Waiting is the hardest part

The California birth mother is due today, and we still have not heard either way if we have been chosen or not. I am thinking either she wanted more profiles (so we're out of the running) or that she is leaning towards parenting. Either way, we have pretty much given up on this situation. I contacted T, my facilitator, and asked her if we could go ahead and edit our profile (she wants to help make it better and unique) and start submitting us to the other possibilities. I don't know if we can be submitted to all three or if we have to wait and do them sequentially.

Waiting sucks, but at least we know there is a baby at the end of the waiting. I feel like my whole life has been one big long wait to be a mother.

As David mentioned, my sister-in-law is being induced today. I'm not sure why they are inducing someone a week or two ahead of their due date, but that's the plan. So our new nephew will probably be born today some time. Am I jealous, you ask? Why of course. And it doesn't help that I would have been giving birth in about 4 weeks myself, if things hadn't turned out the way they did.

UPDATE: the CA situation has finally closed out, and we were not chosen (otherwise I'd have started a new post!). We thought we weren't going to be picked, since it was taking so long, but I'm just glad to know it's closed and we can forget about it.

Look what's in my nursery

We went crib shopping yesterday. Here it is! I do plan to get rid of the dark blue curtain (it was left in there by the previous owners) and get something in turquoise to match the crib bedding. Do you think it's gender neutral enough?

Our new floors

Here's a photo of our new slate floors (and my cat Killer). Note we cleverly managed to keep the TiVo plugged in so we wouldn't miss CSI last night.

The Case of the Missing Period, Part 3

Well, the mystery isn't solved, and it only took 24.5 weeks, but I finally had a period. Granted it was scantier than past periods, and I've mostly gotten by on pantiliners (one day was heavy enough for a pad). But I'm tired of thinking of weeks since my miscarriage, so I'm going to go ahead and call this one a real period.

The OB/GYN appointment from HELL

I had my annual physical scheduled yesterday. I arrived at the clinic, and had to wait a long time while the highly incompetent receptionist took forever to check in the girl in front of me. Finally it's my turn, and she says she doesn't have me on the books. I said I made the appointment months ago and it was in my Palm Pilot and I could show her my calendar. After spending forever looking (and continually asking me to spell my name and what my birthdate was) she finally finds my appointment - they had scheduled me for January 12, 2005, and not 2006. Doh. Then they tell me the doctor isn't even in the office, and her PA is seeing her patients. The PA agreed to see me, which was fine. Then they told me my insurance doesn't cover a well woman visit. I asked if they could bill it as a sick visit due to my history of cervical dysplasia, but they said no. I said fine, I would pay for the appointment. They are going to bill my insurance for the lab work, since a pap is covered (yes, I'm going to discuss with HR why the pap is covered but the appointment to get the pap is not covered). They didn't call me about my appointment since it didn't exist, so I didn't know I had to come with a full bladder and had just peed. I managed to squeeze out some urine and sat to wait.

So then the insurance lady comes out to talk to me. She says their clinic policy is that whatever doctor I see initially is my doctor, period. I had seen Dr. L and I wanted to see Dr. N. Nobody told me this when I made my appointment. She also said that I had an appointment last January and was a no-show. I had to point out it was their screwup, not mine, and the first time I was there was in October. I told her that I would see the PA yesterday and then find a new clinic if I couldn't see the doctor I wanted. She said she would have to okay the switch with both doctors, and I told her "whatever".

Next I go in and the nurse comes in to do my vitals. None of the health history that I painstakingly filled out by hand (cancer in family, etc) was in my electronic chart. Nice. So I had to answer all those questions again. Then she asked my last menstrual period, and I said "May 23rd" and explained my situation. I told her I was adopting, and had a physical form I needed filled out. She says "oh, you're going to get pregnant now that you're adopting". I explained that was pretty impossible, given my body. She insisted it would happen. I told her the statistics, that only 5% of people who adopt become spontaneously pregnant. She said "I'm sure it will happen for you since you're so sure that it won't". My blood pressure was high for the first time ever from all the stress of this appointment so far.

She left the room and the PA came in, and she asked me about the date of the period, thinking it was a typo. I explained my history to her again. She was very nice and I liked her. I told her she needed to have a discussion with her nurse and I found what the nurse said to me to be extremely offensive, and she agreed and said she would talk to the nurse. I had some blood in my urine so I had to try and squeeze out a few more drops before going home. Fun times.

Then I went to check out, and my paperwork hadn't cleared yet and I had to wait even longer. Finally I get the bill - $394! But then they gave me 5% off for self-pay. Only $170 of that was the doctor visit and the rest will be covered by insurance. The insurance lady called me to her desk and apologized for all the screwups and said I could see Dr. N when I come in the future.

I was boiling by the time I left there. Not such a great way to start a relationship, and I may still find another doctor. This one came highly recommended by my RE though, so I kind of want to stay with her. She just needs fewer idiots on her staff. I may send the office a letter with the contents of this blog post.

UPDATE: my nice HR lady says yes, well woman visits are covered on our insurance. Idiots. I am definitely going to find a new doctor. And I did send a written letter to the office addressed to Dr. N.

