privacy and a rant and advice, please

So, most of you have heard the recent uproar about a family who was in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, and had their adoption terminated by the Ethiopian government because of their blog.

They had posted photos of their referred child (which is against Ethiopian law, as I now know) and were doing extensive fundraising, including lots of negative description of the conditions of orphans in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government took the position that if they had to do all this fundraising, they obviously could not afford the adoption. Very sad for the family, who did not know that their blog could possibly cost them their adoption.

{begin rant - feel free to skip} Frankly, I can kind of see the Ethiopians' point on this. I am not a big fan of public fundraising for an adoption - call me cranky, but I say if you can't afford it or finance it yourself (or with your family), you might want to wait until you can. Please note I'm just talking about PUBLIC fundraising. (Full disclosure: my mom has helped me financially with the travel expenses of my adoption - and I cannot begin to tell you how much that helps. It is HUGE. She gave me this as a gift, though, and I wouldn't have asked her for it. Gifts are great!) I've never heard of anyone doing a public fundraiser for a biological child. And I think SOME the big public fundraising efforts feed into the whole "rescue" thing which I find so distasteful. Yes, the child needs a home, but when the adopting family treats the adoption as a rescue mission, it negates all the losses that the child experiences, and sets up a weird dynamic - intentional or not - that the adopted child should now be grateful to his/her parents. I don't think any child deserves that. {end rant, stepping away from the soapbox}

ANYWAY, here's the thing - I'm now kind of nervous about this blog. Even though I've taken great care to keep it anonymous, I'm worried about the Ethiopian position on blogs, and I'm worried that I'm exposing myself (and the Sprout) here.

Should I password protect my blog? Make it invitation only?

Oh great blogger society, tell me what to do. (that is if you don't already hate me for my position about adoption fundraising)

Nice, Nice, CRAZY

Nice #1 OK, y’all are so nice!! Thank you so much for the encouraging words and lovely comments on my last post, and for not making me feel like a whiney spoiled brat stamping her petulant foot, which I kind of suspect I am.

Nice #2 My fabulous sister is hosting a small baby shower for me this weekend. My mom is coming into town and we’re having some family members get together at my sister’s house for a shower. She planned the whole thing, sent out hand-made invitations, and everything. SUPER nice.

Crazy: I think the shower tomorrow makes me extra freaked out about not having a referral. I realized last night that I feel GUILTY attending a baby shower for me and not having a referral. Guilty!!!

Part of me feels like it’s my responsibility and I've screwed it up by not getting it done in time. I'm verging on full-on crazy.

blowing deadlines

I have created a monster of expectation.

Since I started this whole adoption process in May of 2006, I’ve been telling myself that I’ll have my baby home by Christmas of 2007.

As the process rolled on, and it became clear that I couldn’t do my homestudy until after I moved to my new casa in January, I shifted that expectation to one that I thought was totally realistic and reasonable: I wouldn’t have Sprout home by Christmas, but I would absolutely know who she was.

So, ever since late last year, I have been telling myself – and others – that I would certainly have a referral by Christmas this year.

And here I am, on December 19^th, with no referral. And hope is fading.

I never even thought about what I would do if I didn’t have a referral by Christmas. And I don’t know why this deadline feels so important. Maybe it was my (obviously futile) attempt to exert some control or predictability over the process.

But now I have to face the reality that I will mostly likely NOT be getting a referral by Christmas. And that just depresses the hell out of me.

How To...

I subscribe to a feed from wikiHow, which everyday gives me a link to an article about how to do something.

Most of these are things I don't really want or need to do...

Recent How-To's of the Day include:

How To Fold a Plastic Bag
How To Break A Beer Bottle With Your Bare Hands
and
How To Recycle Your Socks

So you can see why I kind of ignore this feed.

BUT! Today, I see something actually valuable and totally applicable to my life. And totally applicable to the lives of many of the other adopting parents out there:

How To Be Patient!!!

Link through and read all about it.

World AIDS Day

December 1 is World AIDS Day.

According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

Around 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations.

There are many things you can do.

One of the easiest is to pop on over to (Product)Red and buy something. Who doesn't love shopping for a cause?

NaBloPoMo NO

Well, as Haze so eloquently put it: I'm toast.

