Step 7: Purchased for self

The dossier made it out and is currently in translation. One piece of good news is that we received preliminary approval of our match with our soon-to-be daughter on June 19th. This approval comes from China and is known as "PA". We can't openly share any information about her until our dossier has been logged in (a step known as LID) and we have a signed letter of acceptance (LOA), which is formal acknowledgement of our match.

At this point, all I can do is wait. I am not a patient person, but this whole process has been an exercise in accepting how thoroughly most events in life are beyond my control. So what does one do when she can only wait for the governments of two nations to unite her with her longed-for daughter? I don't know how other people cope, but I shop.

I also do a lot of reading and research, but those things aren't as exciting for me to discuss. The book "Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child" is excellent, and I'm quite fond of my new copy of "Simple Chinese for Adopted Families" (complete with audio CD), but there is just something fabulous about strolling the aisles of TJ Maxx and Kohls in search of adorable little girl outfits. My supreme guilty pleasure, though, has to be American Girl.

A little background here: I grew up poor. I was vaguely aware of the American Girl brand as a child, but I didn't really play with baby dolls and they were never something my family could have afforded anyway. My favorite toy was my three story cardboard and plastic 1980s Barbie Townhouse. Many a dinner party ended in Ken being poisoned and flung down the elevator shaft...

What can I say? I was an odd child with a vivid imagination and a penchant for reading Nancy Drew and other mystery novels.

At any rate, I came across a reference to a Chinese-American doll in the American Girl collection, a sidekick to some blonde named Julie. Apparently, the Chinese-American bestie, Ivy, is being retired, and this was a hot topic of discussion in the China Adopt Talk forum. Curious, I went to the company website. Depressingly enough, American Girl dolls are not made in the United States, but they seem to be of good quality, and they are quite popular. They are exactly the kind of expensive and elitist status items that my 22-year-old self would have hated, but my mid-30s, about-to-finally-have-a-little-girl-of-my-own self is entranced. I can't be with my daughter. I rarely receive updates about her. I can't even send her a care package until we have LOA. But, by Jove, I can buy precious little matching girl/doll outfits for her!

I justify shopping for a child I don't have by repeatedly insisting that I am only purchasing things that are on sale or that are great bargains. And, let me tell you, when that big box of impossibly sweet little outfits arrived in the mail, I was hooked.

Like this isn't the cutest thing ever.

Angry Driver was patient enough at first. But by the time I bought the seventh dress from Kohls and the third swimsuit from Crazy 8, I could tell that he was not enjoying my attempt at assembling a very premature layette. It started with not-so-subtle huffing, and escalated to outbursts of "But you don't even know her size!" and "We don't even know for sure that we will get her!"

I kept telling him the following:

1) I feel helpless. I can't speed the process up. I can't influence her life in any way or show her the love that I want to show her. All I can do right now is prepare for her arrival.
2) Angry Driver has had six years of buying Lego sets and geeky matching t-shirts for himself and Bean. The best I can do is a fair attempt at color coordination so that I don't clash with their outfits. He has had countless opportunities to relive his childhood in a more expensive and spectacular fashion with Bean. This is my chance to have a Mini Me of my own.
3) Kids need clothes. Yes, most of this stuff is manufactured in China and, yes, we can shop for her when we are in China. However, we will be so busy in China that I hardly think we will have time to search for such lovely purple kitty cat pajamas and little ruffled socks.
4) These things are on sale. Heck, most of these are on clearance. Clearance, man!
5) Don't you judge me.

Angry Driver did not seem moved by my rational arguments. However, I knew that the battle was won when he started looking at items on the American Girl website with me. We even laughed together about the adults who buy doll stuff, compose in-depth, serious online product reviews, and blatantly admit that these children's playthings are "Purchased For Self", rather than for a kid.

And so it was that, two weeks ago, we were driving home after visiting relatives in a nearby state when I spotted a billboard for an American Girl outlet store. Angry Driver didn't complain once when I asked to stop, although Bean grumbled a bit. They ended up not hating the experience, and they even helped me select a Bitty Baby book with an Asian protagonist. If a book light on plot can be said to have a protagonist.

Here is an example of one of our coordinating girl/doll outfits:

Fabulous!

