With a Grateful Heart

This month has been pure, concentrated stress on a level I can barely comprehend.

But about a week ago, because of a speaking assignment at church, I relearned what it means to have hope. And today, while calling on every ounce of faith we could muster, we witnessed a triumph over government bureaucracy that was nothing short of miraculous.

We have plane tickets to fly home June 6. We're signing the papers on our new house June 9 (also the day dear husband starts his new position at work). We received the final court document for the adoption on May 20. Since then we've obtained a Certificate of Registration from Pasig City Hall, an annotated birth certificate from Quezon City Civil Registry, an amended birth certificate issued by the National Statistics Office, and an approved I-600 form from the American embassy.

The movers were at the house last Wednesday from 8 am to 11 pm while dear husband was in China (and while mucho birth certificate and other assorted drama was taking place). We lugged ten suitcases to the temporary apartment that night and got settled in. The movers came back Thursday to finish the job they didn't finish on Wednesday (after I took a half-day side trip Thursday am to the embassy to turn in documents). The husband got home about 1 am Friday morning; we spent Friday at the Department of Social Welfare and Development and then the US embassy again, then waited around for a passport interview that never took place.

Sunday: church; mega internet research on US IR3 visa process; internet cafe to print applications; photo place for new visa photos for the baby; paperwork bonanza
Monday: back to the US embassy to turn in appeal letter for early visa appointment; we're informed the process normally takes three months; rest of the day is spent wailing and gnashing teeth and making backup plans
Today: 6 am to 4 pm spent at Department of Foreign Affairs with some incredibly helpful people who waited and ran around and made calls and got signatures until eventually we got someone to promise us a passport by tomorrow at lunchtime. HALLELUJAH!!!!!! In the middle of this we get a call from the embassy promising a 7 am visa appointment on Thursday (an appointment we wouldn't be able to keep without the passport, so HALLELUJAH!!!!!!).

A great deal of praying took place today. We are incredibly humbled and grateful and still in shock that it looks like we'll make our Friday flight.

Tomorrow: after we pick up the appointment letter from the embassy and the passport from DFA we have to take the baby for a medical exam in preparation for the visa interview (something else we couldn't do without the passport). Then dear husband has a dentist appointment at 5 pm because he broke a crown eating duck tongue or some such thing in China.

Thursday: Visa appt. 7 am. With any luck they'll approve and stamp it the same day, and then we can go back to the apartment, pack our strewn belongings, and head to the airport at 4 am the next day.

Once we hit Utah we'll grab some sleep then pick up our van and drive to Illinois. Dear husband's fabulous family has already cleared out our storage unit (thank you x a million; we love you!) and loaded our stuff in my dad's semi trailer, which he'll be driving out when he gets another delivery in the area.

So many people have helped us make this happen. The only way I can even dream of making it right is by paying it forward, and by making sure my faith never falters again.

There's a line in one of my favorite movies, While You Were Sleeping, where Dad Callahan says something like, "You work hard, you struggle, face your trials, etc., and for one moment, everything's right, everyone's happy." Then Jack, breaking the news about wanting his own business says, "This is not that moment." Or something.

It's not just that I'm afraid to be happy about all this, even though I am a little afraid. It's not that once we get home we face making new friends, settling in, starting over. The potential there actually has me excited. It's the news we received a few hours ago: our yaya (nanny) had a great job lined up after we leave, but after a medical exam found out she has primary complex (a noncontagious tb infection of the lungs). Today her employer withdrew the job offer and she now has no way to support her family. :( Aw, man. She so does not deserve this. We're currently brainstorming ideas on how to make this right.

Someday we'll have time to take a breath and have our peaceful moment. Until then, we have hope, and gratitude, to carry us through.

Holy Guacamole!

She's ours. It's done. We have the official adoption decision in our hands, and it feels amazing.

Now there are only about sixty bazillion little pieces that have to fall into place in order for us to all fly home together June 6 (embassy form submission and approval, visa appointment and approval, medical exam, certificate of finality from the courthouse, filing with two separate civil registry offices, amended birth certificate, and passport).

After the last two years of paperwork? We can do this blindfolded, underwater, standing on our heads. As long as I don't smack somebody first.

Oh, and we bought a house in Washington, Illinois. (Always with the paperwork!) It's gorgeous and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Well, for the decorating part. The cleaning part, not so much.

*claps hands and is giddy*

Yay for the good old US of A. Our current image of perfection is a backyard barbecue on the Fourth of July, lighting sparklers with the kiddos, with Ray Charles's America the Beautiful on the iPod.

