| Trip to Mykayla |
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| Monday, April 09, 2001 It has now been 200 days of waiting since my official log in date. The wait is starting to get to me. I keep thinking that if the wait times had stayed the same as when I applied, I would be getting my referral this month. Right now it looks like it will be another 3 or 4 months before I hear anything. I try to be philosophical and tell myself that it is happening at a certain time so I will be matched with the right baby. Truthfully, it is killing me that Mykayla has been born and she is over there and I just want to go get her NOW!!!! There are some good rumors floating around. One is that the referrals are going to be speeding up. It looks like that may be possible. This month they put all of May DTC in the matching room. The last few months they have been splitting the groups and it has taken 2 or 3 months to get 1 month’s worth of dossiers processed. The other good rumor is that they may be allowing up to 8000 adoptions this year. In order to accomplish that, they will have to speed up the process quite a bit. Last year they processed about 5000 adoptions. Sherry’s flight to Vegas was a success! She was nervous and did have some anxiety, but she did pretty well. She says she thinks she will do even better the next time. That sounds pretty positive to me. She says I can definitely count on her for the China trip. China is in the news right now. About a week ago, there was an incident between an American military plane and a Chinese one. It ended with the Chinese plane going down in the ocean and the American plane making an emergency landing on Hainan Island. 24 Americans on board, none were injured but they are being detained in China. Sadly the Chinese pilot is presumed dead. The Chinese are demanding an apology and blaming the Americans. The Americans are blaming the Chinese and will only concede to “regret” over the incident. It has been scary watching this develop. The word in the adoption circles is not to worry too much over this. Adoptions have not stopped. I feel sorry for the parents that are over there right now, and the ones that are getting ready to go. I hope they resolve this soon. Now for the really critical news- we had a medical scare with my mom. About a month ago, she started having chest pain again. They had to do another catheterization and it turned out that there was a new artery that was 95% blocked. Her bypass artery we knew was 100% blocked and nothing they can do about that. This new artery is the Left Anterior Descending, which they say is the one that can lead to sudden death heart attacks. They were able to do angioplasty and put in a stent. They sent her home and she did great for about 3 weeks. Then she had sudden development of pain along with nausea. They put her back in the hospital and ran some tests, including a stress test. The diagnosis is that the pain is due to inflammation from the procedure 3 weeks ago. The doctor said she passed the stress test with flying colors. He gave her some new medication for the inflammation, which she will have to take for 2 weeks. She went home last Thursday. She is still having some pain and nausea, but hopefully that will stop soon. Sunday, April 15, 2001 Today is Easter Sunday. We had an easter egg hunt at mom and dad’s and it was fun, but it will be so much better next year when Mykayla is here. Mom is feeling pretty good. She said she has felt 100% the last two days, with the exception of a headache. Don’t know if it is still a medicine side effect or what. She has stiffness in her neck also, so maybe it is associated with arthritis. The China/American plane conflict has partially been resolved. A few days ago, they announced the release of the 24 service people. They were picked up and flown to Hawaii for rest and debriefing and by now are probably back in the states. They were released after President Bush sent a letter of apology/regret. It was a carefully worded letter and they have been arguing on the news for days about how it should be interpreted/translated. He pretty much just apologized without admitting responsibility for the incident. They are still negotiating over the release of the plane. The good news is that not only has this incident not effected the adoptions, but a family that is over there in Beijing right now wrote to the APC list that they were very comfortable over there and the people were being very nice. Thank goodness! This weekend I started a listserv on Yahoo Groups. I am inviting family and friends who are interested in following the adoption process to join. Not much activity yet but I will post periodic updates and Sherry and I will be able to post to the group while we are in China. That way we will only have to post once and it will go to everyone who is interested. Mason stayed with me this weekend. He actually mentioned Mykayla a couple of times. I showed him a couple of pictures on the internet of some boys with their little girl cousin who was Asian and he actually seemed interested. He looked at it for a long time. I tried this same thing a few months ago and he wouldn’t even look at the pictures, so I guess this is improvement. Mom said he asked her if Mykayla would talk in Chinese. I think it’s good he is starting to ask questions. More good news: My agency posted that the May referrals are expected this week. I looked back in the archives and this group went in the matching room on March 28. That means it only took 2 weeks to match a months worth of dossiers this time. That is definitely a speedup. I know I shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch, but… if that continues, then September group could get referrals by mid June!!!! Travel times are only taking about 5 weeks right now, so that would mean we could travel in July! Saturday, April 28, 2001 Speed up/slow down, speed up/slow down…Seems like just when I think I have figured out a pattern, things change and either slow down or speed up. I am SO ready for it to be my turn! I’m trying to stay busy, but it is getting hard to keep my mind on anything else. The people at work have planned a shower for me on May 15. I went this week and registered at Toys R Us and Target. That was a lot of fun! It was a very strange moment when I said to the young guy at the desk, “I need to register for a baby shower”. Wow, this is really happening. I am going to be a mom. Also, when he asked me for the due date, I told him I didn’t know because I am adopting. Well, he looked at me totally bewildered. Mom and Sherry went with me to Toys R Us and we had a lot of fun looking at all of the baby things and registering. That was on Tuesday. Then Sherry and I went on Friday to Target and registered there. At Target they have an interactive kiosk where you sign up for the gift registry. When the question came up for mother’s name, I almost put in MY mom’s name. Oh, yeah…I’M the mom. So funny! There is still some China/U.S. tension. Bush has been making statements about selling arms to Taiwan and even made a statement about using military action to defend them. If you read the full articles, it usually also says he is just restating an existing stance from a policy set back in 1979 and that he feels that Taiwan should not claim independence from China. I hope this is all just political posturing from a new president. The people posting messages from china continue to say they are being well received by the Chinese people. The June group is in the matching room right now. The first week of May is a holiday in China so it looks like it will be toward the end of May before they get their referrals. |