ONE. MORE. DAY.

Please take a moment to visit here and look around a bit.

Today an email arrived from my agency "sternly yet sympathetically" reminding us that passing court is not a given, that there are many things that can happen to delay, that a case might pass one day and a very similar case may not pass the next. Great timing! Basically, there is no way ahead of time to figure out if you will be passing or not. Recently court dates for a whole class of orphan have been indefinitely frozen. Any child found "abandoned" in Addis are not being adopted as of a week ago. There are concerns about corruption. Too many children being found "abandoned" by the same police officer or in the same location. I'm glad they are aware and looking into this, internatonal adoption needs to be 100% above board. But boy do I feel for the adoptive moms who thought their court date was tomorrow, and now have no idea when they will be picking up their children or IF they will be at all. And meanwhile the child remains at the care center, without parents, as they continue to age.

The email also warned us not to tell the whole world when our court date was "as that will make it so much harder if you don't pass and have to repeat ad infinitum why you didn't pass to everyone you know."

Wellllllll.....*backs away from computer surreptitiously* it's a bit late for that warning for me, innit? What with the countdown contest and all! If I don't pass, I'll have to blog and also verbally tell a hundred people and it will be awful. But hopefully whatever caused the failure will be resolved quickly. Who am I kidding, it will be devastating, but we get through things we have no control over. We have no choice. I'm powerless really. At this point, it's totally out of my control.

Up until now I have been pretty calm throughout this process. I've asked myself if this was a form of denial. But then I'm getting the nursery ready, I'm buying Charlie's clothes, setting up a registry, talking about the adoption to everyone who crosses my path, whipping out her pictures everywhere... So I'm not behaving like I"m in denial. I don't know where the relative calmness comes from, but I'm grateful as I read other PAPs blogs and some sound so worried, anxious, and at the end of their tether with the waiting. If I don't pass though, I do believe at that point I will feel anxious and impatient and sad.

A few days ago, while I was driving to work, I was daydreaming about the moment I get the call from my agency that I passed court. Initial thoughts of the way the message would travel to me: the judge tells my attorney who calls the agency who calls me. A message traveling through the airwaves, cell towers connecting, satellites perhaps, Internet. Good news or bad, it will travel thousands of miles over land and sea (and moutains on both ends) to get to me. How long will it take? Does the POA leave the court room and make calls after each family's case is heard? Or does he wait until the lunch break? And when the moment the news arrives, if it's good news, what would my reaction be?

Having been to film school for undergrad, I often daydream in "scenes", "cuts", "fade to blacks". So here's the scene:

Office, noon time: Phone rings or "You've Got Mail" voice pops up. Listen/read the news, run out into the hallway at work, yell out "I'm a mom!" and doors fly open with colleagues rushing out to congratulate me! There's tears and hugs and then everyone starts dancing and singing:
We go together like
rama lama lama
ke ding a de dinga a dong...
Wait, the movie kind of morphed into the ending of "Grease" there! Ok, so it probably won't be quite so.... musical. I'll call my family first, then tell those around me, send off emails, then take a lunch break at the library so I can tell all you readers. I have it all figured out!

So after all that if I don't pass, it will be highly disappointing. But I'm a big girl and I will handle it.

Meet me back here tomorrow afternoon. If I pass, I will post pictures of Charlie!

Final contest question: 10 points, winner announced tomorrow after court. Who sang the line: ""Tonight thank God it's them instead of you" , in which song, and what was the meaning?

Careful, it's a 3 part question :-)

I'm thinking about having another contest where I would tranfer the points of people in the middle now, and let them keep what they've earned so far. What do you think? Interested in playing again?