get our fingerprints, there were several other people paper chasing for China, and the family hosting the potluck was one of them. It was nice to be able to get to know them better.
Most of the evening, however, was taken up by a nurse practitioner who told us about health issues we might find in our children when we go to China and how best to prepare for them. She had adopted about six years ago, “back in the dark ages of China adoptions,” she said. Her daughter was running around playing with the other kids, most of whom were several years younger. Since then, the NP has started consulting on the side. She has helped a lot of families prepare for their trip, reviewed their matches for possible medical issues, and given advice while the families are in China.
She talked some about formula. She recommended using Enfamil (IIRC), because it comes in individual packets, which are easy to pack, easy to prepare, and as you use them, you get more room in your suitcase.
She also talked about some of the nutritional problems the babies may face. Although overall, the nutrition of the adoptee infants has gotten much better, we should still be prepared for them to have some nutritional deficiencies. Generally, though, the deficiencies are fairly mild and respond readily to a proper diet.
But the highlight of the evening was her discussion of parasites. One was a very small, but uncomfortable mite-like creature. This is treated by washing all your clothing and covering yourself with a cream for eight hours or so. She recommended doing this while you’re still in China, before you show any symptoms. When you do get symptoms, they are very uncomfortable. Lots of scratching and itching. And the incubation period is just enough time for it not to pop up until you’re on the hellish 18-hour flight back or at home you’re suffering from jet-lag.
The other parasite was even better. It was less contagious, and you wait to treat it until you get back home. But it is very disconcerting. She talked about getting panicked calls from new parents babbling about an earthworm in their daughter’s diaper. Yes, you read that right. It is the ascariasis. Go check it out. There’s a picture. When you’re treating it, it’s even more fun. Basically, the treatments involve poisoning the parasites, so they try to leave the body by any means possible. That means the mouth, nose, and anus.
I can’t wait.
Actually, I really can’t, but I’m not looking forward that part of it.
She gave us a lot of good information, and Jackie and I are already talking about consulting with her as we start planning to travel. It was also a lot of fun to get to talk to other people going through what we are. We’re looking forward to future potlucks.
5/12 Note: I should point out that I have the impression that the parasites I mentioned above are pretty rare. It's good to be mentally prepared, but I’m really not expecting to find them.
Has it really been so long since I’ve posted here? I guess so. I’d better get busy.
I’ve been watching the logs for this blog, seeing which searches people are using to get here. Most of the searches involve things like “china red thread” or “china wait time.” One jumped out at me, however. Instead of search for China or adoption, it was looking for me. That was kind of weird. I assumed that people—old friends or new contacts—may occasionally search for me, but here I had proof. It was also empowering, because I was spying on the spy.
And I had some other information about my spy: I’d contacted some people about a potential career opportunity, and the same day the spy had googled me, I’d been contacted by someone from that institution. (I’m being intentionally vague here, since the outcome of this is still up in the air.) Being the brainiac I am, I immediately put 2 and 2 together and thought I had identified the spy.
Of course, I was wrong. I met with these people for the first time on Monday, 1 May, and the person I had identified knew nothing about our impending adoption. Someone else—Beth—fessed up, though.
And as I was leaving, she rushed up and said, “wait,” and thrust a colorful bag into my hands. On the way home that afternoon, Jackie opened the bag. It was a copy of The Red Thread (amazon) by Tord Nygren. This is a picture-book (so naturally amazon doesn’t have an image of it), in which a red thread winds through a world populated by fictional characters from a number of stories; artists; and the many creatures and people from the illustrator’s imagination. It’s an incredible children’s book, but it is also fun for someone of any age to look through.
After opening it, Jackie just said that this was the most thoughtful gift anyone’s gotten us, and Beth doesn’t even know us.
So here’s my shout-out: Beth, YOU ROCK!
(And I’d better get that thank-you in the mail, or I definitely won’t rock.)
