LookingforLuna: F.I.N.A.L.L.Y.

7-26-15
Honestly? I’ve been a bit cranky. Well, I’m not sleeping, there’s that. I’ve been having all these anxiety filled nightmares. I actually dreamed that I found a baby under a park bench and when I picked it up I realized that it had albinism…it got worse from there. I don’t think that you need an advanced degree to figure out THAT dream. People ask me about the adoption and I growl a bit. I really do want them to ask, it’s just that I don’t do “surface” very well and my honest place is <growl>. They sorta stare at me like, How do I handle this? And, the next obvious thought, Why is she doing this if it makes her growl? I’m growling because I’m frustrated. I’m not handling this well. It feels out of control and you know, control freak tendencies + out of control = <growl>. I’m waiting on Homeland Security to send me my approved I800a form, to decide that they will let us adopt out of country (and therefore that they will agree to giving our child American citizen status.) It’s a bit much, I really don’t even like Homeland Security to know that we exist and now, I'm asking for favors.
<sigh>
<growl>

I wrote the above back at the end of July, when I was feeling completely at the end of my rope. Here we are, at the beginning of September, and I'm just now free to write this blog post. We were waiting on this one piece of paper so we could be DTC. DTC means "Dossier To China" which basically means that all our paperwork has been sent to China, it means that my agency has signed off on the fact that China will accept us and it should all just be waiting and going through the steps after this, it means that my part is pretty much done. Thankfully, it means that we are just about half way done with the whole stinkin' thing. Every person, in the process, has a point at which they feel like they can take a deep breath and like the adoption thing has dropped into a lower gear. For me, it's always been DTC. My agency is an agency that has been around since right at the beginning of international adoption, they have a lot experience, and they are very good at what they do, which is a lot of why I picked them. If they say it's good enough, it should be. But I just couldn't make it happen. One piece of paper. One. So close.

On August 3rd, it came in the mail, our approval to adopt out of country. It came. I was so relieved and I, of course, sent it in an email immediately to our agency. RELIEF. Yay, we are done! Yay! "No," she responded, "they didn't fill it out correctly. Contact Homeland Security, ask them to fix this." Contact Homeland Security? Right. Let me get on that. <smirk>

8-8-15
I’ve now received two copies of this form and it’s still wrong, we’re about a week behind where we should be, which is truly not a huge thing, all things considered, but it still drives me crazy. It’ll be about two weeks after we get the corrected form before we’re able to be DTC. Waiting on form number three.

8-10-15
Remember Luna's best friend in the orphanage? Her family comes today, to take her home. Which is, in the big scheme of things, a marvelous thing but in the short run it leaves Luna alone, as the kid with albinism, in an orphanage in China... (I don’t really believe that Luna is being well-treated. I don’t think that she is being abused, per se, I just don’t believe that she is anybody’s favorite, if you know what I mean. When I voiced my concerns, quietly, to a Chinese friend of mine, “ I don’t think that they’re being really nice to her.” She lowered her voice and looked at me, “They’re not. She’s outcast.” My friend looked back at Luna's picture on the screen, “I can’t wait to meet her. When does she come home?” "Not until, probably, January." The pain in her voice mirrored mine as she exclaimed, "January!") ...and they won’t tell her about us, about the mama and the baba that are coming to bring her home, until we’re DTC and I can’t make us be DTC any faster. It just won’t happen. I’m trying not to make up ridiculous scenarios in my head but yeah, that’s not happening so much, either.

Also, on August 10th, we received, at long last, our final, corrected I800a approval and it was sent off to be authenticated by the Chinese consulate in Houston. This was the very last step before DTC, "You should be DTC in less than two weeks," they told us but...

8-27-15
STILL waiting on our I800a to be authenticated by the consulate. A month of waiting in the long scheme of things, it’s not that much waiting. Forget that. I’m going nuts. There are various cuss words that I want to scream at…whom? Whom do I scream at?

8-28-15
Still not DTC, what should have taken "less than two weeks" will end up taking nearly four weeks, IF we are DTC by next Friday.

8-30-15
Dreamed last night that we lost her, Luna’s pictures suddenly disappeared from all of her paperwork and then the words from the paperwork slowly faded away. She was just gone, like she’d never existed. This is really beginning to get to me.

9-2-15
Got an email today from my agency, she is holding my returned I800a in her hand and we should be DTC as of THIS Friday. What a relief. I knew that I wasn’t doing well but I didn’t realize just how not well until I was sobbing in the shower after reading the email. Seriously, it’s like holding your breath underwater and not realizing how oxygen starved you are until your head breaks the surface of that water and then you gasp so hard that it hurts your throat. This aches, this holding back all of my emotions while running straight forward into a very emotional thing. The whole time that I am buying stuff for Luna and putting her bed together, etc., I am telling myself not to get too attached, there are no guarantees. But the agony is that I have to get attached, I want to get attached, I AM attached. Run forward, not so fast, wait. No, go. Yeah, wait. Too fast, too fast, slow down. Love, but don’t, you know, love.

9-4-15
F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. We are officially DTC. Finally.

So here we are, as of this past Friday we are officially Dossier To China! I am so relieved and still feeling frustrated. You know, the real issue is that my expectations did not get met. I'd expected a process that took about a month and it ended up taking right at three months. I'd hoped to be coming home with Luna before Christmas, now I'm just hoping that we don't get caught up in the entire country of China shutting down for Chinese New Year which should begin February 8, 2016. I'm gonna focus on the good stuff: we’re done. We’ve done our part and now we wait on China to do their part. But hey, I can breathe a bit and maybe even get some sleep. Next, we wait on Letter Of Approval which is just a big formal way of saying that China approves of our paperwork. As usual, I'll let you know when stuff happens in the process.

PS:
Remember Gia, the first little girl that I saw with albinism on Holt’s Waiting Child page? Her mother is IN Beijing this moment. They were united on Sept 6, she’s finally someone’s daughter. I would love to show you pictures but they aren’t mine to share. Suffice it to say that it makes me cry to see them together.

8-14-15
“(Q-Boo,) I want ask you something but it’s does NOT mean that it will happen. It’s just something that I’m thinking about and I want to know what you think, OK?”
She nods.
“What would you think if MAYBE, you went with us to pick Luna up from China?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure? I mean, you won’t be able to stay with the boys or Nana Bea, we will be gone a very long time, it will be a looooong plane ride, and we will visit a whole other country. It could be really scary.”
<shrugs shoulders> “I will hold tight to you.”

What a difference from the first time I was in China with her. That fact alone brings me close to tears.

“What a moon!” said Silver. “Let’s enjoy it while it’s here.” -Watership Down, Richard Adams

“The full moon, well risen in a cloudless eastern sky, covered the high solitude with its light. We are not conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, even when the sun is clear of clouds, seems to us simply the natural condition of the earth and air. … We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. … In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse’s mane appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that even the wind does not move it, but it’s the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. …” -Watership Down, Richard Adams