For Tricia

About a month ago, I discovered Nate's blog, Confessions of CF Husband. His story is amazing and you should really check out to blog to get the full effect, but here's the abstract: Nate's wife, Tricia has Cystic Fibrosis. While preparing for a lung transplant, she discovered she was pregnant. Against the advice of some doctors, they went ahead with the pregnancy. She delivered a baby girl, Gwyneth, at 24 weeks. Gwyneth is now thriving the in the NICU and Tricia is back on the transplant list. Tricia's husband, Nate blogs every day to share the accomplishments of both "his girls."

If you know my history, you can see why this blog intrigues me. As a wife of someone with CF and a sister-in-law of a lung transplant recipient, I can relate to Nate and Tricia on some level. I have also ridden the "NICU rollercoaster" with my preemie daughter. I look forward to reading their blog every day because amidst all of their challenges, they remain very faithful and positive. And Nate is an example of the spouse I strive to be - he has accepted the reality of Tricia's illness and embraced the role of "CF Husband." His love for her is unquestionable. I hope that my own husband is able to feel that love from me.

Anyway, another blogger and CF Husband regular has challenged other moms out there to share their joys of parenthood with Tricia. Since she is still very weak from the pregnancy, Tricia remains in the hospital while she waits for her transplant. Gwyneth is in the same hospital and Tricia recently got to hold her for the first time. The list I am sharing with Tricia come from my perspective - that of a mommy of two preemies.

My List for Tricia

• Being with your little one at HOME with no hospital staff (a litte scary at first, but you will enjoy the quiet)
• Holding your baby without monitors going off
• Thinking in ounces instead of cc's or grams
• Not having to think about your child's adjusted age
• Celebrating every milestone, no matter how small, because you know how hard it has been
• Realizing that the NICU is a distant memory
• Reassuring the dog that her tail will not be pulled anymore
• Singing Wiggles songs in a bad Australian accent
• Getting wet drooly kisses on the cheek
• Hearing "Mommy, I poo-pooed in the potty. Want to see?"
• Hearing my husband say to his asthmatic son: "You think once a day on the nebulizer is bad? I have to do this twice a day! And it takes me half an hour! You only have to do this for ten minutes!" (Keep in mind my son is only two years old)

Nate and Tricia - I know that I am only one of thousands of readers you have in the blogosphere, but know that I am cheering and praying for you. I appreciate your efforts to make people aware of Cystic Fibrosis and premature birth.

News from the field

When I left Ecuador for the last time in 2005, the government was considered moderate and relations with the United States were a priority. Things have changed a little bit. How I long to go back and see for myself what is going on.

From msn.com:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23464623/

text:

BOGOTA, Colombia - Hundreds of Venezuelan troops moved Tuesday toward the border with Colombia, where trade was slowing amid heightening tension over Colombia’s cross-border strike on a rebel base in Ecuador.
The Organization of American States scheduled an emergency afternoon meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region’s worst political showdowns in years, pitting U.S.-backed Colombia against Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez and his allies. Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, meanwhile, traded accusations in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
The escalation of tensions was triggered over the weekend when Colombia troops crossed the border with Ecuador and killed Raul Reyes, a top commander of the Colombian FARC rebels who had set up a camp there.
Chavez, who sympathizes with the leftist rebels, condemned the killing and angrily ordered about 9,000 soldiers — 10 battalions — to Venezuela’s border with Colombia. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that any strike on Venezuelan soil could provoke a South American war.
Colombia’s defense minister said Monday that he would not be provoked into mobilizing troops in response.
President Bush said the United States will stand by Colombia and criticized Venezuela’s government for making “provocative maneuvers.” Colombia has received some $5 billion in U.S. aid to fight drugs and leftist rebels since 2000.
Retired Venezuelan Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a former top Chavez aide, told The Associated Press the troops were being sent to the border region as “a preventative measure.”
Soldiers boarded buses and trucks at the Paramaracay base in central Venezuela Tuesday morning, and battalions also were moving out from the northern state of Lara, pro-Chavez Gov. Luis Reyes said.
The Venezuelan military has been tightlipped about troop movements. Venezuela’s armed forces include about 100,000 troops, Muller Rojas said. Colombia’s U.S.-equipped and trained military has more than twice as many.
Colombia to seek trial of ChavezUribe said his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Chavez for “genocide” for allegedly financing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, the country’s main rebel group. He cited a reference to a $300 million Venezuelan payment in documents found in a laptop the Colombians said belonged to Reyes.
The biggest losers from the killing of Reyes appeared to be the hostages that FARC rebels have held for years, pending a swap with rebel prisoners.
Ecuador and France said they had been communicating with Reyes, trying to secure a hostage release, when Colombia’s air force crossed the border to bomb his jungle camp. Along with Reyes, 20 other rebels were killed.
“I’m sorry to tell you that the conversations were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages,” Ecuador’s leftist president, Rafael Correa, said in a nationally televised address. “All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands” of the Colombian government.
French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani confirmed that France was in contact with Reyes as well, and that “the Colombians were aware of it.”
Colombia said documents in Reyes’ laptop indicate that Correa’s internal security minister met recently with a FARC envoy to discuss deepening relations with Ecuador, and even replacing military officers who might oppose that.
Publicly, there had been no indication of even preliminary progress in securing the release of any of the 40 hostages the FARC wants to swap for hundreds of jailed guerrillas.
Those hostages include three U.S. military contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French national who has become a cause celebre in Europe.
Saturday’s raid followed right on the heels of last week’s release by the FARC of four hostages to Venezuela’s justice minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin. The minister said the raid proved the “intent of the fascist Colombian government is to hamper the handover of hostages, because that is the path of peace.
Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the U.S. was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. Colombian military officials have said U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have been key to putting the FARC on the defensive.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation. “We do provide intelligence support to partner nations but I can’t get into details on operations,” Jose Ruiz told the AP from Miami.
Another victim of the crisis may be border trade worth $5 billion a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans already suffering milk and meat shortages. Ecuador also depends on some $1.8 billion in trade with Colombia.

I'm too sexy for your....bunny?

A few years ago, I remember passing a store in the mall during Easter season that had a cage full of rabbits in the display window. Being a new dog owner and thinking it was a pet store, I stopped and peeked inside. Was I looking at a pet store? No. It was a photography studio. Their gimmick for Easter was to offer pictures with live bunnies. I turned to Ebo and said "I wonder what PETA would think about this?" After thinking it was just one studio's silly idea, I began to see bunnies in every photo studio I encountered. And then there was the baby chick option. I could imagine the scene - a pastel background, fake flowers, a basket full of easter eggs, and the floor covered with rabbit and chicken poop. Not to mention the cute little kids dressed in their Sunday best squeezing a helpless chick while the photographer tries to make them look at the camera.

Last Easter, I lived this drama. My friend's husband was starting a photography business and was offering a photo shoot with live bunnies. I like to support small businesses and the kids were overdue for some portraits, so I agreed. Before we arrived at their home, I gave Sassy Girl and Destructo Boy a lecture about how to treat the rabbits. Gentle, I said. Be nice. As it turned out, we were the last appointment after a long day of shoots. The rabbits (named Bandit and Cinnamon) looked like they were going to commit suicide. After two shots, Destructo Boy forgot what "gentle" meant and started pulling one of the rabbits' floppy ears. The smaller bunny, not sure of his fate, took the opportunity to bolt out of the room and hide (At this point, I think I yelled, "Run, Bandit, Run!"). Destructo Boy crawled after the rabbit and knocked over the giant plastic Easter eggs. We didn't get any posed shots after that, but the photographer did manage to take several pictures of Sassy Girl and Destructo Boy chasing a very scared bunny.