Eyes on the prize, baby.

Playing Catch-up

So. Peoria, Illinois will be our new home in just over two months. After so many months of not knowing, and another month or so of getting used to the idea, I'm finally excited. House hunting online isn't the ideal, but it has its charms.

Garage sale tomorrow. Quotes from international shippers pending. Final adoption paperwork still MIA.

Summer's here, and it is HOT. The kids are out of school until September. Ack! Thank heaven for the neighbor kids and the pool.

So before we can turn in our I-600 form to the embassy to start the visa application process, we have to have ANOTHER home study report done. Number four. We actually found out about this last month and I'm just cooling down enough to write about it. It has to be from a US-accredited agency and completed within the last six months. Can I just say, "AAAAUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!"? More physicals, more applications to fill out (16 pages this time, per parent), more letters of recommendation, another home visit, lots of photocopies, and another $500. Phooey. Luckily all we have left to do is the physicals. Meanwhile the decree could come through any day--or it could take another two months. After that:

-amended birth certificate
-Filipino passport
-physical and immigration appointment for the baby

Citizenship gets taken care of once we're home, and I have a feeling that compared to this, it will seem like a cakewalk. And then we're going to have the party to end all parties, even if it's just ourselves and some loud music and lots of junk food, since we know exactly zero people in Peoria, Illinois.

Weekend Update

So today I hear my five-year-old tell his brother: "Don't tell me what to do!"

This is definitely a kid who likes to blaze his own trail. Should I be worried?

I think maybe I should be worried.

Adoption News:

We went to the US Embassy Wednesday to file our I-600 form, declaring our adoptive daughter as a dependent. We were hoping they'd accept it for preapproval, even without the Adoption Decree in hand. No luck. The guy gave us a phone number for an immigration specialist at the embassy, told us to make an appointment if we needed more info.

We needed more info. We retrieved our cell phones (they're not allowed inside), went outdoors, and called the number. The woman asked a ton of questions: what documents did we have, what agency did we use, etc. etc. Finally she tells us to come back inside and she'll meet with us. Long story short, she took our fingerprints and documents and told us she'd get the ball rolling while we wait for the Decree. We were petrified that the immigration end of things could potentially take months, but we learned that after we hand in the Decree the approval could be a matter of a few short weeks. So the day was not wasted.

We attended our second court hearing on Thursday. We were last on the docket and had settled in to wait out all the other cases, but the judge sent us straight to the stenographer, who took the statement of the court social worker. We were home by 10 am. The bad news: they set another hearing date for March 27, where the prosecutor would be given a chance to present any appeals before the decision was handed down. After that, it would take 30 to 90 days for the Decree to be issued. Yikes. Our plans to be home by June 1 flew right out the window.

Luckily our attorney is made of awesome. We paid extra for her to rush her pending submission of the final court documents; paid the stenographer extra to rush the transcripts; paid a courier to hand-deliver all pertinent documents to wherever they're supposed to go, and were able to score a revised court date of March 13. Yet another sign that Someone's looking out for us and/or wants us home. Now if we can get the Decree in 30 days instead of 90, we'll be happy campers.

The hard lesson we've learned in all this is not to take no for an answer. Or rather to ask the question, "What else can we try?" I've been amazed that more often than not, when you push just enough without actually being pushy, you quite often get results. This does not come naturally to me, at all. At least it didn't used to. Not sure yet if this is a skill I'm proud of.

We're nearly there. Praise the Lord, we're nearly there.

Of Lights and Tunnels

Our day in court was...a miracle.

1) The judge was friendly and in good humor. 2) The prosecutor had some connection to our lawyer's husband through his family in the Province. 3) We were the first case of the day. 4) The judge said something about adoption being a great thing and not wanting to stand in the way of adoptive parents and their child. 5) He allowed us to give testimony and be cross-examined in front of the court stenographer in a separate room. We went in that morning fearing that neither of us would be allowed to testify due to time constraints, that we'd have to wait several weeks for another hearing for Bryce's testimony, and several weeks after that for mine.

The court social worker will give her statement Feb. 21. Then it's a matter of waiting for the court to hand down the adoption decree, probably sometime in April.

Boo-yah!

Of course we still have to work with immigration and the US Embassy to get all the travel papers in place, but it finally feels like there's an end in sight.

Say it with me: Boo-yah!

If all goes according to plan, we'll be on our way home June 1.

