Good news is the word of the day!

Without boring everyone to tears with the tedious details, we just got an email tonight from our agency that we do not need more supporting doctor letters and that we can apply with the ones we have (with minor tweaks). We have sent our doctor's office a fax tonight asking them to review the changes we've requested and fax it back to us. We'll then turn around and fax it back to the agency and if they OK it, we'll be able to setup a time to get them signed and notarized.

After that we'll begin with a new and more complicated certification and authentication process but at least it is well defined and we know (we think) what we need to do to be successful with that step.

Let's not worry about that part for now and rather rejoice that we are cleared! Must be a good day for good news as a the mother of one of my friends had surgery for cancer today and god good news on that front too. They got all of the tumor and think she'll heal nicely so great news there, too! The last bit of good news is that my cousin who is going through a divorce had things go her way and she has custody of the children. All of the praying paid off! ;)

Nothing nice to say...

You know that saying "If you do not have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all."? Well, it is pretty fitting right now with everything that is going on during our attempt to bring our little boy home. It seems that nobody sees it as much of an urgency as we do. Trust me, we understand that we are not the only people in the world and others need things done for them too; but, we really need someone to work with us for once. My mom put it the best..."one step forward, three steps back" and that is exactly what it is at this time. Things have just gotten progressively more complicated since Ron last posted. I will let him go into more detail if he wants. (If I say too much more, I may break the above rule.) Otherwise, just know things are pretty much at a standstill for us now. We know that things will be done in God's time and to trust Him that things are going as He has planned. I do not believe He would have put Lil' Bubba in our hearts if He did not intend to bring him home to us. It is just so hard!!!! "Patience is a virtue" is another saying that comes into play these days. Can you believe that Ron actually had the opportunity to preach to me about patience the other day? Anybody who knows us, knows that it is usually the other way around. Please keep our baby boy (and all of our family) in your prayers as this adventure to Lil' Bubba continues. Please pray that he has loving caregivers, enough food for healthy growth, and the fight in him to hang on until we can get him home.

More dissappointment

This week was a crazy one between Cub Scouts, work, school and the home study. I decided to be a bit more proactive on helping the paperwork process along so called the doctor's office Monday AM to make sure they had faxed the request to the neurosurgeon for my medical history and they had. I turned around and called the neurosurgeon's office to make sure they received it and that everything was in order. They had received it and were going to process the request Tuesday morning. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but we can live with that.

Tuesday mid-morning comes and I call the neurosurgeon's office to see if they had processed the request and the lady there told me that they had just sent it about an hour before I called - good news, right?! I call the doctor's office to verify they received the fax only to be told that they have been picking faxes off of the machine all day and no sign of it. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I call the neurosurgeon's office and confirm they sent it, how many pages and the number they sent it to. I then call the doctor's office and relay the information. The ever-cheery lady at the office snipes at me telling me that she's double-checked and there is no fax. She haughtily asks me for the neurosurgeon's office phone number so she can call them directly - "Because, you know, sometimes it is just easier doctor's office to doctor's office" - this is a direct quote from our lovely friend. I patiently wait on hold and when she comes back on the phone a few minutes later, she tells me that she just found that fax and didn't realize that when I told her that they had sent it about an hour before I called, that I meant they had sent it about an hour before I called. Excellent listening skills in action. See our previous entry on why I don't like the medical profession - this only goes to validate those feelings. The good news is that she has it and will give it to the nurse to complete. I ask that it be done by Friday so we can fax it to our agency, have them review it and make sure all is perfect for China's needs. She sighs, takes notes and comments on what a crazy process this is - lady, you have no idea - this is the simple stuff.

Feeling that we made good progress now I decide to call the doctor's office Weds. AM and ask if they had a chance to review it and if there were any questions. Our angel of congeniality snaps at me that "We are very busy right now and that it'll be done Friday just like you asked us to." Wow, feeling the love from the doctor's office right now. Weds night we drop the kids off with my mom and dad while Julie and I have our last meeting with our social worker in Upper Sandusky. We review more paperwork and seem like we are well on our way.

Thursday we give the doctor's office a break and don't call them. I wonder how they are doing all day while I am in Cleveland meeting with a customer and driving 4 hours back and forth.

Friday morning and I am on the road to Akron so call to see when they'll be able to send us a copy of the report so we can in turn pass it on to our agency. I was told that the lady who needs to do the report is sick and wasn't in the office Thursday and probably won't be in today either. She said that the paperwork is on her desk, but doesn't think she'll get it done until next week. She also said she'd be talking with the doctor later in the morning to see if she was going to come in and would let us know. My blood pressure increases, but there is not much we can do - actually nothing we can do. Later in the day, the doctor's office calls Julie to let her know for sure that she is still sick with strep throat and will not be coming in. She won't be in Monday either because she teaches at a local college that day so maybe Tuesday. There is an off-hand chance that she'll come into the office on Saturday to do paperwork, but we know that isn't going to happen. Un-freaking-real. These people have no sense of urgency but their perspective would be very different if it was their child sitting in a crib in China crying for love and attention and consoling themselves to sleep. Maybe then they would give a hoot - but alas, that is not the case.