Out of the NaBloPoMo running, dammit. Just have not been feeling well, and didn't have the energy to blog (much less go to work) the past couple of days. Sorry to disappoint. This also means I am WAY behind on all of *your* blogs - I feel bad that I'm not keeping up, but when I feel better, I'll try to get up to speed. :-(

(yeah, i considered just posting more photos of dirt, but just couldn't do that to you.)

But now that the pressure's off, I'm sure there will be nothing but pure genius showing up here. Riiiiiiight.

Whatev

Today I overheard a hip 20-something say the following sentence to her friend:

"Whatev."

She could not be bothered to actually finish the word. )I thought the "whatever" response so popular nowadays perfectly demonstrated the general apathy of the speaker. But know I know it's possible to be even more apathetic.)

Man, I feel like an old codger.

still in it to win it

It's day TWO and I’m already cranky about NaBloPoMo. I’m wanting to write a letter to the editor explaining myself. Instead I will just say this: internet connectivity failure = complete excuse for not posting.

I live in a charming little neighborborhood. Which I like a lot. And the people? Super nice.

However, the infrastructure is, well, OLD. And sometimes doesn’t work – power outages are annoyingly common, and I always know they happened, even if I wasn’t home, because I have to redo ALL the settings on my irrigation system, reset the timer on my front light, reset the oven clock, reset the microwave clock, reset the Bose CD player/clock radio, and about 9 million other stupid devices.

Yeeesh. And now, to add to the annoyance, when the power goes out (and therefore my router and cable modem are No Workez Pas for some period of time even after the power comes back on), I cannot fulfill my broadly announced commitment to post every damn day. Especially when I am already in my pajamas and NOT going to be driving around with laptop looking for somebody's unsecured WiFi to heist.

OK, so there it is. I am back-dating this post to last night, when I TRIED to get online to post but could not, and hereby declaring that I am STILL IN the NaBloPoMo running.

Haruphm.

I hate "Gotcha Day"

The adoption world is full of language that is either strained or mawkish, or just plain ol' inappropriate.

Take, for example, "Gotcha Day". This is the phrase many adoptive families use for the day they first had custody of their newly-adopted child. To me, it reeks of entitlement / possession / acquisition and lots of other slightly icky sentiments, none of which acknowledge the profound experience of the child.

I can see having a "gotcha day" for the new sofa, but for a CHILD?!?! Cree. Pee.

For a far more eloquent discussion about the use of the phrase "Gotcha Day", please see Paula's excellent post on the topic.

I plan on using something - anything - else. Adoption Day? Family Day? Something else I haven't thought of Day?

What do you all use to refer to that day?

13/80

Today marks 13 weeks of waiting. Or 80, depending on how you count it.

My dossier has been in Addis for 13 weeks, and is somewhere in the hands of the people who will pick Sprout. (sigh)

I know I should not complain - some people wait YEARS for their referrals (and I know people adopting from China are waiting an especially long time).

The average wait for a referral (with my agency) is about 22 weeks from the date the dossier gets to Addis Ababa. So there is no way that I'm even close.

But, seeing as I started this whole process over a year and a half ago, my total wait is about 80 weeks. And I am starting to get impatient.

I'm not impatient because it's taking too long (I do trust that it's going to take as long as it should). I'm impatient because I want to know who Sprout is!!!

I want to have a real live little person upon whom to focus all this excitement and preparation and anticipation. It's hard to have so much free-floating energy and emotion, with nowhere for it to land...

I am not good with stress

OK, so the surprise CT scan is done, and it is a relief to know it’s on its way to my doctor.

I'm slightly embarrassed to report, however, that I pretty much had a meltdown in the hospital this morning.

Got there at the appointment time to find that yes, I was on their books as a result of my doctor’s call but no, there was no order from the doctor to have the CT scan done. No written order, no scan. I tried arguing that my doctor obviously wanted me to have the scan because she called over to set up the appointment. Which they acknowledged. But they said that the doctor must also fax over a written order. Which they didn’t have. Or couldn’t find.

So, they paged my doctor, who was unavailable, but talked to Dr. W., who is the official doctor on call for that group this weekend. Dr. W., in an act which truly defines crappy customer service reported that since I was Dr. K’s patient, and not her own patient, she would not fax over the order. Nor would she look at my file so she could independently determine that I needed the scan and order it. When I heard that I was apoplectic.

