Dear Sienna Elyse,
On February 8th, I sent in my adoption application to the Diocese of the City I’m in right now. Last week, March 13th, I received my application approval. We’re moving forward with the home study and when that is complete, I will be put on a waiting list for someone to pick me to be your mother. Other than moving into the right house to have you and getting a better car to drive you around in, this is the biggest step forward. The first part of this process I can truly celebrate. The home study is something I can’t really fail…unless I commit a horrible crime or come down with a fatal decease. Good news! Neither of those are likely to happen! Ha.
Last year, at the end of the year, Russia decided they would no longer allow U.S. citizens to adopt Russian orphans. It’s quite heartbreaking because they only put the law into place in retaliation for another law the U.S. put into place, and the ones who will have to pay for it will be children. Hundreds of thousands of them. Just another example of the selfishness of grown-ups whose parents didn’t raise them right. I’d like to hope that you will grow up to never seek petty vengeance at the cost of those who are helpless and defenseless. If you have to seek vengeance, do it the right way, OK? You can’t really tell, but that’s a joke.
Anyway, back in December, the Russia ordeal had made me pretty sad as it was one of my only options as a country that accepted single mothers and met my other criteria. I was pretty upset, but of course, started looking everywhere else for what my other options might be. That’s when I stumbled on the Catholic church. They had an option for domestic adoption, but I couldn’t see any other information other than a name and number to call. So I was clueless about it. Of course, I have not been very keen on domestic adoption from the beginning. The horror stories of birth mothers changing their minds and trying to take babies back from families that have become their parents and family, have frightened me more than I can say. But I called the number and set up an appointment to meet with the program manager. When I went in, she told me that their program had been closed for some time, but had just reopened right about the time the Russian adoption program had closed. Then, she went on to tell me that they were doing a re-vamp of their systems and that the fees for the process would be going up soon, so if I wanted to take advantage of the lower prices, I’d have to apply pretty quickly.
To begin with, the fees were about a fourth of what the Russian adoption fees were. I kept asking her to confirm the numbers I was seeing in the papers she had given me because I couldn’t believe it. Not that fees make any difference when it comes to you—if I were to give birth to you myself, I’d have to pay a massive hospital bill and no one ever thinks twice about that! But it did mean I would need much less time to save up. The fact that the program opened up just when I needed to find something, and at a time that the fees were lower than they would be was all quite serendipitous. Or so I’d like to think. The program would change its rates by February 18th; I got my application in 10 days ahead of that deadline. Which, of course, was no walk in the park. It took a lot of work and many hours going over the information, completing the profile and putting together all the little tidbits that were necessary in order for me to be able to submit it. I saw various doctors to get their sign off on my health, I also got fingerprinted a couple times…and a had lady there insist that it needed to be done electronically and that if the hard copy printing didn’t work for me, I’d have to pay to get it done again. Of course, the fee to be fingerprinted was all of $10, so I’m still unsure what the fuss was all about! Oh, and the hard copy prints worked just fine.
All of that happened in about a month and then I was left waiting for nearly a month. I knew they would contact me in early March, but each day went by and I would go home thinking that letter would be in the mail and it wouldn’t be there! I even emailed the program manager and she assured me I would be getting a “notification” soon. Ugh, “notification” could mean anything!! So, naturally, it was the one day I went home not expecting anything that I got it in just a regular size letter envelope. There were no fireworks or bright lights, no music started to play or people gather to applaud, no Champagne bottles were popped or teary eyed family members there to embrace me. I walked quietly into the house and read the first paragraph without actually breathing. It took three and a half lifetimes, each word taking forever to process and understand, but likely three and a half seconds. And then I screamed and scared the dog half way across the living room. She promptly went to her bed and sat there staring at me, waiting to see what else I would do. Then I remembered that just getting an application approval didn’t mean you’d be in my arms the next day, there was a whole lot more to go, so I calmed down. But I still took a picture of the paragraph that said I was approved and texted it to all my siblings. All six of them! Ha. My younger brother called and everyone else sent a text saying something awesome. Then, I called my mom and she did a bit of screaming for joy, too. Of course, talking to my mother, I got a little teary eyed and, as always, imagined you with me. By the way, when I imagine you being with me, I don’t see your face or anything, but you’re always the most perfect thing in the whole world. I try to imagine you misbehaving a little sometimes, because I figure that’s got to happen (otherwise, you’d be an alien or an other-worldly creature and I’m not sure I’m ready to handle that!). If I expect you to be perfect and you turn out to be human, then it would put too much pressure on you to be perfect all the time. Thus, imagining you being imperfect from time to time – what doesn’t change is how much I love you!
Now, I’ve got another waiting game. The program manager is going to get in touch with me about starting the home study, and, of course, it’s a week later and I haven’t heard anything and I’m all sick inside wondering what’s happening. And that’s when I remember that she said it would take at least two months before she would be able to do my home study. Haha. Yeah, I have to remind myself to calm down sometimes.
All that to say, I’m on my way! You will be born at the right time, to the right person so you can have the right mother and family. People like to say that “everything happens for a reason.” Honestly, I don’t really believe that (I couldn’t say that the tsunami that killed thousands of people “happened for a reason”; or the tornado that killed half a family and left the other half destitute is not really a “happened for a reason” moment). But I do believe that there are some important things in our lives that happen for a reason. And I’d like to think that all of these things happening in my life right now, are for a reason – you.
I love you,
Mom.