Now that I'm not so preoccupied with all the what ifs, I feel like reading books again, like writing again. I grabbed my tattered copy of One Man's Meat to ease myself back into the reading scene with a few of E.B. White's incredible essays.

Here's my (his) gem of the day:

"The intellectual who simply says 'I am a writer,' and forthwith closets himself with a sharp pencil and a dull Muse, may well turn out to be no artist at all but merely an ambitious and perhaps misguided person. I think the best writing is often done by persons who are snatching the time from something else--from an occupation, or from a profession, or from a jail term--something that is either burning them up, as religion, or love, or politics, or that is boring them to tears, as prison, or a brokerage house, or an advertising firm. A great violinist must begin fairly early in life to play the violin; but I think a literary artist has a better chance of producing something great if he spends the first forty years of his life doing something else--grinding a lens or surveying a wilderness."

Putting mechanics aside, as well as the fact that great writing is often hard-won and develops only after years of mediocre writing (in other words, you have to work at it), I kind of agree with him. And not just because it's likely I won't be published before I turn 40. :) I like the idea of perspective, of bringing decades of life to the table and digging deep to put the relevant pieces of that life down on the stark, empty page.

At 20 I thought I was pretty good at the writing thing. At 30 I thought I had it down cold. Only now, halfway to 40, have I taken to heart that humbling truth that the more I learn, the less I know.

But I also feel a comfort with my own voice, both as a person and as a writer, that I've never known before. Dare I call it maturity? It's a knowlege of what drives me, of what I feel passionate about. It's a deeper understanding of pain and joy. It's a willingness to place less importance on the opinions of others, and an ability to discern--and take to heart--the voices that truly matter.

My Brain Is Full

You ever get that weight that settles down around you, like something significant is about to happen? It's like sitting poised on a sled at the top of an icy hill. It's like someone reaching toward you with a quilt in her arms--and not knowing if she's going to cradle you or smother you.

Our adoption hearing is three days away. I guess in this case we know something significant's about to happen.

We'll most likely have a few more hearings after this one, but there's also a chance the judge will have mercy and get things over quickly. How soon we move back home hinges on this court date. It feels like we've spent our whole lives leading up to this one point in time. I'm just hoping that Thursday will feel like a step forward, after standing still for so long.

It's not just the hearing on my mind this week. My mom's health is not good. Worse than usual, actually. I hate being so far away and unable to help.

My father-in-law got a concussion working in the yard this weekend. Apparently he went inside after and went to sleep, then later woke up with double vision and drove himself to the ER without alerting his wife or any of his kids. On the way home from the hospital he went to the store. Just another typical day in the Hayes family.

My younger son told me the other day I'm not allowed to call him "Baby" anymore. Sheesh. Kick a girl while she's down, why don't you?

President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away Sunday evening. He was an amazing man. His wit and wisdom deeply impacted my spiritual growth, just as his life and service touched millions across the globe. He will be missed.

And just to keep things interesting: my dad and his wife are coming to the Philippines next week. (This is actually a good thing. Just...Dad? While you're here? I'm 35. I always carry emergency money and lock my doors at night. Come. Relax. Have fun. Enough said.)

Change is in the wind.

And since I'm all about the metaphors and the purple prose: I'm hoping as I sit here at the top of this hill that my sled is the kind with runners and a way to steer, and plenty of room for a passenger. Forget the goofy plastic disk with the flimsy yellow handles. Ditto on the overstuffed inner tube with the poky metal arm that jabs you in the butt; those things toss you off at the first hint of trouble. And don't get me started on the drawbacks of cafeteria trays...

Okay, now I'm just missing the cold weather and getting all maudlin about childhood snow days.

Shutting up.

The Reset Button

I figured I'd better write something to keep my average above one post per month.

Sigh. I had such great plans for the New Year. Yet here I am mid-month, all those good intentions nothing more than a list I made and stuck in a drawer somewhere.

I blame it on that huge red Reset Button (which was pushed against my will, I might add). You know the one where life throws huge, uncomfortable changes at you, new problems and plot twists to throw you off your game, and you adjust, realign, make peace with How Things Are Now, and even manage to make wonderful new friends, amazing friends, and then THEY MOVE AWAY. To CHINA.

I feel like I'm eleven years old, looking out the back window of the car as we drive away from my childhood home to start a new life somewhere else. It STINKS.

Now that I've had my tantrum...

Yes, our most wonderful friends the Openshaws have moved to China. We went to Singapore together, shared Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, went to movies together and played goofy board games and generally commisserated about life here in this weird, weird place. Now we're left behind in the Philippines waiting for the glacially slow adoption process to be finalized before we can figure out where to go from here, and when. The lawyer says plan for June or July. We were hoping for April. And some dark, ominous murmur deep in my gut says it will never be over.