What the hell is the point of having a GROUP doctor on call if she will only service her own patients??!!?!? What the hell does ON CALL mean if you just say "no thanks, I pass" when you are called??

When the person at the hospital told me that they would not do the scan, I lost it.

I explained, through sobby tears, that I was leaving *tomorrow* for a business trip and had to get the test done today, Saturday. The whole reason I had driven all the way to their hospital is that the hospital in the county where I live could not do this on a Saturday.

I wasn't angry or yelling, just kind of pathetically begging -- I'd been fasting since I woke up (no food, no water), waiting for hours while you all try to find the orders, and now you are telling me I have to just go home, even though YOU KNOW my doctor ordered the test??

It was really crazy. I knew if I didn't get the scan, I knew I'd spend the whole trip obsessing about whether I was going to die from lung cancer. I stepped outside to try to pull myself together and when I came back I suggested that they call my other doctor – who wasn’t the one who ordered the test, but who knew the situation. So they paged and called Dr. N.

Dr. N. wasn't responding to the page and I was determined to sit there until they had mercy on me. Finally, the gal behind the desk suggested that I go down to the emergency room, have a doctor see me there, and (hopefully) write up an order for a CT scan.

I was so over trying to explain how ludicrous that was - a total waste of the ER staff’s time, my money, my insurance company’s money, my time, etc. So I just trudged down there, and had to talk to 4 people to make someone understand that no, I didn’t have an emergency, nor did I need treatment – I just needed an order.

I was still sitting in the Triage Nurse’s office when a call came from the Radiology department – FINALLY, something good happened! Dr. N. (bless her heart!) had answered the page and agreed to write the order. How nice was that??? Amazingly nice, I tell you. Restored my faith in doctors, which had seriously eroded in the previous hours.

At that point I burst into tears AGAIN. And I’m telling you, I don’t really cry. I cry like, maybe 2 times a MONTH. But today was all about the waterworks. I think this time, I was just relieved that I could finally be allowed to do the damn scan.

Of course, it is Saturday, and Dr. N. was home with her family, with no fax machine. She tried a couple of times to email a scanned order, but it didn’t work, so she actually went to Kinko’s and faxed it in. This all took about another hour.

So finally, they let me in to take the test. The tech was super nice, but had to stab me FOUR times in different places to get a vein for the IV, which was a bit of a drag. At this point, I was just trying to stay calm while he just kept jabbing around for a vein. I must have looked a little whacked, through, because he kept looking at me with a worried expression and asking "you alright?" every 2 minutes. He had to wrap my arm in a hot blanket to get a vein to show up.

Finally he got it, shot me up with the toxic sludge and ran me through the CT scanner. That part took all of 8 minutes. I kid you not.

Now I’m home, listening to the painters banging around in my house while I sit outside on the back porch thanking God that my little jaunt to the hospital is over.

I’ll keep y’all posted on the results, but it’s gonna be a few days. :-(

Day of Action for the Jena 6

Tomorrow, Thursday Sept 20th, is a National Day of Action for the Jena 6.

What's it all about? See this video for the story (warning - it's pretty shocking).



Thousands of people are descending upon Jena, LA. Many many more are participating in local protests. I'll be on the road, on my way to a short vacation, but I'll be wearing my "Free the Jena 6" shirt.

If you want to participate, please do! Sign the petition.

Anti-Racist Parent

Last weekend, I attended a full-day adoption workshop on Attachment. It was pretty good - I learned a lot. There was also a decent amount of time spent discussing the issue of race (all the prospective parents in the workshop were adopting internationally - most from Guatemala, and one very cool couple adopting from Ethiopia).

Once of the things I think it really hard for us white folks to give up on is the idea that color-blindedness is the goal. I'm starting to understand that this attitude, although (perhaps?) worthy goal for the society as a whole, would do a grave disservice to a child of color growing up today.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we are far beyond incidents like the Jena 6, but there is of course more subtle racism here. The only bad thing about that is that it's easy for people to think there isn't racism at all anymore.

Race matters. White privilege exists. And pretending that this isn't true means that my child goes out in the world unprepared and handicapped.

I know that adopting a child from Ethiopia means the *I* have to change - I need to frame it up in my mind not that my *child* is of another race, but that I am part of a multi-cultural and multi-racial family.

