What a Week

Wow, it's been a busy week! On Tuesday I had my ultrasound appointment and it appears that we're all set for the last FET. I still have the 10mm follicle but it hasn't grown or started producing progesterone so all is well. Now I just have to worry about getting someone else to do my u/s scan on Wednesday because on Friday I got a call that the navy clinic had to cancel. So hopefully I can get one of the hospitals to squeeze me in. Wednesday is also trigger day so I can't really postpone my u/s appointment.

My homestudy physical went okay. I explained to the nurse assistant that I needed a physical and TB test for a homestudy. She took my vitals and left to get the doctor. Then she promptly came back to ask me what a homestudy was. Jesus. So I gave her the paperwork that my doc is supposed to fill out and give to my homestudy agency. I thought this would kind clear things up but it didn't. She asks me if I needed a Pap. Ummmm, no! I don't think the health of my vagina should determine if I'm healthy enough to raise a child. So in walks my doctor, and he is old. No wonder he didn't know what a homestudy was, they probably didn't do that kind of crap back in the day! I'm thinking to myself "There's no way this guy should be active duty" but I guess it's okay for Navy doctors to be in their 50's...or 60's. Whatever. So he reads over my form which says that I have to have bloodwork and a urinalysis to test for communicable diseases. He asks me what diseases he should test for. How should I know?! Then he mentions that he could test me for STD's. Even if I had an STD, I doubt I could pass that along to my adopted child. I'm not giving birth after all. I told him he could call the agency to ask them but he declined, saying that he would figure it out. So he starts checking me out, looking in my ears and mouth and then starts asking the loaded questions: "So can you pick the gender or age for your child? How much is this costing if you don't mind me asking?" Um, I do mind you asking and it's costing us more than the bottle of wine you paid to get your wife knocked up. I swear, the lack of professionalism at this clinic is appalling, but because he was a Commander I answered him truthfully for fear of offending him with a smartass comment. Then I watched him pick his jaw off the floor when I told him what it's costing us (about $42K). Still, every time I come in for something infertility or adoption related, the people at the clinic always ask inappropriate questions. I guess Navy doctors aren't required to have tact. I dread the day when I have to make an appointment to get a referral for a lactation consultant so I can figure out how to breastfeed my adopted child (which I full intend on doing). Maybe I should bring in some paperwork or a book so they can educate themselves beforehand. But despite the annoyances I managed to get through the exam, a urinalysis and TB test.

That night we had our first homestudy visit. I was so excited! Our social worker is nice and our visit went...okay. She went over the process and cleared up a lot of questions we had. She looked through our house and took notes. We still have to get a ladder for our fire escape plan (we have a 2-story house) but other than that everything seemed fine. Unfortunately we discovered that we didn't budget properly for our homestudy portion of the adoption. Our homestudy is costing $1,800, which I thought would cover our post-placement visits. I knew we had to have some, though I didn't know how many. Apparently it's 3 post-placement visits and they are not covered under the $1,800 fee. So that's another $900 we have to come up with. Then there's fingerprinting. $50 for state and $20 for federal (per person). Then she said we have to pay for finalization which runs about $1,200. At this point I kinda started sweating and freaking out. Fortunately the next day I called our adoption agency who explained that our adoption fees cover the finalization so at least we don't have to pay the $1,200. That made me feel better, though it's getting confusing having to deal with two separate agencies.

On Thursday when we went to the police department to get fingerprinted, we were told it would cost us $12 per card (we each have 2). We explained that we're already paying the $100 to our homestudy agency for fingerprinting and they explained that their fee is separate. WTF! So we had to pay $48 to the city of Groton just to get fingerprinted, and then pay another $100 to the state to process the fingerprinted cards. Connecticut sucks.

We wanted to get our fingerprint cards sent off as soon as possible because we were told it's been taking about 60 days to process. So it looks like we might not be able to go active till November, though we're still hoping for October. We're waiting to hear back from our social worker to make our next appointment, which will include the individual interviews.

Other than a few minor things, this process has been going smoothly. I'm kinda dreading having to write the info paragraphs and birthmother letter for our adoption profile. I seem to get writer's block, even though the words flow so smoothly on my blog. Maybe it's because I feel uncomfortable boasting about myself or describing my life. Usually I write the paragraphs and then Brandon proofreads them but I might get another outside opinion as well. We'll have to see. I've only written two sections so far, Our Home and Neighborhood and Our Extended Families. I have 6 more sections to write, along with the birthmother letter. Yikes! We'll get through it though, slowly but surely.