Odds and Ends & a Z update

Things continue to go well with our birth mom.  I'm going to put up a new post on the adoption blog today with those details.  We're trying to work out the details, mostly with Mike's work, so we can go and meet her sometime in June.

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We got our IRS return, minus the adoption credits, which at first made me really mad.  But it turns out the IRS was being nice and giving us our regular return while they process the adoption credits.  Turns out the adoption credit is the single largest tax credit available and as such, draws a lot of attention from the criminal element who see it as a fairly easy way to rip off the system.  Because of that, any applications for the credit are automatically sent to an outside private business to be investigated for fraud.  That business is given 60 days by the IRS to figure out if the applications are legit or not (go through the paperwork, contact adoption agencies, etc), and they got ours on April 3 or something, which means we should be finding out in the next couple of weeks if we were cleared to receive the credits or not.  The IRS lady said that if we were able to prove we had and were adopting, we shouldn't have any trouble getting the credits, so that made me feel a little better.

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Submitted & a Book You Should Read

I am a bundle of nerves, but after re-reading our application in total, I submitted it to NEDC.

Tomorrow I need to call WAMC to get my medical records for IVF #2 & #3, and HSG #2.

I am also calling my local clinic to get the ball rolling on surgery to remove my left tube.  Not sure what that all includes, but I'm hoping that I won't meet with much resistance from my doc or too long of a wait to get in to see him, get the pre-surgery tests done, and get the surgery scheduled.

NEDC has a very organized and detailed timeline of what happens and in what order, which an OCD person like me finds very comforting.

I'm sure anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time can tell that balancing the life I have with the life I want or think I should have is a tough assignment for me.  I find myself constantly being obsessed with either trying to make this next adoption happen in whatever form it's going to take, or wanting to walk away and quit because the waiting is so freaking hard.  Both are extremes that I don't like, two sides of the same coin of control that I can't seem to let go of.  But I have to find a way to even things out.  For my own sanity, for my husband's sanity, and so I don't miss out on the blessing of watching my daughter grow up each day.

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A Holiday Minimalist

I am not one to celebrate many holidays or special days.  In general, they just aren't that important to me, or Hubby, either.

The two that I mark on my calendar at the beginning of every year, though, are Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Those two I will go all out for and I look forward to them the entire 10 and a half months prior.  For me, Thanksgiving kicks off the Christmas season, which is my ultimate favorite.

I like July 4th, too, but whether I do anything to mark the occasion depends on my mood, where I'm living at the time, and whether extended family is involved.  Some of my best memories are sitting in the back of my parents' truck in Phoenix, parked outside their house, and watching the fireworks off in the distance.

The rest, though, like Valentines or Mother's/Father's day, or St. Patty's or what have you just seem like a hassle.  One more thing to have to run around and prepare for.  Spend money on.  Etc.

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Finding Myself Again

NIAW is over now, but I spent some time this week reading a lot of blogs about the topic "Don't Ignore..."and there were a bunch of posts about not ignoring pursuing life, as in don't ignore doing what you love to do.

That happens a lot in infertility, I think.

Infertility is time and emotion and thought consuming.  It sucks up everything.

I know that personally I have not pursued other interests because I was often depressed about either our lack of pregnancy or our baby losses and couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm to get up off the couch to shower or brush my teeth (sadly, especially after losing E&J&W, my personal hygiene suffered greatly), much less tackle any kind of hobby.

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Progress all over the place, Yay!!

- Vacation was fun.  We did a lot of driving, which I found I still love once I was able to relax and stop freaking out that we were going to be in an accident (my new panic point since seeing that motorcyclist die back in March).  On top of driving to Montgomery to stay with Hub's parents, we went to Space Camp & the lost luggage store up in Huntsville, Tuscaloosa to see Z's coolest Auntie K and Uncle K and terrorize their cat, and to Tyndall AFB/Panama City where Hubs lived from '81-'85.  It was a great time filled with relaxation, fun, family, and food.

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6 Years+

Whelp, it's now been more than six years that we've been on our family building roller-coaster.  