This more or less blows the plans we had to get the county certifications done on Tuesday when I have the whole day off. Maybe we can make some progress, but it wasn't what we were hoping for. We keep reminding ourselves that everything happens for a reason and that we need to trust in God that it will all work out - but it is disappointing never the less.

So the wait continues for us and Lil Bubba. *sigh*

Making progress

The saga continues. Thursday we received a call from our doctor's office that in order for them to get my medical records from the neurosurgeon that I need to come in and physically sign a release form - again faxing will not do. Unfortunately, I could not make it to the office in time on Thursday so will visit them first thing Friday morning.
I went to the office Friday and sign the form that they had waiting for me. If you recall earlier I was over the weight restriction China has in place for adoptive parents and have been working on dropping some lard. While I was there I had them weigh me and I have lost enough to be under the restriction! That in and of itself was worth the trip and good news indeed. I asked them to have the doctor update my adoption form with the new weight and with the additional explanation of my hematoma we should be able to fax it to the agency, get approval and then have a signing party where we have the notary come in and verify the doctor's signature. Crazy process, I know, but it is what we have to do so why fight it?
Julie and I decided that we are going to have to take the more proactive approach as the sense of urgency from the doctor's office has been less than we hoped for. I called the neurosurgeon's office Friday and spoke to their medical records department and found that there is a different fax number that goes directly to records that our doctor should fax the release form to. We turned around and called to let them the about the new fax number so that may save some time. We'll have to become the squeaky wheel and call Monday morning to see if they have sent the release form and see where we are in that process.
The bigger goal is to be in a position to take all of our OH documents and get them certified in Marion county and a stretch goal of getting the State of OH certification done, too. I have the day off and was originally planned to use it for a visit with our social worker, but that got moved up earlier so I have a "free" day and since all of this stuff can only happen during the normal work week, we'll try to capitalize on it. I'll let you know how that plan works out - it all hinges on the doctor's office doing their part.
On the fun stuff over the weekend front, we went to my manager's house for an Italian cook-off contest between the technical team members in Columbus. We took our puttanesca recipe that I learned from a friend years ago and love to eat - it takes all day to cook and I started it Saturday at 8:30 and with the help of Julie, tended to it all day. We also took Julie's famous macaroni & cheese recipe that the kids love. We had a great time with the other families and there must have been 20 adults and 15 kids. We had chicken Marsala, secret lasagna recipes, stuffed shells, tirmisu, shrimp scampi and plenty of good vino. I took my favorite Italian beer, Pironi, and watched it get grabbed by everyone else - LOL! Glad I grabbed one when I put them in the cooler. The kids all had a great time with potato sack races, playing on a swing set, skateboarding, playing football, monkey in the middle and more. At the end of the evening we all voted on favorite dishes in 4 categories - Best Overall; Most Authentic; Best Kid's Disk; Best Dessert. As luck (and 5 people in our family) would have it we won Best Overall and Best Kid's dishes with prizes of Olive Garden and Sur La Table gift certificates! We packed up and headed home, got the kids to bed, forced ourselves to stay up longer and watch Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsay will fall over from a major heart attack some day from the stress!) before we called it a night.
Sunday brought a trip to church and Julie getting prepped for a PSR open house. We were paying the price of a later than usual night this morning so I was worried about keeping Veronica when Julie left to do her Open House. We all picked out doughnuts after mass, sat in the gathering space and ate them then went to the car. Veronica couldn't have been easier to work with - a sugar high helps, I'm sure. We decided to go out for brunch afterwards and ended up at Waffle House. We definitely were over dressed for the locale but you can't go wrong with Steak and Eggs, scrambled, scattered, smothered, covered for brunch! Good thing I was weighed Friday! LOL!
We came home and enjoyed a lazy afternoon nap, followed by me winning Family game night of Pay Day, baths, dinner, etc. Overall a great weekend and hopefully we have a plan for success on the adoption front now.
We'll keep the blog posted on our progress!

