Polite Ear-chewing, it gets answers

Even though I wanted to rant and holler, I limited myself to a bit of teary-frustration in my voice as I spoke with people...and this is what I found out:

Basically, we were told stuff completely bass-ackwards. We were supposed to send the certificate of adoption form, the check to vital records and the DHR form to the HOWARD COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT for it to be put with our file. Then once we had our court date and adoption hearing they would issue a Maryland birth certificate and THEN the division of vital records would issue the certificate of adoption.

I spoke with the supervisor of the adoption clerk.... related the whole story to her and she is going to mail us another DHR form since I had mailed (as i was TOLD to) the first one to the address on the form. We have the certificate of adoption form that vital records returned to us, along with our check which is still good.....so once we get the new DHR form, we sent it, the check, and the other form to the circuit court...where it will be put with our file and THEN once the master's office reviews it we should get a court date unless they need more info.

So let this be a lesson to folks readopting: always keep a log of who you spoke to (I recommend full names), and time, date and exactly what was said. I kept a partial log only because I (niavely) trusted I was being told the correct thing. Hahahaha.

I just hope this was the worst and hopefully only bump in this readoption road.

Ooooh, I just love bureaucracies!

ooooh, I'm so mad right now I could chew nails and spit bullets!

As part of the readoption process, we were told to send off for a birth certificate..and our request was refused because the one we provided was not certified.

It came from #$%^& CHINA. How are we supposed to get it certified, and by whom? This is beyonsd ridiculous... I know we aren't the only MD couple to adopt from China.
They gave a number at the bottom of the paper to call if there are questions, and believe me, I have questions to ask and venting to do. As soon as that office is open, my butt is going to be on the phone. (well, as soon as i get home from putting my boy on the bus in the morning)

GRRRRR Freaking bureaucracy!!

Gratuitous cute kids picture

Taken yesterday as they were goofing on couch together.

Georgia absolutely adores Thomas,and he likes her quite well.:D

Readoption

As of right now, Georgia is a permanent resident of the United States... because she entered the country on an I-4 visa. If both Royce and I had traveled, she would have become a citizen at the first US port of entry.

So we have to readopt her. Some people choose to use an attorney, but its also possible to file the petition yoursself...which is the route we are going. Our first step was to contact our county courthouse and speak to the clerk in charge of filing adoption petitions. She sent us a memorandum detailing what was necessary for an adoption in Maryland. Some of it applied to us, some of it didn't...(because we weren't adopting so much as re-adopting...confirming the adoption that took place in China. We already had most of the documents from our original paperchase and documents given to us in China.

The tough thing was the wording of the adoption petition itself. There were no examples to look at..all we had to go on was from the memorandum: "petitions for adoption are governed by the provisions of Family Law Article 5-3A-01 et seq. and 5-3B-01 et seq and shall be filed in accordance with the provisions of rule 9-103 and shall contain the information required therein." <- clear as mud? Well, it does give specific citations to Maryland's family Law articles and from the Maryland Rules...both of which can be found at your local library. (Said the librarian) :) Librarian's aren't allowed to give legal advice: forms, etc..but they can help you find the references to read.

Anyways, what I was lamenting was a lack of examples... now since we only JUST filed the petition today, I can't say our format was correct...although I think and hope it was!! What I might do later, to help those that follow is post (omitting details) in general how I wrote our petition.

A Visit to Grammy's

"Grammy" was what we always called my own great-grandmother, whom I was fortunate enough to know and remember. (I was a teenager when she passed away at age 99.)

Thomas calls my mom "Boo-boo" (long story on that name), and Royce's mother, "Grandma"...and my grandma (his great-grandma) "Grammy".



She is a lovely, lovely woman...even though she herself would scoff at my saying so. And while I truly loved all my grandparents, I can with total honesty say that she was always my favorite, the one I felt closest to. (and not just because she is my only surviving grandparent.) What a shame that Alzheimers is slowly robbing her of the bits that make her herself...her memories.

But today was a good day. She remembered me (or seemed to), and was thrilled to see my son Thomas.



And also thrilled to meet her newest great-grandchild from half a world away.



So often, I've heard stories of people in my parents generation...nevermind Grammy's generation who just don't "get" adoption, and some who display blatant (and in my mind unreasonable) favoritism to those grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) that they are genetically related to.

Not my family! From Grammy on, everyone has been so accepting and welcoming of Georgia. So willing to love her. Granted, I know she's quite loveable... but this natural acceptance and love....to me, that's the true miracle of adoption.

Clouds and Sunshine

X-posted from my livejournal

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The clouds being things like my ear still feels like its got water in it..... (and I went thru the antibiotic and the ear drops I got in China)...AND the fact that both Georgia and Thom thought 4:30AM was an excellent time to wake up. Thom I get, because he's never been a great sleeper and the fact he went to bed around 7pm.

Georgia, on the other hand stayed up until 10pm courtesy of the nap she took earlier in the day.... and she has been a better sleeper (around 8-10 hours a night). So either its still jetlag/China time still to blame-- or the fact that Royce got up around then to take his shower. (Although as I think on it, that might not be it...as I've run a bath for myself after he and both kids are in bed asleep.)

Sunshine tidbits: Georgia nodding or shaking her head in response to a question I've asked her in English. So while she isn't speaking much other than some babytalk mandarin and the occassional words in English ("Yay", "Uh Oh", a garbled "kih-he ga" [kittycat], "No", "mao" [meyow], "muhr" [more]) she is definitely understanding quite a bit.