Maybe it isn't so obvious, but Z has only increased our desire to have more children - she is just that awesome!  I figure we're about 1/3 of the way there to the number of kids we'd ideally like.

The past six years represent a lot for us.  We've been through so much in that time.  

6+ years is a long time, too.  I've spent one-fifth of my life fighting to build this family.  That's significant.  

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Thoughts About Race

I am white to the core - all of my blood goes back to the Brits, Germans, and Scottish.  My dad is a first generation immigrant to the US, but from Australia.  I do have brown hair and somewhat olive-ish skin, but overall very white and I tend to freckle in the sun more than tan.

My husband, on the other hand, is half German, half Filipino.  Most people upon meeting him can't tell what mix he is because he looks like he could be part Asian or part Hispanic or part Native American or part Middle Eastern.  The more he is in the sun, the darker he gets, and at times he can look more blasian than asian/white.

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Z's 15 month checkup

It started off monumentally, as in on the drive to the clinic, we hit a lawn chair mattress blown up into the air by the car in front of us.  It was absolutely unavoidable.  We were fine, but it did rip off the plastic plate protecting my oil hoses and such on the bottom of my car.  Sorry for the lack of an official part name but I am challenged when it comes to anything car related, despite handing tools to my dad when he worked on our '83 Land Rover.  Hubby is going to take care of fixing it this afternoon.  He's the best.  And I'm glad there wasn't more damage.

Anyways, we arrived safe and mostly sound to Z's appointment.  The clinic was running terribly behind, the worst I've ever experienced in the military with Z's doctors.  It took them over an hour to call us back, but once they did, things moved along pretty well.

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Steps to Sanity & questions about Z

Had a very long talk with Hubby yesterday about how I've been feeling.  Things kind of came to a head and it started off with me really frustrated and in tears, but ended with some solutions.

He's going to watch Z a little more often than one afternoon a month, which should allow me to relax a little more and get some much needed time to myself.  Already he's fulfilling that by taking her out this afternoon.  Unfortunately I went to bed with a killer headache, woke up with it, went to church with it, took a nap with it, and still have it.  I think it's because I took gluten free cheese pizza slices with me to Disney World on Thursday - and the milk is still bothering me.  Dairy gives me awful headaches for days, I recently found out.  But it's hard to find anything more convenient than pizza - eating and packing wise, compared to root veggies. And sometimes I miss cheese and eating normal food.

I also need to relinquish control when Hubby's watching Z, as in trust him, even when she comes home from the park with minor bruises and scratches.  He lets her run a little more free than I would, and is more casual about letting her fall down than I am.

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Home Again

Hubby's week long conference finally ended today.  It was sad to leave the hotel with all of its amenities (I love having someone make my bed!) and fun activities, like pool time or playing in the kids' sandbox.  I can't believe I failed at getting pictures so completely.  I was a bit depressed about it yesterday as I packed everything up.  I was quite happy to realize, though, that when we came home this morning, this house actually felt like home and I was glad to be back.  I didn't expect such emotions, especially since Florida is not my favorite place.  Turns out that time really is key, and no matter how much I dislike where we move to at the beginning of a PCS, somewhere along the line my heart catches up with my circumstances and feelings of home and belonging do grow.  I think I will miss this place when we leave and I'm glad for that.

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Insert Jazzy Title (summary of the past two weeks or so)

The time, it flies.

Between the home study in 10 days, going to see my parents sans computer for 10 days, and being sick for the past two weeks, I am yet again waaaaaay behind on this here blog.

Le sigh.

Many times through the past couple of weeks I've thought to myself, "I need to blog that!" only to not blog at all.  

I will try to summarize the insanity for your reading pleasure:

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Full Steam Ahead

Wow, what a crazy last few days it has been.

My head is still spinning.

As of right now, we are back active with our adoption agency, we have signed with a home study agency, and we have begun attacking the paperwork monster.

I have started cleaning the house from top to bottom, again, in order to whip it into shape for the home inspection part of the study, which will hopefully be next Friday - a week from tomorrow.  So far only the living room and hubby's half of the master bedroom is done.  So I have quite the task ahead of me.  How do things get this messy so fast?

