homestudy & conversations

A couple weeks ago, we went to our federal fingerprinting appointment in the next largest city in the state. Nearly 3 hours of travel each way, about 1 hour of waiting for our numbr to come up on the display, and then 15 minutes of rolling our digits on the digital plate. It was actually pretty cool.

The technician sprayed my fingers with a bit of water mist and then swabbed them off with a towelette to get the perfect amount of moisture so that my fingertip grooves would splay out correctly on the fingerprint reader. After my finger was plopped down, he rolled it gently to get it centered and then rerolled from one edge to the next with a mouse click to start recording on one edge. Very cool. Even more clean than the local fingerprinting (which still uses ink and a more brusque roll). My tech guy said, well, the local cops probably do not go home at night and practice their finger rolling technique! lol All I can say was that it was neat to watch! I want a copy of my prints!! But no, the federal gov is propriatory about their prints. My digit record will remain in perpetuity... until our form expires in 18 months and the prints will mysteriously become invalid. Yeah, you know how we all change our digit grooves every year, like changing the smoke alarm battery on my birthday. Ding! So if we are not so lucky in wait times (as you know most of us are), we will get to do this all over again in 2008...

But meanwhile, we tracked down a last piece of paperwork to complete the homestudy. Had to apply to a different state to have that last piece of paperwork sent, too. We also completed as much documentable "family education" as necessary to be acceptable on the form. M toook a couple hours and read through a very good website on attachment so I could finish the form. That;s under the 4everfamily.org. Very informative website. M was impressed (and informed!).

We also have the draft of the homestudy! Only one small typo to fix, and then we are done with that phase. Whoo!

Our next big chore is to finish the documents for the dossier. We have several documentation and dimplomatic letters to write and acquire. We are still trying to get more pictures of us with other people. This has almost been more frustrating than anything else. It's amazing how many pics we get that are really not going to work. Either everybody is looking in different directions or somebody has a disgruntled look on their face, or the pic is aimed at our knees... So we force friends and family to pose for more versions every time we see them! We hope to get a few more from M's family when we visit over Thanksgiving. Of course, we will also have "the talk" with M's parents. We are trepidatious, but I also have some confidence that they will want us to be happy and will be happy for us, even if they may not agree with what we are doing. Who knows--maybe they will be thrilled! They, it's the only way they will be getting grandchildren out of us at this point.

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Had a good talk with one friend last week. She is trying to be patient about our desire to not talk about everything all the time. Or not share so, so much. She thought I wasn't sounding "excited enough" when I told a few other friends, that all that came through was the "anger" at the process (her word). For starters, I was downplaying the announcement knowing that it was going to take f***ing *years* to have a real baby in arms, and the ^gleee!^ factor was just killing me. It feels premature. Also, I am more cautious about announcing things knowing how our baby plans keep going awry!!!!!! How about that?? Maybe I should not have told that one friend until later... Kept saying she was "proud" of me, but it was really rubbing me the wrong way. We want a child and we are taking reasonable steps in that process--how do I feel "proud" about that? When I objected, she changed it to "so excited for you." That's a little better. :) hehe Yeah, what *would* be acceptable to you, Marie? :) I mainly don't enjoy other people's reactions trying to overwhelm my own. Putting one foot in front of the other and trying to watch out for sneak attacks of crushing disappointment. Forgive me for being wee bit cagey? defensive? wait and see? Way self-protective? Yeah, all that.

Anyway, I know this one friend (who is actually one of my closest friends) hates being left in the dark and feels constrained about not being about to talk and ask about it. My take on this is: just who is she doing this for? Does she want to talk about it to take care of her own emotional needs or is she at all concerned about considering my needs as one of the primaryly impacted parties??? Eh? I tried pulling out some of my emotional complications to show her *why* I was less inclined to have other people tromping over my tender feelings. If I hold other people off, it's purely self-protective. Many/most other people do not get difficult and traumatizing it has been coming through and out of infertility. They think it should be all hunky dorey now and still give us thoughtlessly callous advice and remarks. Consesus in the IF world (that I have seen) suggests that they are wanting to make themselves less guilty or anxious, not so much as actively wanting to hurt/help us. Eh, whatever. Meanwhile, I still have to take care of myself. Therefor, there are a lot of personal things I don't discuss.

On a related note, this same friend was again tut-tutting that M & I don't have "anybody else to talk to." I tried saying, well, no, we talk to *each other*, and that is what keeps us going. I feel lucky that we have been so supportive and understanding of each other and our individual processes in this whole ordeal. She doesn't get this. I told her rght out that it was worse to try to talk to people who did not understand than it was to not talk about it at all. That is was a like a survivorship situation, where people who had undergone IF were in a better position to really understand what it was like for others, like some cancer survivors find it most comforting to talk to other cancer survivors. For me, trying to talk about IF and related issues to non-IF people is overwhelmingly an exercise in frustration and infuriation. Man, they just walk all over my heart! And don't even realize that they are leaving muddy boot prints behind... So, heh, is it *understandable* that I dont go out of my way to talk to that random "other" people? I read and post to blogs with like minded people. I talk seriously with my sweetie. I distract myself or work harder on what I can do. THAT helps.