Lately, I've been trolling Craigslist and E-Bay in search of more great deals. Today, I won an auction on an Asian Bitty Baby doll. Life is good.

This is what I've become: a grown woman who enthusiastically seeks out and purchases items for a child who lives thousands of miles away and who doesn't even know I exist. I know that she doesn't need fancy clothes or kiddy cult dolls or a ladybug swimsuit with matching robe or a princess bed with a slide, but to just wait and do nothing is impossible. This is how I build an adoption nest.

I've finally admitted to myself that this craziness is for my own benefit. I can make fun of middle-aged adults who buy expensive dolls and accessories all I want, but in my heart of hearts, I know it's true. All of these things are "Purchased For Self".

Don't you judge me.

Step 6: Snail mail moves at a snail's pace

For about ten weeks now, I have been preparing our dossier. The dossier is our official application packet that will go to China. As is the case with pretty much anything having to do with the international adoption process, this is an exercise in trying not to express exasperation.
Here are the documents that are required, as outlined in our agency's ever-practical 22-page "China Dossier Packet":
1) Application letter. There is a sample for our reference. We should base our letter on the sample, but not blatantly plagiarize it. Of course, certain phrases must be included verbatim, so in that case, plagiarize away. This letter basically introduces our family to the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) and outlines our request to adopt a special needs child. The letter must be signed, notarized, and state sealed.
2) Current certified copies of my birth certificate and Angry Driver's birth certificate. This cannot be more than 6 months old at the time of authentication. Even though they are "certified" copies, they still need to be state sealed in the state(s) in which the certificates were issued. Fortunately, Angry Driver and I were born in the same state. Unfortunately, it is not the state in which we currently live.
3) Newly-issued certified copy of our marriage certificate. Again, this must be state sealed in the state of origin.
4) Verification of employment letter from my employer. Also notarized. Also state sealed. Since Angry Driver is a full-time dad, we had to craft a letter verifying his non-employment status and - you guessed it - this letter had to be notarized and state sealed too!
5) Financial statement. This lists all or our assets and our liabilities as outlined in our home study. Signed by us, notarized, and state sealed.
6) Medical suitability certificates for each adoptive parent. These are different forms than we had to have completed for the home study. We also needed lab work. The forms had to be signed by our physician, notarized, and state sealed. Since I have health issues, my doctor had to write an additional letter explaining my medical conditions and attesting that she believes that I am healthy enough to adopt and parent. That letter had to be notarized but not state sealed (it's an arbitrary process, really).
7) Signed and notarized letters from our local police department verifying that Angry Driver and I do not have a history of arrests, criminal charges, or convictions. Of course, these have to be state sealed.
8) Our original home study, notarized and state sealed.
9) A copy of our I-797 USCIS approval with a signed and notarized attestation stating that the copy of the USCIS approval is true and unadulterated. State seal? Yes!

Then there are a bunch of documents that have to be notarized, but don't need to be state sealed:
10) At least 3 reference letters. Since Bean is in school, one of the letters had to be written by his teacher. Although one might think that obtaining these letters would be difficult, we have such awesome friends (and Bean has such a kind teacher) that this step actually turned out to be one of the easiest.
11) My psychological evaluation report. As stated previously, I've been certified SANE.
12) A signed and notarized agreement that we will comply with post-adoption requirements, such as regular updates to China.

Then there are more documents that need to be included in the dossier, but that don't require notarization or state sealing:
13) Copy of our passports. I'm so glad we already had passports!
14) New passport photos of Angry Driver and me. Not my finest photo shoot, unfortunately.
15) Recent photographs of our home and family. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! The instructions specify the types of photos, the required size, the placement of the photographs on the page, etc. No labels. No pets.
16) Copy of the certificates we earned through Adoption Learning Partners when we completed our online adoption training courses.
17) Our agency's license. Now, someone needs to tell me why it is my job to obtain the agency license to send to the very same agency? This actually turned out to be quite a challenge, since the agency sent me a certificate that expired within a month of them sending it to me. When I raised my concern about providing China with an expired agency license, I was met with befuddlement. Yes, befuddlement. As in, "Oh, wow. It's expiring soon? I guess we need a site visit." I still don't have that renewed agency license, but I am hopeful that the agency has a valid license.
18) A copy of our service plan. Again, I had to request this plan from my agency to give my agency.
19) A signed and original agency fee agreement. This was a fascinating item. A few weeks ago, I raised a concern about a charge that the agency billed to us. The agency's response was that the charge was clearly outlined in the fee agreement. About a week later, I asked about obtaining an original fee agreement for the dossier, and the agency's response was that they would have to send us the fee agreement to sign. If we never obtained or signed a fee agreement, how were we supposed to know about the fee agreement? I digress...