Down and then up

One of the things people who know me realize is that I don't like to have my time wasted. Nobody does, but my tolerance for this is incredibly low - we all have our things to improve upon don't we? While sitting at work feeling pretty rough from a cold or whatever pestilence I have I received an email from Julie that the doctor's office called and needed to know what doctor I saw when I had a hematoma in 2005. While this is quite a reasonable request the kicker is that it has been two weeks since I saw them, explained the forms and they took ownership of getting the history completed. These are two more weeks we'll have to wait to get Lil Bubba. I know this is all part of the fun of the paper chase, but the lack of a sense of urgency just validates my disdain for doctors. Bad attitude I know, but it is what it is.
I did what any geek would do and used Google to see if I could find the name of the practice where the neurologist I saw worked. I found a likely hit, called and after they kindly searched multiple databases was told they didn't know who I was. I decided to call the hospital where they performed the angiogram and see if their medical records people could help me. I called and as a co-worker predicted was given the proverbial Heisman in the name of HIPPA regulations. I was told I needed to mail, via snail mail, a letter requesting the information I needed. A fax would not do for some reason. If a fax is good enough to stand up in court it should be good enough for the medical profession but it isn't. With my blood pressure higher than I'd like it to be I packed up from work and went home.
After dinner and venting a bit, I decided to call medical records and get their mailing address and was surprised that someone answered the phone. I explained the situation and 5 minutes later had the information I needed and will call my doctor's office tomorrow and let them know who to call to get my records. What a goat rodeo! Thank goodness for the kind soul working in medical records who saved us at least a week by supplying the name of my doctor.

On a positive note, I had my review today and did well so at least I am good at something. :) I hope I know what I am doing! LOL!

Summer is over

Well, it seems Summer is over with Labor Day behind us now and cooler evenings more frequent. We had a busy, but fun, Labor Day weekend. Saturday started with Sydney and I grabbing breakfast at Cracker Barrel for some daddy/daughter time. We had fun talking and playing "egg-na-ram-oose" while we waited for our food. We then headed to Lowe's to pickup some supplies that we needed to build a shelf in our storage building. Sydney loved that we had lumber hanging out of the passenger window on the drive home.

Max helped me empty the building, build the shelf, but I was on my own when it came time to fill it back up. After that project was done we raked the grass I had cut the night before. It has been so wet that it grows like bamboo it seems! We've only raked a handful of times since we moved out here, but this year we've had to rake at least 4 times.

The final project of the day was to install a cellular amplifier in the hopes of boosting cell signal to the house so I can work from home more effectively with a 3G signal. Long story that features many trips up and down the ladder, minimal cursing and fun on the roof it was installed. The sad part, no help at all since it is a uni-directional antenna and is booting the EDGE signal, not the 3G we need so I've ordered a yagi (yes, that is a real word) directional antenna so that we can aim towards the tower we want. Always something, isn't it? We wrapped up Saturday with mass and pizza so that was fun.

Sunday we went to Dublin to the Italian Gathering car show to drool over the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Alfas, Lancias, FIATs and more. It was an awesome collection of very nice cars from all over the midwest and we enjoyed it. Sydney of course had to have her picture taken next to each Lambo - except the Lambo tractor for some reason. Yes, Lamborghini makes tractors! Max loved the Ferrari F-40, Dodge Viper and Ford GT that were parked away from the Italian cars in the "Lot of Distinction." I found a new favorite Ferrari, above and beyond our Donatella - the 2009 Ferrari California. Now to save the $279,000 it cost. LOL!

We drove home to drop Julie off so she could go with her mom and sister to visit one of her aunts in Ashland that is sick. While she avoided the fried pickles, marcellated potato chips and doughnuts (the local yummies in Ashland) I took the kids to my parents house for a cook out.

We had a ton of fun talking with everyone and the kids always enjoy playing with their cousins. Of course a trip to Ma and Pa's isn't complete without getting as dirty as possible and the kids were successful! It was an interesting combination of food, CapriSun, popsicles, dirt and grass that seemed to be the order of the day. Ma was kind enough to give Max and I "El guapo" hair cuts which were much needed. We came home and proceeded to try and get clean before mommy caught the kids as grubby as they were. Mission accomplished! We had just wrapped up baths when Julie came home.

We made Monday the official lazy day of the weekend and proceeded to do virtually nothing all day. The kids were all cranky from the fun the day before so that was a bummer. Max and I played Ferrari mechanics changing the spark plugs on the Mondial before taking it for a test drive to see if we fixed the intermittent miss. We didn't and the good news is - we didn't make it worse either. Back to the smart guys on FerrariChat.com to see what to try next. It was fun though for Max, Sydney and me to take a few "laps" around the block before the miss came back.

So you are probably wondering what we did to move the adoption ball forward - sadly, not much. We were waiting to hear back from our agency on the formatting of Julie's medical forms and the good news is that we heard back on Tuesday with some minor changes. Ron's lab results came back and I am OK across the board. I have a slightly elevated blood sugar but nothing they were too worried about. I need to lose a few more pounds to make weight - I never wrestled in high school but remember the guys who did worrying about that - too bad I need to now, too. :(

Well, it is late and time to get some sleep before another exciting day of work. Thanks for reading!