The whole taking pictures with animals thing makes me feel uncomfortable. It ties in with the trend of buying kids chicks for Easter and puppies for Christmas and losing interest after the cuteness is gone. (Now, my mom did buy me chicks for Easter...then proceeded to serve them for dinner about six months later. But that's a different story...). I wonder what happens to the Easter portrait bunnies and chicks. It's not like they can design furniture (Cindy Crawford) or host a talk show (Tyra Banks) when their modeling career is over.

Needless to say, I thought I had seen it all. Then yesterday I received an ad for Easter pictures with....a live lamb! Check it out:

http://justoneyearphotography.blogspot.com/2008/02/lamb-pictures.html

Crazy. What's next? Christmas photos with the manger animals? Valentine pictures with a real baby dressed as Cupid? Give me your ideas!

Bureaucracy sucks

The following is an exact quote from the Child Citizenship Act of 2000:

TITLE I--CITIZENSHIP FOR CERTAIN CHILDREN BORN OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES
SEC. 101. AUTOMATIC ACQUISITION OF CITIZENSHIP FOR CERTAIN CHILDREN BORN OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES.
(a) In General.--Section 320 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1431) is amended to read as follows:
''children born outside the United States and residing permanently in the United States; conditions under which citizenship automatically acquired
''Sec. 320. (a) A child born outside of the United States automatically becomes a citizen of the United States when all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:
''(1) At least one parent of the child is a citizen of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization.''(2) The child is under the age of eighteen years.''(3) The child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence.
''(b) Subsection (a) shall apply to a child adopted by a United States citizen parent if the child satisfies the requirements applicable to adopted children under section 101(b)(1).''.
(b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections of such Act is amended by striking the item relating to section 320 and inserting the following:
''Sec. 320. Children born outside the United States and residing permanently in the United States; conditions under which citizenship automatically acquired.''

The way I see it, this law says that Destructo Boy became a citizen the moment the adoption was final. Right? As I found out recently, it's only half right. After I received Destructo Boy's new birth certificate, I tried to apply for his social security card. This is what I found on the Social Security Administration's website:

"Please note that the adoption decree (issued in a foreign country or the U.S.) or a birth certificate is not proof of U.S. citizenship for a foreign-born child. Proof of U.S. citizenship can be obtained from DHS."

DHS stands for the Department of Homeland Security. So, even though the law says that my son is a citizen via adoption and he has been issued an American birth certificate, I still have to have additional paperwork to prove he is a citizen. Before you all say "What's the big deal?," I'll tell you what the big deal is. A Certificate of Citizenship (COC) from the Department of Homeland security costs $420. I have to pay $420 for a piece of paper that explains what any idiot should figure out from the adoption decree.

And there's more to this story....the fee for a COC went up from $250 to $420 just this past July. We received all of Destructo Boy's final paperwork before the deadline, so I hurried and sent everything in. A MONTH LATER AFTER THE DEADLINE, I get everything back from DHS with no explanation. After talking to many people WHO KNEW NOTHING, I was forced meet them in person. It was there that they told me that our application was rejected because the Dallas office did not accept personal checks. Okay...they why does it say on the website instructions to "Make all personal checks to Department of Homeland Security"?????? And furthermore, couldn't somebody have written me a note when they sent everything back to me? Even after all my aruguing, they still made me pay the new fee because the application was not processed before the deadline.

So we caved and paid, but that's not the end. By the time all that madness was over, it was the end of August. It's now February. WE HAVE YET TO RECEIVE THIS $420 PIECE OF CRAP PAPER THAT WE NEED TO GET A SOCIAL SECURITY CARD. We called the DHS and they said they are just now processing applications from July. JULY???? It was supposed to take three months to process. What the f*%k are my tax dollars going to? What the f*%k is my $420 going to?

What bugs me the most is that I feel like Destructo Boy is not being treated fairly. In the eyes of the law, he should be a citizen. He IS an American citizen according to the law. When he left South Korea, he had to relinquish his Korean citizenship. The United States of America was supposed to legally accept him as one of theirs as soon as we signed the adoption papers. And technically they have...but he has to provide proof. I am a child of immigrants, so unfortunately this type of discrimination and idiocy is nothing new to me. When my mother applied to become an American citizen, the then-INS office sent her paperwork to the wrong agency and it took months to find it. I am now reliving this burearcratic nightmare through my son.

