J.L. of Wauconda has requested a baby update...

...and, since we're full-service here at mairzydoats (and customer service is my number one priority*), I will oblige.

Dave has now completed his medical form journey. I am mailing the forms to Rockford today, so that the homestudy can be finished and sent off to DCFS. We have one more form that needs to be picked up at the Dr's office for him, but it's not needed for the home study.

Then:
The 171H immigration form is applied for and received back (6 weeks)
The dossier gets put together and sent to Chicago for US and Chinese authentication (2 weeks?)
The dossier gets sent to China and is translated (2 weeks?)
We get a Log In Date (LID)
We wait. (13 months, currently)

Also, last weekend (not this one just past, but the one before that), Dave and I were in Madison WI for a mandatory so-you're-adopting conference put on by our agency.

Now, let me preface this report by stating (in my own defense, I think) that I have limited patience for other people explaining things to me. I am very patient when it comes to my explaining things to others--this bothers me not at all. However, for myself, I can't even stand to read the directions to a board game (this will not surprise my mother, Dave or any others who know me well).

So, the conference... Mostly, it was about 30 of us sitting in the church part of a United Church of Christ in Fitchburg WI, listening to a series of people talk from 830 am until 430 pm. Ugh.

Reasons why it was OK:
1) They had a pediatrician come in to talk about the varied and different issues internationally adopted kids have. He was cool and it was interesting. It was mostly stuff I have not read about already, which I like.
2) They had a pair of recent new parents come in to talk, and although I thought they were nambypambys, they had a few interesting things to say. Plus, their daughter was cute! She had learned American Sign Language (ASL) even though she wasn't deaf and she was signing away. So cute!

Reasons why I hated it:
1) I can't sit that long in one place
2) Except for the pediatrician and a little bit the parents had to say, I had already read every thing that was talked about online
3) Some of the other parents-to-be were sissies**
4) The presenters talked too slowly. If I'm going to be forced to rehear things, at least give it to me quickly, huh?

Anyway--it was required and now it's over! Yay!

We did get a chance to have dinner with my aunt/uncle/cousin who live up that way, so that was really nice :)


*that and world domination

**
Exhibit A: I couldn't find any organic formula in Hong Kong, wahhhhh!
Exhibit B: I don't travel well, wahhh!
Exhibit C: We never eat candy and that's all we could find to eat in the airport., wahhhh!
Exhibit D: The thing that worries me most about adopting is the travelling to China, wahhhh!

Fellow adopters, those things aren't even on my top 100 of things to worry about.

As is mentioned in one of my favorite comedy shows ever--No Cure For Cancer--I did think of buying each of my compatriots a copy of Dr. Denis Leary's book: Shut the F*ck Up.

"he just told me to shut the f* up and I felt much better about myself. it was amazing"