She also has demonstrated her considerable intelligence by picking up a few sign language words already: more, cracker mostly...and sometimes she will imitate "baby" and "cat" from a board book we have "My First Baby Signs".

And last but not least: she indicated she wanted up in my lap...usually this is to be held for a few seconds before getting down and scurrying off to the next activity...but she snuggled in for a min or so, then pressed her face to mine, lips closed and went "Mmmppp" (giving me kisses).

Mommy puddle of goo time! It pretty well makes up for the 4:30am wakeup!

Thursday July 10 / Friday July 11

This picture is of little miss Georgia on the plane ride home. It's hard to tell, but she is leaning over the foldout tray and attempting to bite one of her stacking cups. (lol) She also stacked them, knocked them over a few times (and we ended up losing one under one of the seats...oh well, I got them from Target and will just go and get more at some point. I didn't know much about keeping a toddler occupied on any sort of plane ride, much less one that long. And to tell the truth I dont know that there IS any one thing or several things that will keep a young, physically active child occupied for that long. The first hour or two of that flight was pretty aggravating -- and it wasn't really any one thing other than the fact that I was dreading the flight..and poor Georgia is your average two year old, lol

There's also the fact that the flight attendants, at least at take off seemed a bit.. er...strict, at least at take off. And not to me, personally..but to some of the Chinese passengers. Admittedly, some of the passengers didn't seem to understand the idea that when the seatbelt sign was lit that they needed to stay in their seats and be buckled up. But the way these ladies (most of the flight attendeats were female) hollered.. let's just say I wanted to nickname them flight Nazis. ;)

After the first hour or two..or maybe it was three... Georgia fell asleep. And she pretty much stayed asleep the entire flight. It helped that she and I were in a row to ourselves near the back rear of the plane. I was able to lift up the bar between our seats and make one bench area for her to stretch out on. It didn't leave much room for me to be seated, but as long as the fasten seatbelt sign wasn't lit, I wasn't too worried... I could even get up and walk around for a bit. My mom was in an seat on the asile just across from where Georgia and I were -she was willing to make sure Georgia was okay and didnt roll off or anything like that.

The only real "problem" with Georgia sleeping on the flight was that by the time we landed just before 7pm was that she was awake and raring to go. To her body it was 7AM China time. Mom and I had dozed on the plane, but it wasn't anywhere near a deep or complete rest. Royce, his sister Rae and our nieces Tracy and Erica had come to meet us at the airport...and it was so neat to see my calm and laid-back husband running around the gate area with a patriotic balloon and another balloong that said "Welcome Home" to greet us. I don't know if it was the balloons, or the fact that I was there..or that Georgia was more used to caucasian faces..but she was pretty laid back meeting all of these new folks and did NOT scream at her baba/daddy -- and that was a fear that I had. That she would scream and cry at him like she had when she first met me...and even tho he knew she might that he would get hurt feelings. (Thomas was not there at the airport. Our good friend Steve came over to watch Thomas while Royce picked us up..since we didn't know how long we would be getting through customs and immigration for Georgia.) And Thomas was asleep by the time we got home.

We got home and Royce cooked us some burgers on the George Foreman grill. Then mom dozed on the couch for a little bit and Royce went to bed. Our thought was that he would go to work as usual. Now by this point, I was exhausted beyond all belief...with a 2year old that thought it was "wakey-wakey" time. Thomas had not seen either of us yet..so I was worried how that would go.. I also pictuerd myself alone in the house the next day (Friday) with two kids who would both want me and I wasn't sure how they would react to each other or how I would handle it. I knewe there was no way Thomas would willingly go to daycare when I had only just gotten home -- and there was no way I was going to make him -- or set him against his sister by making him feel he had been shunted aside in favor of her. I was overwhelmed already... I cried and cried.

Eventually I got Georgia to nap on the couch and my mom sent me to bed - saying she would get me if Georgia woke up. (She didn't come get me, but had caught a short nap when Georgia was asleep and was okay with watching her... bless you mom!!)

And bless my husband for calling out to work explaining that he had a sick and jetlagged wife and needed to be home. His job is a long-term temp job and it made him a bit short on time -- but I really appreciate it. I slept until about 5am, and came down to find Georgia playing happily.



My mom took this picture not long after Thomas came down the stairs.. I wish I could adequately describe the beaming smile on his face when he came down the stairs and caught sight of me. He rushed over..and Georgia (who is a bit scared of our two cats) rushed over..and I took them on my lap..and cried... I was so glad to be home..so glad for both my children...and even after being asleep for 4 or 5 hours, still so exhausted...I think it shows in the photo. LOL



At one point later in the day Thomas would come up behind me and exclaim - "I love this mommy!" I think that makes a good caption for this photo.

So basically we got Georgia to sleep at 9am (which would be about 9pm China time) and we woke her up at 1pm. We went to my workplace headquarters to show documentation of her adoption -- to make my Family Medical Leave legal, and to get her enrolled on my medical, dental and vision plan. (I have a family plan, so my premiums will stay the same...but we have to get her enrolled asap.)

We also took her to the Columbia Association to get her an ID card so she could go to the swimming pool with us.

Now we're home, and its about 6pm as I write this... we're hoping to keep Georgia awake until at least 7pm or later... that will give us a good start to getting her on our time schedule. She's getting drowsy, so another splash in the bathtub might be in order..it will wake her up a bit... and if baba/daddy gives the bath, it will help the two of them bond.

Before I forget to mention it... Thomas and Georgia seem to at least get along..no major jealousies on either one's part.

All in all, its been a good first day.