And with that (in my opinion) comes an obligation to advocate against racism. So, although it feels awkward and weird - especially when trying to articulate this to folks who are not sure racism still exists - I believe it's important for me to put myself out there and advocate.

Luckily, I'm not alone! (Amen to that.)

I got a reminder of that this morning: I subscribe to a great blog called Anti-Racist Parent, and they've just posted a great resource - an 11 page E-Book "How to Be an Anti-Racist Parent". (If you are interested, you can download it here.)

outrage *updated*

** Here is a BBC story on the Jena Six. Finally some news coverage! **

Picture the scene:

Deep in the South - Jena, Louisiana.

The day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest.

The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."¹

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

When did this happen?

1959? 1963? 1970?


Nope - 2007!!

That's right, this is happening NOW.

Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. Later this month, he will be sentenced to up to 22 years in prison for a school fight.

I am outraged, and I hope you are too. Sign the Jena 6 petition to express your outrage, and (I hope) help to free these 6 kids.

[Thanks to Haze and Tami for bringing this to my attention.]

** Updated to add this link to a site where you can buy a
"Free the Jena 6" T-shirt - support the cause! **

the things people say, part 2 [updated]

So yesterday I told you my quote of the day from day one of the seminar.

Quote of the day from day 2:

"I'm sorry, but I have to pumpkin. Gotta be in another meeting in 10 minutes."

The guy actually said, to a room full of grown-ups, that he had to PUMPKIN.

Pumpkin, as a verb. [updated to clarify: meaning to leave with some urgency, before one turns into a pumpkin. (yeah, i know, quite a stretch!)]

I sat there with my jaw dropped for a good 5 minutes after he left.

blah blah

Have been heads-down yesterday and today at a seminar. The topic was Advanced Venture Capital, the "Advanced" part of which I have decided refers almost entirely to the jargon level.

Quote of the day for yesterday:
"If you leave that out of the LPA, you could end up getting crammed down by an inside pay-to-play round at the fund term."

(This would indeed be a very bad thing, but I'm confident you don't want a full description of why this is true.)

As a word geek, sometimes I marvel at the terminology of my chosen profession. My peers have completely serious discussions while employing vocabulary that verges on the ridiculous. Yesterday alone, there was discussion of - among other things - burn rates, down rounds, no-shops and go-shops, wash-outs, mezzanines, bring-downs, angels, woofies, cramdowns, shelf offerings, lock-ups, earn-outs, bridges, comfort letters, and black box exemptions.

Yikes. Jargon overload!

do something

This is a tough minute and a half, but worth watching.

Want to do something?

One - The Campaign to Make Poverty History

Liya Kedebe Foundation

SOS Children's Villages

AMREF

just 2 letters away from "puke"

Ladies, it's our lucky day!!

Yes, our wishes have been granted, and now we have the airline of our dreams! It's brand new - just announced - an airline created especially for women!!!

What's that Sally? No, the service isn't any better. Or cheaper.

No, Michelle, the seats are not more comfortable, nor is there more legroom.

And, sorry about that, Lizzie, but the attendants are just as snarky as they ever were.

OK, quiet down girls!!!

I'll tell you what makes this airline different: It's PINK!!!

That's right - the brilliant fellow at the helm decided that what we really wanted was to fly around in a pink plane.

According to the recent article in the Guardian, Fly Pink, the oh-so-cleverly-named new airline, will provide flights from Liverpool to Paris for "shopping breaks" in customized pink planes.

The article includes some interesting quotes from women in reaction to this groundbreaking idea. Here's my favorite:

"Susi Weaser, editor of Shiny Shiny, a website about gadgets for women, has had her fill. "I get very cross about it," she says. "Sometimes I just think, 'Do you not think you need to improve the product instead of just making it pink?'"

Love that. (Would love it more if I didn't just click through to her website and find that it is an appalling shade of - yep - pink.)

From another source came perhaps the most telling factoid.

The Liverpool Airport News reports :

"The airline is the brainchild of Adam Charles, a 24-year-old [!!] entrepreneur and is the result of 12-months of research into aviation trends. He said: 'We have decided to focus on one market and create a brand catering specifically for women.' "

Hello?
Hello Adam? Hi, thanks for taking my call.
Yeah, just wanted to say I read about your Fly Pink thingy.
I get that you are only 24 years old, and to you, we girls are all about fuzzy sweaters and baby chicks and barbie dolls.
Right.
So, anyway, just wanted to let you know I think you are a fucking moron.
Bye Adam!

