| Trip to Mykayla |
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| August 15, 2000 My usual starting sentence for these updates – it has been a busy summer! A lot has happened since I last posted. The most important, last Wednesday Marsha (social worker) called me and said she was ready to fax me the rough draft of the homestudy report. Two weeks to the day, exactly what she predicted. She faxed it to me the next day. It is eight pages long and basically says that she thinks I will make a fit parent and authorizes me to adopt. I made a few corrections and after a crazy day at work, I faxed it back to her on Friday night before going to “Meet the Teacher Night” at school. Backing up another week to Thursday, August 3 – I helped with registration at the junior high. I left my house about 12:30 and worked until 8:00 that evening. I got home about 8:30 and found my house flooded. The water heater had sprung a leak (major understatement!). They were coming the next day to install the new one that Mark had bought. One day too late. It took the plumbers 30 minutes to get to the house and so for that time I ran back and forth from the water heater closet to the bathtub emptying a bucket. I’m sure I looked very comical and at that point it didn’t really matter, I had a flood! After the plumbers got the water stopped, I called a carpet guy to come out and extract the water. They spent until midnight doing that. Then I had blowers and dehumidifiers going for about 5 days. By Sunday, he told me he thought it would all have to come out. Under my carpets is (was) parquet wood floors. They were so porous that the water just soaked right in and they buckled throughout the house, even further than where the water went. The insurance adjuster came that Wednesday and he agreed. So they have now pulled up all of the carpet and wood flooring in the whole house and the carpet guy is now cleaning the old glue off the floors. He is supposed to be done on Friday (we’ll see). The good news in all of this is: a) this didn’t happen before or during the homestudy visit and, b) it happened before the baby came home. Thank goodness I have good insurance! I have started looking around at carpet and linoleum for the kitchen. It will probably take a couple of weeks to get them out here to put in the new stuff. In the meantime, I’m going to paint the inside of the house. Just can’t pass up this opportunity with no carpet down. I was going to paint the baby’s room anyway. So, we are going to have a major painting party! And…amidst all of this going on, on Saturday, August 12, I graduated from Texas Woman’s University with my Master’s of Library Science. I can’t believe this summer is finally coming to an end. Still some things to do. I’m waiting on the I171H to get here from the INS. Then everything needs to be certified and authenticated. Looks like I will definitely be a September DTC. Name news – I have definitely decided on Mykayla. I will pronounce it with the muh- sound. I still like the i- sound but when I show anyone the name on paper, they pronounce it with the muh. That’s fine with me. She will still always be My Kayla to me. Sunday, August 20, 2000 I got great news on Friday. I received the I171H form from the INS! They received it on Monday and it was to my house by Friday. This is incredibly fast. I had been told to expect a long wait. That pretty much guarantees that I will be a September DTC. The next two weeks I will be scrambling to get the certification and authentication completed. Then I will just have to put my dossier together and send it off to GWCA. My goal is to have it in the GWCA office by September 13. They send dossiers to China every Friday. The only questionable part is the Houston consulate. I don’t know how long they take, but if it looks unsure I may expedite the forms overnight and pay the extra fee. This weekend we had the painting party. Everyone came over on Saturday and we spent the day painting with a short break for lunch/birthday celebration for Mark. The colors turned out okay. I’m not sure about the pink bedrooms. They are pretty close to pepto bismol pink. I’m going to live with it for a few weeks. I can always sponge paint on top to tone down the colors. Today Sherry and I went to Hollywood Portraits in the mall and had “glamour” photos done. I need some pictures for the dossier and all I have are “school” pictures – not too flattering. I have been dragging my feet on this, partly because of the cost and partly because I have gained weight and the thought of pictures is depressing. Sherry dragged me to the mall on Friday and she said if I would do it, she would too. So…we spent the afternoon being dolled up and getting pictures taken. It really wasn’t so bad. We even took Suzy and had one picture done with her since she is my “family”. I will put that one on the dossier cover. You get to see the pictures right there on a monitor and select the ones you want. We got some good shots and got our picture made together as well. That will make a nice gift for mom. They are due back September 11, but they said they usually come early. I hope so because that is cutting it close. I also have to pick out some candid shots of life around the house. After the picture session, we went out to mom's and while we were there I got to see all of the new baby stuff mom got from her friend Norma (whose grandchild is named Mikayla, which is where we heard the name). She got a beautiful white crib, two carseats, a walker, high chair, a beautiful portable playpen that she said was only used twice, and a few odds and ends. Everything is in great shape. Now if I can just get my house back in shape I can bring some of this stuff home! |