Adoptive Mom Questionnaire

***Called Dr. G. this AM and my appointment is later this month, the 27th***

I was tagged (after a fashion) for this meme by Yoka and Ashley. I'm going to write about both Evie and Lucy in this, because some of the questions lend themselves to doing so. I also modified some of the international adoption questions so that they make sense for us.

1. HOW MANY MONTHS (days, weeks, YEARS...) from 1st paper signed to placement? After wasting a few months pursuing international adoption with Beth*any, we waited 9 months to be matched with Lucy, 13 months to be matched with Evie and 16 months altogether from start of homestudy until Evie's adoption was finalized in court.

2. WAS YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER EXCITED? This is a strange question. Of course he was apprehensive, hopeful, interested and involved, but I wouldn't say "excited." Actually, "excited" is one of the words I'm tired of hearing now that we've adopted because it was everyone's favorite thing to say to us: "you must be so excited!" because if they were just hearing about our adoption match they were very excited for us at that moment and I always felt as though they were disappointed if I didn't start jumping up and down with them and matching them in excitement. Excitement was reserved for "getting the call" about the match and "getting the call" that the birth mom is in labor, etc. The rest of the time we had a hard time being as excited as everyone thought we should be. Being constantly excited takes a lot more energy than we had. If this question refers to getting "the call," however, then yes, we were both very excited.

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS WHEN YOU GOT "THE" PHONE CALL? With Lucy I felt as though I was going to faint from the shock; I was beside myself with joy and my thoughts started racing a mile a minute in every direction. With Evie we were absolutely stunned and humbled; we both felt it was a miracle and that we were dreaming it all.

4. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU FOUND OUT? With Lucy I was brushing my teeth on the first morning of Spring Break 2008. With Evie we were in the airport about to get on our plane to Mexico and it was our 10th wedding anniversary.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 30

6. WHAT IS YOUR CHILD'S BIRTH-COUNTRY (and province or city)? Kansas

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? With Lucy it was J's parents and I couldn't get in touch with mine; I had to leave them messages and tell them later on after we'd told a bunch of other people. I think with Lucy I called every single person in my cell phone except my doctor and our vet. With Evie, both J and I got on our cell phones as soon as our plane touched down in Texas (layover on the way to Mexico) and called our respective parents as we were waiting to deplane.

8. DID YOU REQUEST A BOY, GIRL, OR EITHER? We weren't allowed to request one or the other (because sometimes ultrasounds are wrong and our SW doesn't want to deal with that kind of drama), but we would have been delighted with either one.

9. HOW OLD WAS YOUR CHILD AT REFERRAL? at referral she was in utero, about 32 weeks gestation

10. WHEN AND HOW DID YOU SEE YOUR CHILD'S PICTURE FOR THE FIRST TIME? We never saw a photo, even an ultrasound, before we saw the real thing! We hadn't even ever seen a photo of R. The only way for us to imagine what Evie would look like was based on meeting G. There was one ultrasound photo of Evie but we didn't get our hands on it until after she was born and even then it is terrible. Completely murky and worthless as a picture. I'm not even sure I'll scrapbook it, but I'll keep it for posterity in her baby box.

11. WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING YOU BOUGHT FOR YOUR CHILD? I have been collecting things from shopping trips, friends and yard sales for years, but with Lucy the first things I bought were sale and clearance clothes from BRU, TCP, TJ*Max*x, etc. After the call about Evie, the first things we bought were some feeding items and an outfit from a Mexican Wal-Hell, which is bizarre because we are both Wal-Hell haters. We were only there to buy beer and wine to keep in our hotel room and noticed that they had some Classic Pooh baby stuff (spoons, sippy cup...) that I'd never seen in the U.S. and while we were at it we bought a hot pink linen outfit with traditional Mexican styling (it is about size 2T so I'll post pics of her in it eventually).