Life comes at you fast...

I don't mean to advertise for Nationwide Insurance, but their long-running "Life Comes at You Fast" ad campaign seems to have been my theme for the past couple of months. In my last post, my family and I were celebrating a year with Destructo Boy. At the time, I felt like I was finally becoming productive. I had this vision that I would crank out a couple of chapters before the new year. As I found out quickly, this was not written in the stars.

Enter holiday season. All of a sudden, my family starts fighting a losing battle with various viruses. Sickness means kids are banned from day care. Sickness means mommy can't work. Sickness means mommy and daddy get sick too. Now, I don't resent that I have to take care of my little ones when they are ill. On the contrary, Sassy Girl's and Destructo Boy's health are my number one priority. I don't trust anyone besides myself, Ebo, and certain members of the medical establishment to nurse my children back to health. It's just in times like these I resent all the crap I was fed as a young girl on how easy it was to "have it all" (meaning career and motherhood). Yes, it is possible, but rarely was I told about the sacrifices you have to make at both ends. And the guilt - oh the guilt of not being there. When I was six years old, I remember my mother went back to work after years of being a stay-at-home parent. I, being the freakishly literate kindergartener that I was, wrote her letter of protest (I think it said something like "I don't like you to work. You are mean."). My mother has kept the letter to this day. I want to take this time to aplogize to my mom for making her feel guilty.

So if little illnesses and missed day care days weren't enough, there was the surprise hospital stay. This time, it wasn't Sassy Girl or Destructo Boy worrying me to death. No, this time it was Ebo. I must mention that for a guy who has CF, he keeps himself pretty healthy. For the entire time I have known him, he has not had to be hospitalized. However, this time he had been fighting an ear infection for a couple of weeks and was feeling lousy. Right before Christmas, he began taking antibiotics and had a bad reaction. He ended up in the emergency room and had to stay in the hospital for a few days. But miraculously, he was released just in time to see Sassy Girl make her theatrical debut as an angel in our church's Christmas pageant. Of course, my parents came after the whole ordeal was over, so the kids and I were dealing with everything by ourselves. I have to give them credit - they were very good about going to and from the hospital to visit their daddy.

As if this weren't enough, Ebo was also scheduled for foot surgery in early January. As such, he was incapacitated again for a couple of weeks. I swear I should have gone into nursing instead of academia.

In the middle of all of this was Destructo Boy's birthday. I felt bad because I barely had time to plan anything. It was the first time I was ever thankful to live in the suburbs because there is a party place on every corner. All you have to do is show them the money and a party is planned for you. And the best part is that it doesn't have to be at your house.

The next thing I know, it's February. Feburary? Where the f*%k did the last two months go??? Life happened. It's time for me to take a breath.

Journey to Destructo Boy - Part II

Last night, our familly celebrated Destructo Boy's coming home anniversary by trying a new Korean restaurant. Ebo and I are not unfamiliar with Korean food, but where we live, these establishments are not easy to come by. I remembered seeing a little hole-in-the wall place in a small shopping center, but I couldn't exactly remember where it was. After a half an hour of driving in a trip that would normally only last 15 minutes, we finally arrived at the restaurant. The whole family enjoyed a night of great food and Korean television.

As Destructo Boy was getting Kimchee and rice all over his face and clothes, I was looking at him and reminiscing our trip home last year. Although we were anxious to have our son with us, we were scared shitless at the thought of having two kids under the age of three. When we started the adoption process, we were expecting to wait two years for a referral and here we were one year later with a new child. Ebo and I struggled with the decision - we wanted this little boy to be ours, but were we really ready? Could we manage?