So, just a word about state sealing. This is the process by which a state authenticates the notarization of a document. The Secretary of State's office verifies that the notary public is real and had the authority to notarize said document on the date that it was notarized. Some states have big, fancy seals (as is the case with the state from which our birth and marriage certificates originate), and others have simple, boring seals (like the one in our current state. The clerk at the Secretary of State's office claims that our Secretary is very budget conscious and sees no benefit to using taxpayer funds for such frivolity as a gaudy seal).

Fortunately, one does not make it through 13 years of public school education followed by 12 years of post-high school education without learning how to complete forms and request documents. After many weeks of harassing people to complete forms, mailing birth and marriage certificates for state sealing, stopping in the Secretary of State's office to have a batch of documents state sealed, and faxing a request for state sealing of our USCIS approval, the dossier checklist was complete.

And then, a wrinkle. We received our "Home Study Addendum" at the end of May. Actually, we received a big manila envelope from our adoption agency that contained 3 original Home Study Addendum documents. The Addendum addresses our ability to parent a child with the specific medical and psychosocial needs identified in the child to whom we have been matched. The envelope contained no instructions. There wasn't even a Post-It note. Nothing. I immediately sent a message to the agency requesting guidance. I then called the agency and left a message. At long last, I was told that, yes, the Home Study Addendum should be included in our dossier. And, yes, it should probably be state sealed.

Aargh!

And so, I sent yet another fax to the Secretary of State requesting a state seal. This was on 6/2/14. We received our seal 6/5/14. Correction: we received TWO state seals on 6/5/14. Rather than issuing one state seal containing my name and Angry Driver's name (like he or she was supposed to have done), the person at the Secretary of State's office issued a seal under my name and a seal under Angry Driver's name. The problem with this is that ONE document cannot have TWO state seals.

I can't believe I even wrote that last sentence. It's as though aliens abducted me and replaced my body with that of some low-level government bureaucrat. I guess this is the kind of person one becomes when she spends months completing mindless paperwork and running the government agency gauntlet.

Naturally, since I was issued two seals, I was charged for two seals. I don't even care about that; I just need my seal so I can send out this dossier. No dossier = No child. The longer this takes, the slower the process becomes, and it is already so darn slow.

I called and the very nice woman at the Secretary of State's office (who, incidentally, is the very same nice woman who was working when Angry Driver and I stopped in the office on USCIS Fingerprint Day) typed up a new seal and informed me that it would be mailed the very next morning, i.e. - 6/6/14.

The Secretary of State's office is a two hour drive from Blahtown. I figured the seal would arrive by Monday (6/9/14) or Tuesday (6/10/14) at the latest. Nevertheless, I tried to convince Angry Driver to go and pick up the seal on 6/6/14, but he would not hear of it. I must have had a premonition of doom, because I really did try to convince him to JUST GO PICK THE STATE SEAL UP SO WE CAN MAIL THIS OUT AND BE DONE ALREADY.

Angry Driver claims that if I had seriously asked him to go pick it up, he would have done so. I told him that his experience of reality in no way corresponds with actual reality as experienced by everyone else in this particular dimension of space and time.

It is almost anti-climactic to report this, but the state seal did not arrive on 6/9/14. It did not arrive today. I have no way to track the envelope. I think that I could have hired an army of ants to carry me the letter and they would have delivered it in a more timely fashion than the US Postal Service. There may be 7 circles of hell and 50 shades of grey, but I guarantee you that there are at least 600 layers of rage. I am currently operating somewhere between "seething" and "mind-numbingly impotent".

It is so frustrating when I try, try, try to do everything right and I just can't seem to make progress. Our child is waiting for us and all I can do is paperwork. And yet, I'm dependent on other people doing their jobs and I have no control over how quickly or accurately they do their jobs, if they do them at all.