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Putting aside the whole situation with M & T, I would say that pre-match the most irritating thing was people asking "have you heard anything?" as if we would get the call and not tell anyone until they asked us. After the match it was people asking "have you heard anything?" as if we would have gotten the call that R was in labor but still gone about our business for the day and not told anyone. Sigh. Our answer to these queries was always simply "nope!" but we tried to sound cheerful and not irritated.

13. WHEN WERE YOU ABLE TO TRAVEL? N/A but when we got the call that R's water had broken we took about 1/2 hour to get our stuff together and 1/2 hour to drive to the hospital.

14. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yep, I had two. One at work and one with church friends and other local friends and some family. If you'd like to read about them I posted about them in May and June of last year.

15. HOW OLD WAS YOUR CHILD WHEN YOU SAW him/her IN PERSON FOR THE FIRST TIME? I was present for Lucy's birth and we met Evie when she was 30 minutes old.

16. DID YOU PACK ANYTHING SPECIAL JUST FOR YOUR BABY? Ummmmm...yeah. With Lucy I had a diaper bag packed with stuff that I kept in my car for about a month before she was born, just in case I got the call that M was in labor while I was out and needed to rush to the hospital and...diaper her. I was nuts. With Evie we needed lots of gear in order to stay in a hotel with her for a few days, so I packed way ahead of time and kept the bags mostly in the house until about a week before her birth and then they were in the car 24/7.

17. WHAT SURPRISED YOU ABOUT YOUR TRAVEL EXPERIENCE THE MOST? We hadn't cased the hospital beforehand and didn't realize it was under construction. We had a hard time figuring out where to go, ended up parking by the main entrance and then realized it was closed for the night. We had to go back to the car (thinking Evie might be born at any minute) and drive to the ER entrance, walk all the way through the hospital to the maternity ward, wait outside while the nurse in charge of security checked with R and G that we were supposed to be there, escorted to a waiting room and then found out that the maternity ward has its own 24 hour entrance that we missed because of the construction confusion, so J had to leave again and go get the car and park it in the right place. Finally a wonderful nurse who had talked to R and G came to fetch us from the waiting room and escort us to our own room. Yay!

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS WITH YOUR PAPERWORK/PROCESS? With Evie only that we couldn't automatically get her a SSN with her adoptive birth certificate and so we have to go apply for that at the SS office soon.

19. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY OR PLACE YOU VISITED IN YOUR CHILD'S BIRTH state?THE BEST? The Sheraton was very cushy and the employees were so sweet to us, letting us use the microwave in the club lounge at any time of day or night to sterilize bottle parts.

20. HOW MANY DAYS/WEEKS WERE YOU IN YOUR CHILD'S BIRTH state? 7 days total for me but J went back and forth from the hospital to our house almost every day .

21. FAVORITE PLACE/THING TO EAT WHILE THERE? the 1/2 size sodas they had available for free at the hospital...nice.

22. FAVORITE PLACE TO SHOP WHILE THERE? BRU

23. HOW MANY minutes WERE YOU in the car GOING/LEAVING? about 30

24. WHO MET YOU AT THE house? J's mom

25. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU DID AFTER LEAVING THE hospital? Took Evie to lunch with us at Mi*mi's Cafe. She slept through it.

26. WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR ADOPTION DAY? I thought everyone called it the same? Forever Family Day is our finalization day: October 27th.

27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Evelyn Beatrix

28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 4 months and 3 weeks

29. ARE YOU PLANNING TO GO BACK TO his/her BIRTH state SOMEDAY? We have wine club meetings there all the time and we'll go back to see our SW there when we are ready to adopt a younger sibling for Evie.

30. HAVE YOU STARTED OR ALREADY MADE YOUR CHILD A LIFEBOOK? I think I'm overdoing it a bit. I have a lifebook type photo book that I made through Snap*fish, an Adoption themed baby book and I'm working on the first of many scrapbooks. I do want to eventually do a real lifebook but from what I've read, Evie should be involved in creating it, so I'll wait a bit.