Grieving & Loss

A year ago today my Mom died. The past year I feel like I've been in a haze, not knowing how to go forward after the destiny I had was forever altered. I'm not familiar with that kind of shock that lasts this amount of time. You feel it and then you don't feel it; you know what's happened and then you don't really know what happened. I have not come to terms with my losses. I am still trying to figure out how to move on. It's hard to imagine that it's not going to go back to how it was.

Dad is hanging in there. His live-in caregivers are awesome, I can't properly express what a relief that is. Mentally he's doing much better then anyone of us expected; his long-term memory is intact, his judgment skills and short term memory are impaired, but not too bad all things considered, and he's learning ways to workaround them, it's pretty remarkable. Physically he's doing really well and is taking daily walks. My brother & sis-in-law are flying in tonight for a long weekend and I'm taking tomorrow thru Tuesday as vacation.

JCICS - Call to Action

On Monday, April 12, 2010, Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS) issued a Call To Action regarding Intercountry adoption in Russia. The goal is to ensure that intercountry adoption continues uninterrupted and to aggressively investigate and prosecute anyone involved in the abuse of children. I hope for all our sakes that JCICS is successful!!

Adoption News Story

Gee, I guess adopting for Russia is probably now out too. This recent news story is truly sickening. To summarize...a single woman from Tennessee adopted a 7 year old boy last year from Russia. This week, she put him on a plane back to Russia alone with a note saying he has serious psychological problems and that she no longer wished to parent him.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/09/russia-urges-adoption-freeze-american-returns-boy/?test=latestnews

I am very worried for all those who are are in process and for the kids who will be left behind. This woman may have ruined things for a lot of innocent children and prospective adoptive parents. During her process to adopt this woman had to have been educated about issues in older adopted children and treatment options. Regardless of whether this kid was violent or had serious psychological problems, there are legal ways of dissolving an adoption which do NOT involve abandonment! Now I am hearing rumors that Kazakhstan will also suspend adoptions. I am really hoping that is not the case. It is already increasingly hard for singles to adopt internationally.

No More Pregnancies

Yesterday sucked, okay the last 11 months has sucked, but yesterday was especially horrible. I got all the test results from my D&C and they came back clean (meaning: I do not have cancer). Also, my uterus is still intact, however Dr. F said that was seriously touch and go during the D&C whether she would be able to save my uterus as I was bleeding so heavily and there was so much more placenta in the uterus that they were caught unaware. Dr. F tells me I am an "interesting case." Umm...no one wants to be considered an interesting case, that is not good to hear from an extremely accomplished doctor. The placenta somehow still had a blood supply (hello! it should be necrotic!) and my hormones were still at a level that my bloodtests kept coming back that I was pregnant, even 3 months after delivery! More importantly she explained that I had developed an infection. She doesn't know if the infection had caused my miscarriage or not. Fabulous.

Either way, no more pregnancies. I said that I wanted someone else to make that decision, and the doctor did. I got my wish, right? Shouldn't that bring me some sort of peace? No, not really. I am devastated. If you've lost a child, you understand what the thought of a brother or sister to your child you lost means. While another baby can NEVER replace the baby who died, there is a feeling of joy & hope at the thought of being pregnant again and seeing in a brother or sister what you sadly only now see in a picture.