A Thanksgiving filled with gratitude and lonliness

There are so many things to be thankful for in my life; my husband, my friends and family, a stable home, but still the loneliness is overwhelming.  I miss by kids terribly.  I know I'm not alone on this journey and know so many have travelled here before me but it's still the loneliest road in the world.

You think at night and pretend you're telling off the judge.  Oh boy the things I said I said ! The contempt you feel for a people distraught with pride and prejudice towards Adopting Parents. Why would anyone hurt a child like this?  Why would any caring country or individual make a family suffer? 

You ask these questions over and over. But on Thanksgiving Day I was still thankful.  Thankful for the wonderful friends and family I had around me. A support system that no country could take away no matter what.

So many Thanksgivings have passed.  Most empty, with no noise of children fighting over the hors d'oeuvres, or telling you that they want snacks instead of turkey.   But I am hoping and praying that soon that will end.  That the noise of toddlers and bickering siblings fills my house like the turkey and dressings fill our table.

This Thanksgiving I am very thankful.  Thankful for the opportunity to love two boys and teach them what this holiday is all about.  Thankful that God gives me the ability to help others and mostly the balance to go ahead and do it as well.  

To have a huge dinner on Thanksgiving and not know what it means to be there is lonely. To show contempt towards others, blood or water; breeds this loneliness. To not understand that peace within ourselves comes from giving Peace to others.  To know that in helping others, we help ourselves in so many ways.  To know that sometimes honesty is in what we do, not in what we say. 

Thanksgiving comes every year, but the gratitude that we show must be shown everyday.  I am still thankful for every heartbreaking moment of wait...because without the wait, I may not appreciate the gift I am receiving.  Every thing worth having has its sacrifice, but the gift that you're receiving is worth so much more than the price.

“Whatever our individual troubles and challenges may be, it’s important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level. We need to literally “count our blessings,” give thanks for them, allow ourselves to enjoy them, and relish the experience of prosperity we already have.” — Shakti Gawain

Happy Thanksgiving.  and happy monthday to Jack and Noah who are 23 months old today !

DHL and I have an ongoing affair.........

Monday Nov 15, 2010 - I gather all the completed and finalized apostilled documents that I received - all the redo docs that is - and went off to another visit to DHL. The wonderful people at POSTNET, where I send all my DHL from, keep asking when the boys are coming.  HA ! I wish I knew that one !
Olga sends emails asking " Where are the documents ?!".... Do they understand that here in America we don't have one person in an office with a stamp that does all this stuff?  I think two weeks to redo 13 documents with apostilles and all is pretty damn good ! Especially since I was in Disney one of those weeks. (Don't worry, I had already sent everything out before I left.).  The BEST gift we could have received was our updated 171H in the mail ! YEAH !!  Just in the nick of time.  And it gets better; apparently when they corrected our mispelled name on the form, they extended the expiration to 8/28/2011 (instead of the 02/28/2011).  Not sure if it was a typo or what, but I emailed NBC.ADOPTIONS, who helps with all the USCIS stuff, and they said "If the office changed it, in this case Newark, then we cannot chage it back and the extension is valid."    OK- NO arguement here !! As long as I know its ok then I will not argue. Its about time a bureaocrat did something right for us this time !!

So now I wait. It cracks me up how they beg and plead for you to send the paperwork and then the courts take their sweet old time in giving a court date !  I PRAY that we get to court before Dec 25, even if Christmas day is spent with the ridiculous judge !

Just to cover my A%^ though, I am doing another set of medicals.  The ones in Russia Expire Dec 1 and I do not want to be caught with my pants down ! They are on their way to the ABMS as we speak.
Fingers crossed that all goes well from here and we get our boys really soon.

Thank you to all the supportive parents that have helped us through this, we are rounding third and on our way home !

A much needed vacation.......

After the initial excitement and tears of happiness for a court date, they were quickly shut down by Russia requesting more re-do documents.  So much for "unprecedented" !  The list came as long as my arm and some of the documents were already in Russia 2 times.... now I was angry. Why were these documents being lost? Where are they? Don't they know how much time and money we spend on these things. 
I have to say, I am not happy with the overall follow up of the Russian side of this adoption. Either they are over worked or unorganized; either way, my children and I pay the ultimate price both emotionally and financially.
We were 2 days away from a much needed trip to Disney. We had planned this over a year ago with the hopes that we would have our children home and take them to Disney for Halloween; well that wasn't happening.  So I did what paperwork I could from here before we left for Florida and I packed up my laptop, printer and entire dossier of paperwork to take with me to Orlando.  What a vacation huh??!!

Meanwhile the clock ticks and my children wait.  So we spend the week in Disney, documents come and go while we are away. We call the FBI to check on our fingerprints which were not due to arrive until the second week of December....NO, That cannot happen.  I put Joe on this one.  He spoke very nicely to the woman Julie from the FBI and asked if it were possible to extend a "professional courtesy" to him as a Sheriff Officer and get our prints in by Nov 5.   We knew we were asking a lot but we prayed. Sure enough, Julie got right on it the very NEXT day and our new FBI prints were waiting in the mail !! WHEW !!

Then there was the issue with Immigration. We needed updated print for INS and a new 171H form. After futile attempts with NBC Adoptions and INS, we went to see Congressman LoBiondo.  His aide, Marie Abbott got on it and kept in contact with us while on our way down to Florida.  We were in Jacksonville FL on our pit stop and my phone rang; it was Marie Abbott telling us she got us an appointment with INS to get fingerprinted on the day we get back ! Nov 8 !! YEAH MARIE AND CONGRESSMAN LOBIONDO !!

So far the stars were aligning and I was tired and beat......on to Disney to imagine our cares away and pretend our boys were with us to celebrate Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

We came home Saturday Nov 6 and I quickly organized all the documents that were waiting for us and scanned them into the computer, waiting for Russia to OK them before we send them.  They move slowly sometimes !  Don't they know how damn important this is !!

Monday Nov 8th, 8am we get into the car to drive to NE Philadelphia for INS fingerprinting , again.  I remember 18 months ago receiving our 171H in the mail and thinking to myself "We will never have to redo these fingerprints, we have 18 long months!" HA ! Boy was I wrong ! Little did I know what entering into Ekat was !
So we stroll into INS and there is NO ONE waiting there. I mean the place is EMPTY except for the 5 employees.  We stroll right up to the counter and I have my INS appointment sheet that say NOV 24 900am on them and my letter from Congressman LoBiondo saying that I can come anytime and any day ! I was ready.   I saw good morning and prepare to give the man the paperwork, our passports and the letter and he says" I don't need that, I don't even look at the dates. "   WHAT !!!!! REALLLY !!!!
Do YOU KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH TO GET THIS DATE !!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
This was really a charlie brown moment.  I looked at him and said " NO, you WILL look at this paper, because I want to feel that all those tears and stress were NOT in vain !!" 
He laughed and literally, 15 minutes later, we were fingerprinted and out of INS. !  AHHHHHHHHH!
and AHHHHHHHHHHHH again.

So, Again, more documents will make their way to Russia.  Another medical will have to be done again in 2 weeks, and here we wait. I am not happy, this is not how it should be.  We are in order, our papers were perfect and this is when I start to get really mad at the agency that I am paying a lot of money to help me get my boys home !
Dec 26, 2010 is their 2nd Birthday. They spent their 1st Birthday without MaMa and PaPa, they WILL NOT spend the 2nd without us ! I am determined !

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown