I'm Home!

Dude, the Mass Pike never looked so good.

Wow!

Well, Ms. Scary was just as rude to our social worker, Ms. Stork, today as she has been to Clementine. She is being quite impossible. I think I may look into becoming a member of their board of trustees (if they have one) once we adopt Hester. What goes around, comes around! he he he he

Busted

Snapdragon, his wife, his in-laws, and I went to the Denver Art Museum's new wing that features modern art. It was interesting, weird, and disturbing. My favorite was when all of us were discussing a instillation of 18 hubcaps on a wall. We were unsure of the artistic message and how it is any different from the road side vendors of lost hubcaps. Anyway, most of us walked away from it, leaving Snapdragon. He turned to a man beside him saying something about how he did not get how it was art and the man turned out to be the artist. Ooops.

Calls

Yesterday, I called every one of our friends that I had on my cell phone and left messages about what is going on. I then asked them to call Peaches and check on her this weekend so she did not feel so alone while I was so far away. Each time Peaches and I talk, she gives me the latest roll call of friends who have called, offered to hang out, offered to have her come over for dinner, etc. I have said it before and I will say it again, Peaches and I are blessed with amazing friends who are so loving and caring. If you are reading this right now, this post is for you. Thank you!

UFO or Dyslexia

I was telling some friends here in Colorado about the birth mother being in the hospital and that I may have to rush home. I was trying to explain what was going on and said she had a placenta abduction instead of abruption. What sort of crop circle would be left when a placenta was abducted?

Holy Fuck!

So Peaches gets a call this morning that the birth mother's placenta has abrupted and she is in the hospital on steroids. We could be mothers TODAY!!! To top it off, I am in Colorado for my brother's graduation! I am so torn; I have been planning to come to this for a year and really want to be here for Snapdragon but I don't want Peaches to do all this alone!! Right now, we are leaving it at continuing my trip as planned as we wait for more developments. Also, now seeing my parents is so not a worry. Who cares what they may or may not say. I have a baby on the way!

I'll say it again.
Holy fuck!

Travel Fun

So I don't know if anyone is reading this post after the last one but I thought I would share my FUN trip details.

• I took a cab from home to the train station and he drove so SLOW! I thought I was going to miss the train. I made it to the train with three minutes to spare.
• I sat in something not right on my seat so I had to change my pants and undies at South Station.
• I get to the ticket counter at the airport with 45 minutes until take off. My credit card does not pull up the reservation on the e-ticket thing. I talk to the lady and she says, oh that is USAir Shuttle. They are the next counter down.
• I go to USAir Shuttle and it does not work. Again I ask the lady and she says, Oh, that is a United flight. They are in the next terminal. Now, you must understand I have the mother of all colds with a horrific cough right now. But I booked it across the parking lot and through the terminal to C terminal.
• I got on the plane with about 5 minutes to spare.
• Everyone gave me dagger eyes for being the sick one on the plane. Hey, I have done it too when I sat next to sick people on planes. It also was wicked hot on each flight. But I did get to eat some delicious party snacks and watch the a movie.
• I wait and wait for my luggage. It did not make it. I ask that kind lady at the counter and she says it is coming an hour and a half later and gives me a $10 food certificate for my wait.
• I get to the car rental agency and they had canceled my reservation. Some how my reservation was made for 10 AM not 6 PM (which I did type in) and it was cancelled. There were no compact or economy cars so I got a Dodge Charger for almost $80 more.
• I drove to my friend's house and was greeted by a wonderfully loving family who took great care of me.

I guess, all is well that ends well.

Who is the Reason for the Season

Good times at the potato house

Clementine (singing): "Santa loves the little children."
Hashbrown: "The correct words are 'Jesus loves the little children.'"
Clementine: "Jesus, Santa, aren't they the same person? I mean, the song says, 'He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good...' See, they are pretty much the same person."
Hashbrown: "Not really."
Clementine: "Santa is a stalker; he knows if you are asleep or awake. Santa is scary."

