First Day as a Mom – that wasn’t (call it false labor)

What a Day!
I don’t know where to start.

Our day started out with us getting things ready to go and pick up Anya. I put all the gifts for people at the orphanage in a bag, got her outfit folded up and put in the bag; planned what we were going to have dinner. We knew that we wouldn’t be going to get her until later afternoon, so we decided to go out with Steve and Tami Jackson shopping. We had some things that we needed from the grocery store etc.

So out we went. We get though the first aisle at the grocery store, and the cell phone rings. It was Alex. Apparently the officials in the city will not let us get Anya until the 10 days are up. In other words, we can’t get Anya today, and won’t be able to get her until who knows when.

Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover what I am feeling over all of this. Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it or think about it at all.

I should have known better. I am not new to this adoption thing, this RUSSIAN adoption thing and even more specifically – this IRKUTSK adoption thing. I know that there are no set rules, no set norms. When something is supposed to take 3 days it will take 7. I also know that there is nothing you can do about this, so stewing over it will only cause intestinal issues, and not solve anything.

My issue with all of this is mine. I am OK with waiting things out, with the unknown. For the last 5 years, I have been relatively OK with everything because I had no expectation and became cynical about every step of the process. If we would hear that the Judge would accept a meeting with our coordinator on a given day, and our coordinator was going to ask for a court date – I would assume the meeting wouldn’t take place. Which it didn’t – many many times.
I have been OK with going to visit Anya in the various orphanages she has been in. I was even kinda OK with leaving her there. There was nothing I could do to change the current situation, so I made a choice. Either I could be OK or stew.

After court, I was OK with going to see Anya at the horrible orphanage, but only because I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Things started bothering me more and more; like the smell of the room we have to play in, and the filth of everything you sit on, and the grime under Anya’s fingernails. All of this was ok, because the end was near.

It’s mental gymnastics really.

So I set myself up. I should have known that it was all too good to be true. Now I am mad, frustrated, have a bad attitude and want to march down to those so-called officials and give them a piece of my mind.

But I won’t. I’ll just sit here in this tiny apartment that we’re paying way too much money a day for. We’ll go back to see Anya tomorrow for the first time since LAST Friday. We will assume that weekends and holidays don’t count in the 10 day count down.

…and did you know that the 10 days is up to the Judge? Yep! It is up to her if she wants to count holidays or weekends, because she is the one who has to sign the official document on the 10 days following court!