June 9, 2013 - Easy Like Sunday Morning

Do you remember the song by Lionel Richie entitled "Easy"? Basically, the song is about Richie leaving a woman who has made his life difficult in many ways. Richie says in one part of the song how he has paid his dues, and he just wants to be free. He then croons his way into that famous chorus, "That's why I'm easy. I'm easy like Sunday morning."

That song's chorus has been playing in my head all day today as I have reflected back over the last week. It's funny though. Sunday mornings are never easy at my house. They are anything but easy. Have you ever tried to get a ten year old and a six year old up from their slumber on a Sunday morning, get them showered and dressed in their church clothes, and then get them fed and out the door in time for the worship service, which starts promptly at 9:00 a.m.? The ten year old is almost impossible to wake. She has spent the last six hours on the floor of the master bedroom because she came into your room at midnight and you were too tired to take her back upstairs. Once you have finally lured that the ten year old out of her slumber and into the bathroom, she decides to take a forty minute shower and wonders why you glare at her in disbelief every fifteen minutes when you walk back in the bathroom to see if she is finished. After all, mom needs a shower too.  The six year old take forty minutes to eat one biscuit with a small amount of jelly on it. I often find him staring out the window or playing with some random object that he has found near the table as I go back and forth from the kitchen to the bathroom checking on his sister. Where is the man of the house you might ask? He has gone upstairs to the ten year old's bed to steal a few more moments of sleep. No one will look for him there. So, I don't know what Lionel Richie's Sunday mornings were like when he wrote those famous lines, but they are never easy at the Pachciarz house.

As I begin this new week, I am hopeful that it will be easier than the last. Remember my last post where I mentioned that international adoption is not for the faint of heart and how you must have an overabundance of fortitude? This week was one of those times when I needed to remind myself of those words. I became increasingly discouraged as the days went by. Sometimes, you just need to see movement when you are in process to keep that fortitude at its highest level. You need tangible evidence that you are closer to holding your daughter and seeing her face to face for the first time. I was getting discouraged because I felt that instead of getting closer to finishing our home study, it appeared that we were actually moving farther away from it. Things were happening that were in many ways out of our control, but these things also affect when our home study will be completed.

One of these issues has to do with the physicals and TB screen that are required for both of our kids. Rob and I had our physicals several weeks ago, which included a TB screen, drug test and an HIV test (all required for our adoption).  However, I had waited until Julia was out of school for the summer to schedule the appointments for her and Yuli.  Apparently, this was a mistake. Our pediatrician who normally can get the kids in on the same day I call when they are sick did not have an opening for a well visit until late in the month. Oh, and by the way, Yuli cannot have a well visit since it will not be covered by insurance. Why you might ask? Because, Yuli had his last well visit in September of 2012 so a year has not lapsed since that time, and our insurance will only cover one well visit per child per year. Now, all of you adoptive parents out there know this is a big problem in terms of our paperwork and the home study.  The medicals cannot be over twelve months old when they are sent to Albania with our dossier. Since we have not completed the home study yet, we are probably looking at early fall before our paperwork will be sent to Albania, and you guessed it. By that time, Yuli's medicals would be at least a year old.

Did I also mention that our agency came to us on Friday with some additional requirements that they want to add to our home study that are not on the check list that we currently have?  These additional requirements could take us several weeks to finish.  Yes, I said weeks! Then there were several other setbacks in regard to paperwork, but I shall not bore you with the details. Time was definitely being added rather than taken away.  Too bad that I don't have a time-turner like Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. One of those could prove really valuable right about now when one is needing to be in two places at once.

As I said earlier, I was getting discouraged. For a brief moment, a little negative voice came creeping into my head asking me did I really have what it takes. Then I logged onto Facebook, and what did I see? Exactly, what God knew I needed to see at that moment. It came in the form of a post from an adoptive mom who has a great blog that I read a lot. She gets it. She really gets it.

  “When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of “your perfect plan” means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the “show me a sign” or “this is a sign” or “this must mean God is closing a door” or “God must not be in this because it is hard,” but all that is garbage. You know what’s hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will.”–Jen Hatmaker

So I will cry and rage and scream and wail, but I will get it done my sweet little Albanian angel. I will start digging another tunnel through this mountain because you need me to do so.  I will call the Take Care Clinic down the street and get my children in this week for their well visits and TB screening rather than waiting on our pediatrician. I will call my agency tomorrow to discuss these new requirements that have been added. And, I will remember the successes that we have had this week such as finishing three of the five Hague online training classes and obtaining our local criminal background checks. It may not be easy like Sunday morning, but there is an old adage that says nothing worthwhile is ever easy.