Yes, I know that this is an exercise in patience. I understand that I can't control everything, or anything, for that matter. I appreciate that there are many more bureaucratic snafus ahead in this process.  It is still irritating! Why on earth does it take at least 5 days to deliver an envelope from a city two hours away in perfect weather and with no encroaching federal holidays? Seriously, people, get it together!

Alas, there is nothing to be done but wait. For his part, Angry Driver just offered to make the two hour drive tomorrow in order to pick up a new state seal for the Home Study Addendum. He just stumbled upon Rage Level 142: Blind Ferocity in the Face of Too Little Too Late.

Step 5: None of my best friends are Chinese

Preparing to become a "conspicuous family" is a daunting process. I take it for granted that, when Angry Driver, Bean, and I are out in public, people immediately recognize us as a family unit. The only people who have ever asked Bean how he is related to Angry Driver and me are TSA agents at airport security checkpoints, and I suspect their questioning is only because they are forced to take a child trafficking awareness class, or something.

Bean looks eerily similar to my husband. If anyone possibly harbors doubts about Bean's paternity, Angry Driver's predilection for coordinating father/son outfits should quickly put those doubts to rest.

I guess Bean looks a little bit like me. At least, he doesn't look unlike me. Our little nuclear family could pass for one of those stock photos that come in a picture frame sold at Target or Kohls:

You know, come to think of it, I guess all three of us like to dress in coordinating outfits.

When we first made the decision to adopt a child from China, I don't think we ever really thought about how physically dissimilar our adopted child will be from the rest of us. Naturally, we figured that people will ask if she's adopted. I'm guessing just about every adopted parent thinks long and hard about how he or she will respond to acquaintances or strangers who are curious, ignorant, or just plain rude, and who feel the need to ask about our child as though it is their right to know the answer. 

To that end, I imagined myself responding to nosy fellow shoppers or curious bystanders with "What's it to you?" This would be completely in keeping with my personality. Knowing what I know about Angry Driver's sense of humor, his response to questions about our adopted child's parentage would probably have been a tongue-in-cheek "What?! She told me it was my baby!"

As much as those responses would give us an emotional payoff, we can't just think about our immediate gratification. Angry Driver and I have cultural identities. We have solid roles in our family and in our society. Although he is still a child, even Bean has a solid foundation in his world. He has spent his whole life with us as parents. He looks at us and can see bits of himself in our faces. We have yet to meet our adopted daughter, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that she too has an identity in her world. And we are about to turn that world upside down in order to push her into our lives. In China, she is an orphan and she has special medical needs, but she is Chinese among Chinese people. Her caregivers are Chinese. The children around her are Chinese. Once our family comes together, our identities will all shift, but her shift will be the most profound. She will become:

Adopted

Chinese

American

Daughter

Little Sister

Different

And probably a lot of other roles that I can't even imagine yet.

Fortunately, our pre-adoption training made it clear that questions about our adopted daughter will probably come up quite often, particularly since we live in the largely homogeneous American Midwest town of Blahtown. We used Adoption Learning Partners for our required Hague training, and I think the courses are excellent. The training forced us to turn a critical eye on our family, our neighborhood, our city, our nation - all the facets of our known world. And, whether well-intentioned or not, people are going to ask questions. In all likelihood, our daughter will ask questions. Even if she never struggles to find her own identity (a nice fantasy, since I'm reasonably sure just about everyone struggles at some point with his or her place in the world), she will bear witness to how her family responds to the people who ask about her. Glib responses might be tempting for people like Angry Driver and me who generally adore sarcasm, but we certainly don't want our daughter to think that she is some kind of punchline. Angry or hostile responses might give me satisfaction in the moment, being as I can't punch rude people in their rude faces without going to jail, but I don't ever want my daughter to associate her place in our family with negativity. Completing the "Conspicuous Families" training lesson and a lot of online reading (mainly adoption blogs, forums, and agency website information) led me to conclude that my responses to people's questions will depend on the person who asks the question and the situation, but the words that come out of my mouth will always matter because they will tell my children what I think of my family and what I think of them as human beings.

So, let's practice.

Question: "Is she adopted?"

Response: "We are an adoptive family."
* Of all the possible responses I've read about or thought about using, I like this one best. It takes the spotlight off of one family member and puts us all in one boat, so to speak.