And let's not forget the taboo adoption topic - cost. Adoption costs money. No matter how many agencies tell you that you are paying for services and not buying a child, it sometimes feels like you are. And then there are the suprise costs. When we agreed to adopt Destructo Boy, we felt we could barely manage the Korean adoption fees which are significantly higher than those from the Philippines. But what we didn't prepare for was the "extras" - fingerprinting, immigration fees (which just had to go up when we started the process), attorney fees for finalization - these are all costs they leave out in the agency pamphlet. Back before we decided to start trying to have children, I was trying to explaing (to a very fertile friend) that we were trying to save up the money before we start anything. She said to me, "Well, kids are always going to cost you money." I snapped back at her, "That's true, but unfortunately ours are going to require a lot of the money up front." But here we are, savings depleted, but we are still thankful for our son.

I like to tell people that it was the fact that I "knew" Destructo Boy was meant to be ours, but it's not that simple. Yes, I would look at his picture online and bask in his cuteness, but I will admit that I was terribly afraid to pass up any opportunity. After we were disappointed by the Philippine program, I didn't want to take any chances. I didn't care if it was bad timing. I didn't care if I hadn't finished graduate school. I didn't want to be in limbo any longer. Ebo felt the same way, but he was a little more logical about it than I was. He kept reminding me about the close age difference been Sassy Girl and Destructo Boy, the added cost of a second child, my unfinished disserataion, and the possible health problems associated with Destructo Boy's prematurity. I really don't remember how we came to a final decision, but then next thing I knew I was booking a flight to Seoul.

Some adoptive parents say that they knew "their" child the instant he/she was placed in their arms. When Destructo Boy's foster mom gave him to me, the only thought I had in my head was "Damn. This boy is heavy." It kind of reminded me of when I first saw Sassy Girl in her isolette in the NICU. There she was, all two and a half pounds of her, looking more like a mechanical doll than an infant. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel, but I knew I didn't feel like a mother. But as I visited her day after day, I would make the choice to be her mother. I made the same choice that first night with Destructo Boy - I held him tight, kissed his chubby little cheeks, and just enjoyed him. He smiled our whole first night together before we flew home. He even smiled when he projectile vomited all over me. That's my boy!

I don't remember much about our flight home, but I do remember how peaceful Destructo Boy looked as he slept on my shoulder. I also remember waiting in line at customs and immigration in Minneapolis. The man asked me "Are you his escort?" as many Korean born adoptees are escorted to their parents by a third party. "No," I said, "I am his mother." His mother. My choice was clearly made. It wouldn't make sense for a long time, but I knew in my heart I was committed.

Journey to Destructo Boy - Part I

Destructo Boy was sick all last week. Because of his asthma, whenever he gets a cold or other nasty virus, he has to receive a regimen of breathing treatments and medications. Ebo and I are used to this now and we are thankful that he is so much better than when he came to us. During breakfast, I brought up that it's been almost a year since Destructo boy came home to us. Ebo said, "Didn't he get sick then, too? Must be something about Halloween."

One year ago last week, I was in tears because our adoption agency called and told us that we could not pick up our son. It was 9:00 pm and my flight to Seoul was supposed to be at 7:00 the next morning. However, the social worker at Holt Children's Services in Korea said that Destructo Boy was in the hospital and not ready to travel home. He would be fine, but was being treated for bronchilitis. Up until that point, we had worked everything out - I was going to travel with my mother and Ebo and his father would stay at home to take care of Sassy Girl. This news changed our plans - we didn't know how long Destructo Boy would be in the hospital and the social worker said we would not have access to him anyway because we did not have legal custody of him as of yet. So if we went to Seoul, we would probably spend the whole time waiting for him to be discharged. Ebo's father had to leave at the end of the week (when we were supposed to come home), leaving us no one to watch Sassy Girl during the day if we were in Korea longer. Such is the road to adoption.

I ended up traveling to Seoul a week later - alone. This is when I started my first blog, Family/Pamilya/Ka-jok. This blog describes our adoption journey, but since the main purpose of the blog was to let our family and friends know what was going on in Korea, I left a lot of the gory details out. The postponement of our trip to Seoul was only one of the many hurdles we had to jump to get our son home.


