Clarity and other things I lack...

I’m feeling a need to clarify a couple of things: I’m apparently sending out a confused message about Baby Butterfly, Blossom and our adoption motives.

We recently received some new medical information for the Butterfly or at least a new interpretation of her medical condition that left us concerned and uncertain about her actual diagnosis.  I shared this on an adoption board hoping to find other parents that had experience with this new diagnosis.  From this somehow it was construed that we might terminate our adoption, to the point of removing me from a waiting family list on the board. It turned out this was a very compassionate gesture by a kind person trying to protect us but none the less it came as a shock to me.

Add to that in the same week we were trying to adopt Blossom, which apparently added even more confusion and conjecture, when a close friend of mine asked if we were trying to adopt Blossom because we were not going to adopt Butterfly? A mid game substitution???

Then this morning I got an email about a 13 year old boy in China who needs a family to come forward in the next 2 days or he will age out.  In the email the person offered her sympathies about us not being able to adopt Blossom and then suggested I consider this other child who “might be your son”.

Huh? What??  YOU ARE KILLING ME.

Relax.

Regroup.

Respond.

Ok please let me set the record straight.

1. We have no intention of disrupting our adoption of our sweet girl.  She is our daughter in every way other than physical custody and nothing would ever change that for us.

2. Blossom was never a substitute child for Butterfly and,

3. We are not looking for a substitute child for Blossom.

 I am not at all angry, annoyed or upset, I just want to be clear.

When we accepted our referral for baby Butterfly we knew we were getting into some very uncertain territory and we were ok with that.   We imagined the worst case scenario, decided we could handle that and moved forward.  From that moment she was ours; forever and irrevocably our daughter.  That’s how it’s always worked for us (in pregnancy and adoption), no reserve, no conditions, no turning back.  For some outside of the adoption experience it may be a hard concept to grasp but this child we wait for is no less part of our family than the children already home. 

And while I am an advocate for waiting children and desperately want to see all of these kids find families I am not adopting to save kids.

For us adoption is first and foremost about growing our family…any “saving” is both mutual and consequential. Blossom was never a charity project.  She captured our hearts and our desire to adopt her was due to a growing love and connection.   She too is not “replaceable”.

 Anyway, I just wanted to get that straightened out, in case there were others who might have been (understandably so) confused by my ramblings.

So that said we are STILL waiting on our I800 approval which was resubmitted (face-palm) on the 13^th.  I’ve emailed my officer a couple of times and I’m pretty sure the woman hates me. Her last (sterile) response indicated she MIGHT get to it today. Uggh.

I’m hoping we will still be able to travel before the end of March but time is slipping away.  Chinese New Year is around the corner and just in time to cause a nice big fat delay in processing the final part of our travel approval.

Just before Christmas I was pretty emotional about all of it. By emotional I mean completely and utterly despondent.  Never in my wildest imagination did I think it would take this long.

But it has.

And at this point I’m numb.  Nawh it’s worse, I morose.

You might want to hide.

Waaa, waaa, waaa. Cry, whine, and complain. (But don’t think I’m giving up.)

My adoptive mama compatriots get this right?  You remember this place?

The place between now and forever.

(insert big, heavy, life-is-so-unfair sigh)

Drama Queen Out.  Hopefully good news by morning.

BTW adding to my list of whiney rants is my falling stats on Top Mommy Blogs. Would ya'll mind tossing me a vote to help brighten my spirits?....Ok I cant lie.  The only thing that will really make me happy is a plane ticket to Beijing but humor me and click the brown box anyway.