Question: "She's not your real child, is she?"

Response: "Why do you ask?"
* I like this one because it is passive aggressive, but subtly so. Anyone who isn't completely clueless should immediately realize that he or she is being incredibly rude with that question and back off.

Question: "How much did you have to pay to get her?"

Response: "Why? Are you interested in adopting?"
* Again, perhaps a bit passive aggressive. Seriously, though, what a horrible thing to ask someone.

The other major lesson I learned from our pre-adoption training was that Angry Driver and I needed to shift our paradigm. We are as Caucasian as Caucasian gets. When we go to the beach, I never lose sight of my family because we are the palest people there. We have a multicultural group of friends, but when we looked at our circle, we quickly realized that very few of our friends are of Chinese descent. I have an aunt who is from Japan, and cousins who are half-Japanese, but that's about it for Asian influences in our lives. We leaped into the notion of adoption from China without really thinking about how little we actually know about Chinese history, culture, food (real food; not the Panda Express version), and language. Granted, our daughter will more than likely be ethnically Chinese without being culturally Chinese just by the very fact that she will be adopted into an American, Caucasian, Midwest family at a young age. Be that as it may, we want to at least give her some link to the culture of her birth, if that's possible.

One of the ways that our adoption agency helps us prepare for the arrival of our child is through the creation of a "Family Care Plan". The idea is that we identify resources that are available to assist us after our daughter comes home. We find healthcare providers - a primary care provider, medical specialists, dentists, physical therapists, etc. We identify educational resources, mentor families, and cultural resources. While researching local resources, I came upon the website for the local Chinese School. I e-mailed the principal and, to my surprise, she quickly responded with a warm invitation to tour the school and attend a potluck dinner.

The school meets once weekly on Sunday afternoons. Most of the families have at least one parent of Chinese heritage. In fact, the schools are known as "heritage Chinese schools". This particular school teaches traditional characters, which I learned are used in Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong. Since our particular child will be from a part of mainland China where simplified characters are taught, she would be unlikely to encounter traditional characters in the local education system if she remained in China. There is another Chinese school close to Blahtown that teaches the simplified characters. However, Angry Driver and I were impressed by the warm response of the principal to my e-mail, and we decided that a tour of the school and a potluck would be a great way to learn more about Chinese culture and meet some Chinese families who are trying to balance an appreciation and understanding of Chinese heritage with a Midwest American lifestyle.

English word: "Mother"
Traditional Chinese characters: 母親
Simplified Chinese characters: 母亲
Pinyin (phonetic):  Mǔqīn

See? Similar characters, but different.

And so it was that we found ourselves driving 30 minutes on Mother's Day to join about 20 families in the fellowship hall of a Congregational Church to learn more about Chinese culture. There were a few Caucasian parents, but most of the adults were Chinese professionals and entrepreneurs. A few of the children seemed enthusiastic about their foray into Chinese linguistics and culture, but most of the kids looked like any children anywhere who find themselves "enjoying" an extra day of school on a weekend.

Since it was the last session of the school year, the kids put on a show for their families and the guests. It was a strange sensation to be watching a production and not understand a single word, but a few of the teachers helpfully explained some of the high points. A few of the idioms were beyond my grasp, but, with their help, I was at least able to appreciate the essence of the story line.

The potluck was awesome. Bean devoured a plate of food and a bowl of soup that looked a bit too exotic for my plebeian tastes. To my credit, I did sample a very tasty dessert that, under usual dining circumstances, I would have left on the buffet: glutinous rice with red beans and sugar wrapped in a banana leaf:

Here is a representative picture of a similar product:


Photo courtesy of Serious Eats

I did show my naiveté (like it hadn't been readily apparent anyway) when I verified prior to taking my first bite that one does not, in fact, consume the banana leaf.

All in all, a great experience. Will we enroll our daughter in Chinese School? The jury is still out. I think the final decision will be made once we know her - her personality, her temperament, her ability to sit still long enough to learn, etc.

For what it's worth, Bean begged us to let him learn Mandarin. So there is that.

No, none of our best friends are Chinese, but at least we are making inroads. Our world view is shifting slowly but surely.

My mind must continue to expand, so that it can catch up to my heart. After all, a piece of my heart has already leaped the ocean and is waiting for me in China.