As mentioned before, Ebo and I started adoption classes before we ever thought about IVF. Our first and only IVF resulted in only three embryos, all of which were transferred after three days. Thus we have Sassy Girl. After her first birthday, we decided not to pursue IVF again and continue with our adoption research. We were faced with many choices - the first of which was were we going to adopt domestically or internationally. In the end, we decided to go ahead with the Philippine program. We were told that it would take two years for a referral to be made for us and we thought this would be perfect. I would finish the diss, Sassy Girl would be almost four, and the children would be close in age, but not too close. Perfect.

But we all know nothing happens the way we envision it. We started our homestudy at the beginning of 2006 and were finished with all of the paperwork by the end of February. The next step was to collect documents to send to the Philippines for their approval. The Philippine government has set up a special agency that oversees all international adoptions called the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB). For Americans, once you are approved by your local agency, you also must be approved by ICAB before you are put on the list of families waiting for a referral. When we applied to our agency, we were told that we would probably get approved more quickly because I am Filipino-American. When it came time to apply to ICAB, our case worker called and informed us of a little problem.

As I blogged before, Ebo has Cystic Fibrosis. He is healthy and manages his disease very well. However, to the uninformed, people with CF are not considered "healthy." Our caseworker told us that the Philippine ICAB is very strict about the health of potential parents and might not approve us. Furthermore, even if we did get approved, our referral may take longer because we would not be considered the most "desireable " parents. When I was told this information, I was livid. Before I sent my application fee to this agency, I made sure to tell them about Ebo's CF. I asked them if it would be a problem. No problem, they said. As long as he has documentation from his doctors. Now our documentation wasn't good enough. We had to get several letters that were drafted just right. Then our agency informed us that the fee to apply to ICAB was over $1000, which we wouldn't get back if we were rejected.

Poor Ebo. No matter how much I told him this wasn't his fault, he still felt guilty. One day, he was feeling sick and I told him to go to the doctor. He told me that he didn't want to see the doctor until we were approved by ICAB because he didn't want to have to report any more health complications. It was then I decided we had to get out. As much as we had our heart set on adopting from the Philippines, I couldn't let my husband suffer for it. I called the agency shortly after and again, we were at a crossroads. I really didn't want to stay with our agency because I felt we had been misled. But I also didn't want to start over again. And of course we would lose our application fee and our homestudy. We were about to just cut our losses and move on when we saw him. Male, born December 30, 2005.

Our agency has a Waiting Child program that lists children that are ready to be adopted. Most of the children on the list have minor health issues that prevents them from being referred to famlies the "regular" way. The listing said this little boy was from Korea and was born at 28 weeks gestation. Preemie. We know about preemies. His birthweight was 2 pounds, 7 ounces, just like Sassy Girl. We were intrigued. Could this be our son?

We immediately inquired about him. Our caseworker said that our homestudy had to be re-worked to be approved by Korea before we could receive any information about him. We were so sure that he would be adopted by then, but we decided to do it anyway in case we wanted to pursue the Korea program. We also asked the question - would Ebo's CF be a problem? Turns out, they had just approved another potential parent with CF. Good sign.

Because of our very slow and overworked social worker, our homestudy wasn't approved until July. During that time, I was checking the Waiting Child list every day to see if the little preemie boy was still there. When we got word that we were approved, we immediate called our agency. Within hours, we received his medical file, which we forwarded to an international adoption specialist and our local pediatrician. Because he was unable to breathe on his own, Destructo Boy had been on a ventilator the first two months of his life. He had scarring on his lungs and was diagnosed with Brochopulmonary Displasia (BPD). Our pediatrician and the specialist said that it would be difficult for a couple of years and he might have to live with asthma, but there was no reason he would not be able to grow up to be a happy and healthy little boy. At the end of July, our agency formally matched us with Destructo Boy and we would be able to pick him up in 3-6 months.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this post. I was about to leave for Korea (alone) to pick up our son. In retrospect, our journey was pretty uneventful compared to what it could have been. When I look at my little boy, I know I would do it all over again just to have him in my life.