Ouch

My dear friend Clare, who recently moved to a beautiful farm in the Oregon countryside with her fabulous husband Brian, took a bad spill off her horse and broke both her arms.

That's right: BOTH her arms. at the same time.

Oh my Lord.

tax dollars at work

I’ve just – finally – figured out how much extra postage I have to use for SQUARE envelopes (which I end up with all the time). It's $0.13 more to mail a square envelope.

Anyway, I wanted to know how much it will cost – under the new U.S. postal rates which take effect on Monday – to mail a square envelope. Searched usps.gov, found no answer.

So, I decided to call the USPS customer service line.

Here is the conversation I had, I shit you not:

U.S. Postal Service Customer Service Representative: Hullo.

Me: Hi, I'm wondering if you could tell me what the price for mailing square envelopes will be – is it changing on Monday?

USPSCSR: I’m not sure. Hold on moment, and I’ll check.

Me: thanks.

USPSCSR: Still checking.

Me: OK.

USPSCSR: Sorry, my computer is slow.

Me: No problem.

USPSCSR: Still checking.

Me: OK.

USPSCSR: Ma’am?

Me: Yes?

USPSCSR: Yes, it will.

Me: [confused silence]

Me: Sorry?

USPSCSR: Ma'am, yes, the rate for square envelopes will be changing on Monday. Thanks for calling the U.S. Postal Service, and have a nice…

Me: Wait! Hello?

Me: Hello?

USPSCSR: Ma’am?

Me: Um, thanks for that, but I'm actually hoping you can tell me what the new rate will be?

USPSCSR: Oh. Hmm.

Me: [waiting]

USPSCSR: I don’t know that.

Me: Uh, could you check? I have a couple of cards I want to mail on Monday.

USPSCSR: My computer is really slow today.

Me: Yeah. Sorry about that.

[silence]

Me: Do you mind looking anyway?

USPSCSR: Hold on a moment.

Me: Thanks.

USPSCSR: Still checking.

Me: OK

USPSCSR: Still checking.

Me: OK

[several eons pass]

USPSCSR: Ma’am?

Me: Hello? Yes, still here.

USPSCSR: The cost to mail your letter will depend on the size and the weight, ma’am.

Me: Uh-huh. Right.

[wait for specifics which must be following shortly]

[wait]

Me: Hello?

USPSCSR: Size and weight, ma’am.

Me: Got it.

Me: Ok, let’s just assume it’s less than one ounce, kind of standard greeting-size square envelope – you know, the plain-vanilla kind of thing. Nothing huge. Nothing heavy. How much for that?

USPSCSR: Well I can't really say if you can’t give me the exact size and weight.

Me: Right.

Me: [breathe deeply]

Me: OK. So, let's try this -- you know how there is a standard surcharge on square envelopes now? A regular letter is 39 cents, and then it’s 13 more cents for a square one?

USPSCSR: Uh-huh.

Me: OK – so the current standard square-envelope surcharge is 13 cents?

USPSCSR: Yes.

Me: Great! So, what I'm looking for is the NEW standard-square envelope surcharge. If there is one. Or, will it still be 13 cents?

USPSCSR: Hm.

Me: [waiting]

USPSCSR: I don’t know that.

Me: Can you ask someone else there? Someone else in the call center?

[silence]

Me: Maybe your supervisor knows?

USPSCSR: Well, no, that's not possible.

Me: [confused silence]

USPSCSR: It’s not in my computer.

Me: [confused silence]

USPSCSR: So, if it’s not in my computer, it won’t be in anyone else’s computer either.

Me: [stunned silence, as I absorb the fact that this woman's computer holds ALL THE DATA IN THE WORLD]

Me: [mind reeling]

USPSCSR: Ma’am?

Me: [slowly, trying to focus on the issue at hand] So, are you telling me that there is no one there, at the actual U.S. Postal Service, who knows how much it will cost to mail a square envelope come Monday?

USPSCSR: I guess so.

Me: Seriously?

USPSCSR: Yes, ma’am.

Me: Uh...

USPSCSR: Thanks for calling the U.S. Postal Service, and have a nice day.