jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

The length of time between logging in adoption documents and actually being matched with a child is stretching out every month. It looks like it will be about 17 months by the time we get our dossier finished. That’s not unbearable, but it’s not what we had hoped. But there’s nothing we can do to make documents get issued by government agencies any faster, so I’m trying to maintain the Zen.

In other news: For myriad reasons it looks like a) it will just be me and Damon for Thanksgiving and b) our big vacation isn’t going to happen. Both of these things have me blue.

Damon and I haven’t been married long — just over a year. But we’ve been together for four years.

We’re really hitting that point now where our communication is becoming at least a little bit telepathic. We’re having more of those conversations. “Did you see… ?” “I did! But was the… ?” “Yes!”

A few days ago we were invited to dinner at our neighbors’ apartment. It was a lovely spread. Dinner was a pureed root soup — mostly parsnips and carrots, a bibb lettuce (my favorite) salad with a very light honey mustard dressing, and then a mushroom stroganoff. As you might hve guessed, our host was Russian. We even had a lovely important Russian beer. But before all that we had an appetizer of cod liver pate mixed with caviar on toast points. Now, I enjoy some caviar — it was the big pearly kind rather than the little dotty kind. But the cod liver was just a little… too… much. So there I was in their tiny kitchen with them. I’d just praised the cod liver, right before I decided I couldn’t eat it. What to do?

For one millisecond they both had their backs turned at the same time. All I had to do was lightly elbow Damon and that toast point was out of my hand and just gone. GONE. They turned back around and there he was with a big smile, nodding, innocent. Seriously, that toast point with cod liver pate and caviar was down his gullet in less than one breath’s time.

I just did a quick recap of the home visit, and neglected to mention a critical element.

We’ve gotten so much support from family and friends (including Friends). That’s what enables us to present ourselves as sane and happy people. I was feeling the good vibes from the many wonderful people on my Friends list on Thursday and my appreciation is big, sincere and ongoing. Thank you thank you thank you.

I wish on all of you the international adoption process, because people who love you will rush to support you, people who like you will cheer and encourage you, and total strangers will extend themselves in countless ways just because they’re touched by your goal. It’s a beautiful process and I feel so lucky and loved.

The social worker has come and gone. I’m still basking in the glow of an immaculate apartment and I’m pleased with Damon and myself for keeping it up.

I think things went well. She took in a lot more information than she gave, which was to be expected. I thought that the grand total of divorces our combined families have managed to collect would be our touchiest subject, but it turned out to be our lack of a physical support system. Which, in retrospect, makes sense. Our families are far away, and they’re not the visiting kind. I don’t anticipate that changing and told her as much. Damon and I have agreed that the way to get through this with our sanity in tact is to hew to total honesty. And that’s really comfortable. Not to mention, it’s the right thing to do. We want to approach this respectfully, even reverently.

So, anyway, I expect to see our distant families as a mark against us on the report but I also expect to get a favorable recommendation. As a matter of fact, she mentioned off-handedly to remind her if we wanted to be approved for twins. Which won’t happen, it’s very rare. But we do want to be approved, just in case our number does come up with some of the rare twins that appear. And it would be kind of amazing and beautiful anyway.

We won’t see anything from her until we turn in all of our documents. All we have left to collect for her is our letters of recommendation, which are all in the mail to us (I believe) and Damon’s employment verification, for which we need a CPA or an LPA. Which is not nearly as simple as it sounds. I won’t bore you with the details, but most accountants don’t want to write what China requires if they don’t alraedy know you. But I do our taxes, so we don’t have a CPA. So… trying to figure that out. But once we do and turn that all in we’ll get our home study report within three weeks.

Oh, and I served cheddar cheese with rye crisps (a new discovery that I LOVE) and a very healthy trail mix of unsalted nuts (hazelnut, walnut, cashew, almond), raisins, dried cranberries, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

I finally mastered using an LJ tag to link to a Friend’s blog. Tonight I am re-mastering posting a photo.

Soon I will learn the magic of the LJ cut.

This is the view from my office window.