Later

Hashbrown (singing): "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight..."
Clementine: "It does not go like that!"
Hashbrown: "Yes it does."
Clementine: "That is so racist. You don't sing it that way, do you? Red, yellow, oh my god!"
Hashbrown: "I know but that is how children still sing it."
Clementine: "That is so fucked up."

Good And Bad

So the birth family saw our letter and photo album and really liked what they saw. They were both happy that we want to parent their child. So we passed that hurdle, thank god. Next, we will be hearing from Ms. Scary at the birth parents' adoption agency to talk about money, forms, get consent to talk with two other doctors, and about making arrangements to talk to the birth mother on the phone and then meet the birth parents. It is not certain but it is looking good that we will be the parents of this child. Cool, huh?

The other good news is that my mole was so not cancer. It only had mild to moderately abnormal cells and they were too close to the edge of the original biopsy. She had to shave some more off of the site to hopefully remove all of the abnormal cells. I'll find out in a week or so how the pathology report came out and if I have to go again for another shaving.

A coworker who is a friend found out this morning that her brother died. He had MD. Clementine's and my thoughts go out to her and her family.

Crying Over Shattered Deodorant

I am a wee bit stressed out lately. So many big things are happening all at once and this Saturday, I lost it. Let me tell you about it all.

1. Over the last ten days, our lives have changed dramatically. We are in the consideration of the birth parents for this child to be born early February. We are the only parents being considered and we will hear in the next few days if they want to meet us. If it works out, we have to get the funds together in very little time and prepare for the baby. We have done so much but I worry that there is so much left to do.
2. Thursday, I fly out to visit Snapdragon and see him graduate with his pre-med degree. I also get to visit my dear friend Chica, Psycho Kitty, and Rae. The down side is that I will be seeing my parents. I so do not want to see them or talk with them about the adoption. They are so very unpleasant. So that part of the trip is wicked stressful.
3. I had two moles removed about a month ago. Two weeks ago, I got a call from the doctors office saying that they "could not rule out cancer" in one of the moles and they needed to "shave the site down." It was clear that I was talking to the secretary and she did not have any good answers about what "could not rule out cancer" meant. I plan to find out tomorrow. Deep down in my brain, I have a very strong belief that it is not that serious. But my god, hearing the C word in relation to your body is quite frightening. This one tipped the scales over to the side of crazy Saturday.
4. Also, over the past two weeks , I had one abstract for a conference turned down as well as a manuscript for a journal. I have had maybe two rejections of conference abstracts EVER in my career, and I present a lot. My other three manuscripts were accepted for publication with minor changes. This one, one of the reviewers seemed to have it out for me. I revised that damn thing four times for her. My rejection letter contained the comments from both reviewers. The evil one had five things she did not like, things like arguing that it is not actually a pilot study. The other reviewer said it was ready to publish. This is my first manuscript to be rejected. I know it is all part of the process but I feel like I have lost my golden touch. I realize this may seem rather petty or dumb in relation to the other things like adoption and mole cancer worry, but these goals have a very important meaning to me.
5. Christmas is coming and that is always a stressful time. I don't feel at home with my in-laws. Now don't get me wrong, they are super nice and caring. It just is so very different from what I grew up with. I miss my family a lot during the holidays but know what I miss does not exist anymore. I love Peaches and my private celebration of Christmas. That is so wonderful. The spirit of the holiday lives in that wonderful evening each year. There is no complaining about gifts, yelling that someone ruined the green beans, fear that someone will not like a gift and berate you, or being left out or passed over because I am gay.
6. We were planning a party and we needed to clean the house, cook the cookies, make the other food, and get ready.
7. Oh, my period started that day and I was severely PMS-ing with the erratic moods.
8. My cold from THANKSGIVING is still around and getting worse.

So, I was so crazed that I picked stupid fights with Peaches. I tried to rein it in but it kept busting through. Finally, I was getting ready and reached for my crystal rock deodorant. It fell into the sink, slid across the bowl of the sink and did an Evil Kenevil jump over the counter onto the trash can lid where it shattered into a zillion shards of odor killing sharpness. I stared at it and started sobbing. It was immensely stupid to cry over my deodorant but then that really was not what I was crying over, now was it.

Today is day two of my period so the irrational, hormone influenced emotions are gone. I have apologized to Peaches and together we processed "like good social workers" the whole fight picking incidents. She is a wonderful woman and I know I am very lucky to have her love.

The cookie party went well. Our many wonderful friends we had not seen in a while came and it was just so nice to sit in the room with loving friends. We saw a few more this morning for breakfast. Everyone is so supportive of the adoption, asking about it, offering help, expressing excitement at the prospects of this baby.

Tomorrow, I find out about the mole. I'll let you all know.

I got my plans on how to deal with my parents. Chica and Psycho Kitty are coming to Snapdragon's graduation so that will help buffer the parents. My therapist helped me rehearse what to say to set limits. It will be ok. It is just scary when you only have seen them twice in six years and both times sent you to therapy afterwards.

As for the manuscript, I have another journal picked out and just need to work on undoing the stupid edits of the evil reviewer.

I am going to Price Chopper tomorrow to buy another crystal deodorant.

Nuts

Clearly, I am loosing it. This morning, I woke up to Neil Diamond's "Turn on Your Heartlight" playing in my head.

Lord, it is late and I am over exhausted.

Oh my God, what a weekend. We assembled a kick ass photo album for the birth family as well as a letter telling them all about us, why we are pursuing adoption, how we are able to care for child with medical needs, and our supportive community. For the part about what we believe in, I felt like I was writing the freaking Nicene Creed. We believe in ….. Oh, Catholic joke!

Oh yeah, lurkers, why not comment! It is fun and it may start an interesting dialogue.

Soooooooo........

Wednesday, I am in a meeting when I get the “EMERGENCY: There is a BABY for us” page (911911911) (original, yes?). I get up all calm and tell the teacher, I need to use her phone. My coworkers keep discussing patients and the upcoming Christmas carnival as my shaky hands dial the home phone number. Clementine answered and her voice told me immediately that something serious was going on.

So here is the skinny.

A private agency has an expectant mother making an adoption plan. The baby has medical issues very similar to what we were expecting from a Department of Social Services Adoption. The family has been turned down by a few adopting families already due to the medical issues. So our social worker, Ms. Stork, thought it may be a good match because we are cool with that. So Clementine and I discussed it and decided to take it to the next step.

The next step involved a very large fax (69 pages) of the birth mother’s medical records and adoption application. It was heart wrenching to read her paragraphs to the baby about why she has chosen adoption. We also found out the baby’s due date and that it is an Aquarius (same as me). We reviewed these and then gave a copy to our future pediatrician to review. We want to have professional views on the possible outcomes for this child based on the medical history.

Since it is private, it has costs attached that we were not expecting. Clementine is fantastic and has already applied for multiple grants and identified possible loans for us to apply for. She also has born the brunt of the contacting people which wasn’t too bad until today. She talked to the birth mother’s social worker who was not pleasant at all. She also raised the price on us but she evidently does not know she is dealing with Clementine, the big C*.

A huge barrier that stands before us is whether the birth family is down with the G-to-the-A-to-the-Y parents. We also need more consents to we can talk to the birth mother’s doctor and that of her child. Then if everyone is cool with this stuff, we will meet.

This weekend, we must put together a “Dear Birthparents” letter and a photo album of 40-60 photos!! Fun times in la casa de las papas**! Wish us luck.

I will for sure be writing more about the process as we learn more, as we progress, and as I have time. Thank you all in advance for your support and ears through this crazy road we call life!

* Big C stands for Big Consumer which means she is great at getting kick ass deals on things.
** House of Potatoes