The Nerves, oh, the nerves…

We have a bit of an update, adoption-wise…

We have been officially released from Agency #1 this week, as the CCAA handed over our dossier to their Beijing office, which had it couriered over to Agency #2’s Beijing office on Tuesday. Hopefully, Ming (Agency #2’s Beijing contact) will also take it back to the CCAA this week so that it can be registered under the auspices of Agency #2 and sent to the SN room at the CCAA, but we haven’t heard if that’s happened or not yet.

It’s a very minor part of the whole process, but it was amazing to think that the CCAA had their hands on our dossier this week, and that it isn’t getting lost in some dark corner of despair for months on end. Someone on the SN board with an LOI of 10-22-06 got their TA on Monday. Can you believe it? We were LOI on 10-11-06, so it’s clear that they just take ‘em and process ‘em in no particularly coherent order in the SN room. I am back to hoping we might really travel in January.

Which brings us to The Nerves part of this post. We are beginning to have a case of The Nerves here at The Nest. I am worried that the transition between agencies (and having our dossier physically removed from the CCAA and then resubmitted) will mean our dossier will lose its original DTC/LID dates, which could jeopardize some of our paperwork. R.’s medical forms are a year old next week (they must be under a year old when submitted) and the fingerprints have already aged six months, but they must be under that when submitted. So, if the CCAA counts this transition as a brand new submission, then we are sort of up a creek. This is what I worry about lying awake at three a.m.

R., on the other hand, worries about this:

This is our Build-@-Bear which is actually a rabbit with big, floppy ears that I love. Build-@-Bear is the company where you can pick a stuffed animal, dress him or her (or not), and then tape a message with your own voices that gets stuffed inside the arm so that when your child hugs the animal, they get to hear your voices. We wanted to include one in our care package to Emerson when the time comes, so that she can get used to the sound of our voices. Both R. and I spoke, in both Mandarin and English, for 10 seconds into the phone to make the recording. We said hello, and that we were her mama and baba, and that we loved her.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, I had a hard time choosing an outfit that a little girl might like. I didn’t want any of the multitude of mini-skirts and short shirts and cut jeans that they offered, especially since this is going to the SWI in China in a care package. I was searching for a dress. The denim dress was sold out. The only one I could find for the damn rabbit was this:

Think Moulin Rouge, circa 1890. Velvet. Red and Purple. Oh, yeah. Basically the definition of the word garish.

Now R. is calling it the “strumpet rabbit.” Or sometimes just “The Strumpet.” Er, whatever. But it was enough to nix that plan. I went back to the site and ordered some jeans and a flowered T-shirt. I’m not sure why I’m committed to the anthropomorphization of the poor rabbit in any case, but I am.

BUT. It gets better. Last night, R. and I went out to celebrate our transition to Agency #2 by having dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in town. They have one of those standard paper placemats with the Chinese zodiac imprinted on it, and so we discover that Emme Lu is a rooster. The Rabbit is her opposite. Beware of the rabbit, Emme Lu!

I make the huge mistake at that point of mentioning to R. that the CCAA takes into consideration the parents’ zodiac signs when matching NSN children. They take it seriously and don’t match children’s files with parents’ dossiers who have a zodiac clash.

So, now, R. is convinced that if we send the rabbit with our voices in it to Emme Lu in a care package, that the CCAA will disrupt our adoption because we chose to send her the evil opposite sign to the rooster.

Bad rabbit.

See what I mean about nerves?