So I blame my lack of productivity on dragging my shredded resolve back together one more time, hitting Reset and gearing up for this final stretch of our time overseas. I have to keep reminding myself that there are lots of good things about being here, that ultimately we're happy, we're blessed, we have our little girl already and are just waiting for it to be official.

Plus there are things to look forward to: the court hearing at the end of January, my dad's visit in February, and a trip to China in March. And if any more Reset Buttons rear their ugly heads in the meantime, I'm slowly learning that instead of reaching for the Self-Destruct I can grab the controls and pull up, dang it, pull up, right out of that tailspin and into the great beyond.

A Matter of Perspective

If all goes well, our adoption petition will go to the courts this week. It's been a long road, with its share of setbacks and heartache. But the joy of having our daughter with us throughout the process has made it worth every moment. We've learned a lot. We're stronger and hopefully wiser than when we started. We've nearly cleared that final hurdle, though a court date could still be several months away.

And now we wonder what the future holds. Will love and honesty be enough? What questions will she ask when she's older? What issues will she face as an adopted child? How will we handle those who are curious, or prejudiced, or misinformed?

Already we've had plenty of practice with the well-meaning but misguided, "Isn't she a lucky girl?"

That's an easy one. We let them know that we're the lucky ones. And we'll let our daughter know it too, every single day.

Sittin', Waitin', Wishin'

Some days I wonder if I will spend my entire life waiting. Waiting in traffic, waiting in line, waiting for the adoption to come through, waiting to know which US city we'll be moving to (and when), waiting for agent news, waiting for Son #2 to outgrow his whiny phase, waiting for the motivation to exercise and the inspiration to write more and the courage to live without doubt.

Oh, and while I'm wishing for impossible things, how about a little world peace?

Do we ever stop looking forward to the Next Big Thing? Even as kids we count down the hours to birthdays, holidays, school ending, school beginning, first date, first car, first kiss. I have to keep reminding myself (to borrow words from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) that "this life is more than just a read through." That I should value the moment, embrace the here and now.

So, some things to be grateful for:

Honest lawyers. We found an excellent attorney to help us through the next stage of the adoption. She's a Harvard Law grad and teaches at University of the Philippines. She helped draft the domestic adoption laws currently on the books. She has a kind face and is charging us an extremely reasonable flat fee for the entire process, including the four court hearings in our immediate future. No hourly billing. No conference table the size of a football field. And she says we could be done in 7 or 8 months. Hallelujah!

Amazingly supportive friends. The kind that pick your kids up from school when you're stuck in nightmare traffic with patchy cell phone reception.

Pepsi. With ice.


Edited to add that one look at the date of my post gave me a whole lot of perspective in a hurry. Of course we all remember where we were, what we were doing six years ago when we heard the horrific news. In memory of those who died, and those whose suffering endures.

Million Dollar Baby

Some days we just want to hop on a plane and go home. Then we sweep this little imp into our arms, cover her with kisses, and remind ourselves that it's all worth it.

Three-year residency requirement? Check.

Six months of foster care completed? Check.

Adoption papers filed? Check.

Wheels of bureaucracy in motion? Uh...no.

Lawyers in Leopard Shorts

So we're in the middle of collecting paperwork for the adoption application. Weirdness abounds. Yesterday we had physicals. The measuring bar on the scale was too short to measure Bryce's height. Have I mentioned that Filipinos are not tall? I'm right at home here height-wise, but Bryce is off the charts. Everyone in the office stopped to stare and giggle. Poor Bryce.

Today we chatted about Charlotte Church and Princess Di and secret US laser bombs with a retired Filipino military officer-turned lawyer/notary who lounged at his desk wearing leopard-print shorts and a tye-dyed mumu. His wife (also a lawyer/notary) bustled around notarizing things, hovering to make sure her assistant used the typewriter correctly (haven't seen one of those for a while!), and generally being helpful: "sit there," "sit here," "sit there," "sign here," "everything is above board here, oh yes, all above board." Color me reassured.

I also got fingerprinted for a background check, sat around at the bank for half an hour to do wire transfers, bought a playpen, picked up pictures, dropped off and picked up more pictures, signed the kids up for school, found an adoption lawyer (of the tye-dye-free variety), filled out forms, and even found time for a hair appointment this afternoon to hide all the gray hair I'm getting.