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Moolah

Hubby and I had a rather messy convo about taxes last night, in prep for today's filing.  He can be overly pessimistic and estimated us owing in the long run, rather than recouping anything.  That prediction had me in a full on anxiety attack, as we need as big of a refund as we can get with another adoption in the works and all of our grand plans for FETs and deFETs.

And as much as I feel we scrimp and scrimp around here, it never seems to make our saving account grow.

Seriously, I shop almost exclusively at Goodwill and Salvation Army on sale days, no less, and eat mostly winter squash so we should be saving something.  And with Z no longer on formula, the money should start piling up somewhere, for crying out loud!

I was nearly in tears at the prospect of owing the government more money than the huge chunk they already take, which usually adds up to anywhere from 25-30% of hubby's paycheck.

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Thursday, Thursday

I normally save my hodgepodge post for Friday, but this whole week has been really off schedule.

- My mom is in surgery to remove the potentially cancerous tumor from her abdomen.  Obviously we're praying for her to not have cancer, to come through the surgery well, and to recover quickly.  We'll know better tonight where she stands health wise.  I have tickets to go see her on the 20th for a week and a half.

- I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.  The ENT had to suction out my sinus a couple of days ago so maybe I really am fighting a bug.  Hubby says he feels icky too.

- Hubby has a meeting on Tuesday with the people handling his MEB case.  Hopefully we'll get a better feel for how long this process is going to take going to take, where his paperwork is at in the process, what comes next, etc.

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One Step at a Time

I'll write about my birthday later.  It was a great day and if you're friends with me on Facebook, then you already know what I did.

Today, though, I have an update on something I didn't think I'd be writing about for at least another year.

In a nearly unprecedented change of the status quo, my hubby called me up this morning and asked me to schedule an initial appointment with the IVF clinic we really like and were able to get a referral to in town.  Apparently so we can get the ball rolling on me trying to get pregnant again.

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My last weekend as a 30 year-old

What a weekend of escapades!  Pirates and donuts and burned countertops and thrift stores, oh my!!

It all started when Hubby needed to check out some stuff for work in Orlando so we headed out there last minute late Friday afternoon.  After his work stuff was done, we decided to check out Downtown Disney, which is actually a pretty cool place, especially because of Babycakes, NYC - an allergen free bakery.

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Random Friday Bits

- After a long convo with my mom last night, she would rather me wait until after surgery to come visit.  So that's what I'm gonna do.

- Our credit card got hacked.  Again.  Thankful for our bank, who caught it and notified us and will be sending us new cards.

- Z is on some kind of weird sleep schedule.  This week her teething is horrible.

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To Go or Not to Go?

My mom is probably having surgery on Thursday next week (Feb 2).  She still needs to get clearance from her cardiologist and she has an appointment with him on Monday.

I found tickets at a decent price if I fly out to Phoenix on Tuesday (Jan 31 - yup, not how I thought I would spend my golden birthday) and come back on Feb 13.

Mom says not to book them until she finds out for sure from her cardiologist that she's having surgery.

I'm wondering about the timing of when to go.

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The Boo Box

Thank you everyone, so much, for your comments on Z and discipline ideas.

I realized that I was probably confusing Z with the playpen (toys, sleeping area when traveling, and timeout) so I've come up with a few solutions.

Hopefully they will work.  If not, we'll have to think of something else.

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Sassy Z and a question for my readers

My awful lasting so many days I can't remember when it started headache is finally gone.  Poof.  Just like that this morning it wasn't there.

I was so happy I could have jumped up and down but that would have just scared the dogs downstairs and possibly woken up Z, and I still wanted a shower and a chance to do my makeup.  So I didn't.  But I could have.

Anyways, since I am feeling so much better, you'd think I'd be running around and accomplishing things or having fun.

But I'm not.  I am sadly unmotivated to do anything in this house.  Not that I have time, but this is not our home, it's just a temporary living space, and I have no inclination to spend the money or take the time to turn it into a place we want to stay longterm.  I have a serious case of the let's move already blues.

In case you think I'm bored though, I'm not.

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