ANOTHER UPDATE: the nurse got fired. I got a phone call from Dr. N, and she said this nurse had been repeatedly warned about her "flippant attitude", and my letter was the straw that broke the camel's back. So I guess I'll stay put with this doctor for now.

Social worker visit update

We had our social worker visit yesterday, and it was a piece of cake. She talked to us for about an hour, then we showed her the house and she took photos. She asked "did you do this all yourself?" when she saw the nursery, I think she liked it. She loved the playroom we have in there (I'll have to take photos of that too, it's really cute). Amazingly, we had the exact same wedding anniversary! The fertility gods smiled on her though, because she has a two-year old (we've been married 3 years). She'll have a draft to us for review next weekend. I have to get our health forms this week and our criminal checks, and then all the paperwork is in order. My sister is running the criminal checks for us (she has access through her job). Two references are in, and as soon as my friend gets back to Singapore this week I'm sure she'll do the last one.

Our profile was submitted to the birth mom in CA. So now we wait. They say we will be called if it's good news, otherwise emailed when the situation closes. I think that's a good system, I'd rather read bad news on email than get a phone call.

The mural is done!

I busted my butt finishing it yesterday before the social worker comes today. It came out great (IMHO) except for the part where paint bled through my dropcloth and now I have bright blue splotches on the carpet. The glow in the dark Night Sky was a PITA to put up, and the adhesive they gave me stained the ceiling so I had to touch up the ceiling paint. But it totally rocks!

A whirlwind of activity

After really buckling down the last few days, things are progressing. Here's what I've accomplished:

1. I found a contract social worker to do an independent homestudy. She is an angel and can expedite it and have it done in two weeks. She's coming over on Sunday to meet us. She only charges $600 and I checked her license with the state. She can also do our post-placement visits for $60 each. She also doesn't charge to update our homestudy if we want to adopt a second child.
2. I spent yesterday writing a Dear Birth Mother letter, buying scrapbook software, and several hours putting together a profile. Today I went to Kinkos, printed it out and had it bound. A copy is enroute to California for delivery tomorrow for the birth mother there. I'm also having my facilitator review it for future matches if this one doesn't work out.
3. We figured out the best way to finance the adoption, by taking a loan against David's 401K. We can borrow up to $35K if we need that much.

So, things are progressing. I have to get a registration form from the agency in CA and pay them a nominal fee ($200) to process my profile and get it to the birth mother. I get shown to 4 birth mothers for this fee, so if this one doesn't work out, she had a lot of other babies due in March and April. I called them to get the information and am waiting on them to call me back.

And speaking of phone calls - you don't get better service from HSM if you're a private customer. I spoke to them on Tuesday, she was supposed to call me back yesterday and didn't. I left a message this morning and still haven't heard from her. She's only managing like 20 families, how hard can it be to return a phone call?

Starting over again

Well, after talking with my agency yesterday, I think we are probably not going to use them for a private adoption. First of all, they only place 10-15 babies per year. And they said the wait could be up to two years. Not acceptable. They also seem to charge an awful lot of money and don't provide much in exchange - they don't advertise or aggresively find birth parents to match with adoptive families.

So, we're kind of back to square one. This is very frustrating and overhwhelming, and I had a major meltdown last night just thinking about it. Thank G-d for sweet husbands and a good dose of puppy love. But I did find an independent social worker who says she can do a homestudy for us in 2-3 weeks, for $600. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? I am trying to figure out how to check her credentials, because if she's valid then this is a great deal and we'll just get it done. This way we are not tied to an agency if we find an independent situation.

I also learned of a situation with a birth mother in California yesterday. The baby is a girl, due at the end of the month, and is Filipino. The mother was healthy during her pregnancy and had excellent prenatal care. The father is a married man and wants nothing to do with her or the baby, and her family is supportive of her adoption plan, so it sounds like a great match for us. We are trying to get a profile together to send to her and see if she chooses us or not. If she does, we can use our independent homestudy and save a ton of money. There is also the possibility of using our HSM homestudy for a designated adoption. They are checking to see if we could finish it by the end of the month, and what the fees are for designated adoption.

A big decision for the New Year

We made a big decision this weekend. After meeting with the SW and all the questions she asked us, we have decided to go for a straight adoption instead of fost/adopt, for several reasons:

1. I really want a newborn
2. I really want 100% surety that once the baby is mine, it's mine. I decided even a 5% chance I could give them back, after up to a year, would be too heartbreaking.
3. David feels very badly about mothers being forced to give up their rights to their children rather than voluntarily signing.
4. We can afford it.
5. We can stay with my same agency, who has a reasonably priced ($11K to $23K max) maternity program for domestic adoption.

We're still going to use Homes of St. Mark and the facilitator (in-state initially), and see who finds a match first. We're open racially up to full hispanic but decided no black (that was primarily family pressure and some personal choice). I feel very relieved about this decision, and I can't even tell you how thrilled my mom is. I am going to call HSM today and see what we need to do. I think all we have to do is an adoption seminar, and pony up some cash. All our paperwork and home study should still be completely valid.

I don't know if this will cause a lot of delays, but for now, this is where we're going and it feels like the right decision.