Questions and Thoughts

Finally, FINALLY, the US St@te Dept has finished with our last two documents, and the F3d Ex return shipment has started on its journey back to us! This has been an even longer wait than before--it'll be 3 weeks compared to about 2 for the earlier batch.

I had been checking the tracking number for weeks without so much as a peep, so I'm glad to see it has at least started home to us! I am preparing myself to whip those docs back out to the embassy the same day. And then we wait some more... although it tempts me to start hoping we finish by the end of Feb.

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Another friend asked me yesterday how things were going with the adoption process. I said Paperwork Paperwork Perseverance. She immediately jumped to how wunnnerful it will be when I travel to China. I explained to her that I can't even get worked up about that right now; I just have my head down to the grindstone working on the process.

She herself has done a dossier and gone through the same process (but it was a long time ago and things happened so nothing worked out--a long sad story that is not my place to tell). So she is probably reliving some of those times.

She said she felt like everything was on her shoulders to get it done and get it right, and she was hugely stressed until the dossier went off, and then it was ahhhhh, and she could relax and not worry anymore. I suspect I will be similar.

Yes, I get stressed, but I have to manage it so I don't get overworked. And there are some things that I deliberately try to not think about too much to avoid additional stress and frustration. Such as how long this is taking! Or how much longer we will wait to be matched. OR any number of things that could go wrong.

I do sometimes have mini fantasies about having our daughter home, the kinds of activities we might do together, the kind of challenges we might face. It's not so much the picking her up in China that I fantasize about; it's holding her at home and singing to her, or reading to her and showing her things in her world. That's why I need to be a parent--to share the amazing cool things about the world. And cuddle. And support and be firm when they test their limits. Taking her to the park, having a morning routine.

(... thinking about having our daughter home...........)


Anyway, I got all defensive when my friend asked and assumed things about my process, trying to be what felt like overly hopeful. She said that when she was waiting, the process started moving faster than they had been told.... Like she was trying to get me excited about maybe only a year. It took all my emotional strength to tell her, no, it was 12-14 months when we started, and then it went to 15-18, and now it's 18-24 and could easily get to 36 months before we are matched; and furthermore, any slowdown/speedup because of new requirements will happen behind us, not in front of us! I had to give her the little mini-lecture of how RQ and others have analyzed the number of dossiers matched each month and the number going in, and how the pile keeps getting taller and taller.... So I let her know that I could not even afford to start hoping for a 12 month turn-around!

So I did ok responding to my friend, but I definitly got more worked up than I'd like. I guess I don't like to be hurried into somebody else's fantasy (my friend never got to go to China). I know I get grouchy at being "pressured" by somebody else's emotional reaction. I just hate it. I know I am too-easily affected by other's emotional waves, I am too sensitive, I know, so I have to be super-vigilant against having my own stuff confused with somebody else's stuff. It took me many years to learn this about myself! But I function better if I am aware of and protect my sensitivities. (See: The Highly Sensitive Person, etc, eg http://www.hsperson.com/pages/hsp.htm with much interesting stuff.)

Anyway, I have been reflecting on how to do a better job of protecting myself and managing other people, as it were, because having a conspicuous family, this won't go away. And I don't want to be a bitch on a regular basis. You should have seen me when I was younger! Hoo-boy! lol But I have developed a thicker skin and am more comfortable with myself in the last few years. It's one of the advantages of gaining age. :) I have NO patience with others trying to define me, or trying to speak for me, or determine how I should act or be. I've lost a few so-called "friends" while I was growing out of allowing that. Sooo At least I have the stamina to see what others are doing and react with wry humor or a level of firm politeness. I guess I will do okay; I just know there will always be work to do.

I just don't know the answer to well-meaning friends and family who pop in without being part of (and therefor rarely aware of) the long, grinding process. Yes, I'm STILL doing paperwork. Welcome to my life.