Unknown

It started innocently. I was sitting in a meeting in a church basement, listening, learning and growing. The metal folding chair was uncomfortable. I shifted in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position. Eventually my right leg fell asleep.

I thought nothing of it. Things like this happen all the time. On my way to the car, I stomped my foot, hopping up and down trying to regain feeling. It didn't come. My leg felt heavy and sluggish.

At home, the sensation spread to my right arm and eventually the right side of my face. This was not normal. I was scared.

A trip to the ER in the middle of the night, allayed some of my fears. No stroke. No lesions. Nothing serious.

My primary care doctor thought it might be a pinched nerve. A referral to a neurologist led to multiple blood tests. I had MRIs of my neck and brain and and MRA of my neck. All of these tests revealed nothing.

Nothing. We don't know what is wrong.

I was still having symptoms. Numbness, pain, headaches, neck aches. The pain was real, I felt it. I continued feeling it for months. Months with no answers.

A referral to a rheumatologist revealed nothing. A painful nerve conduction test, nothing.

Nothing. No answers.

I began to question myself. If the doctors can't find anything, is there something really wrong? Is this real? Am I imagining it?

The seeds of my doubt had been planted earlier in life. Physical symptoms were discounted by doctors. I was told it was stress, depression. I was given anti-depressants with no follow up.

I didn't question. I thought doctors knew best. I was crazy. It was in my head.

But it was not. There was a real problem. There was a solution, a treatment. If it was true then, I have to believe it is true now. I cannot live in the unknown.

Fear

Nighttime is the worst. Alone in the dark, it finds me. Slipping in bed next to me, it's long cold fingers wrap around my heart. It's grip tightens with each breath.

It whispers to me, filling my head with unwanted thoughts. Thoughts that can be pushed aside in the light of day, become obsessions in the dark. Pain. Dying. Death. Children motherless once again.

Thoughts growing like tendrils in my brain, filling the empty crevices. I begin to question my sanity. Maybe it is all in my head, maybe none of it is real. I am crazy. I am crazy. The words repeat, echoing through my head. I welcome the thought. Alone in the night, insanity is preferrable to death.

I am suffocating. Drowning in an icy cold lake. My lungs fill with water. My limbs flail, trying in vain to keep me afloat.

I am alone in the dark. Isolated.

I can see salvation in the distance. Reality, sanity is there just out of my reach. The space I so desperately wanted, the few extra inches of room I reveled in just hours before seems like miles.

I reach across the tangle of blankets. I find solid mass. An elbow. A shoulder. A life preserver in a warm body. I hold on with all I have. I let it pull me towards reality. I feel the grip around my heart lessen, the thoughts dissapate.

I am safe for now. On this night the fear does not win. Not yet.

Paper Dolls

One piece of paper.

One small piece of paper.

In the adoption game, paper is everything. You need paper proof of your birth, your marriage, your health, your finances, your background, your fitness to be a parent. Your life is neatly summarized into a pile of paper.



You are judged on that paper. Are you good enough to be a parent? What do the papers say?

Paper can make or break you.

Your child is referred to you based on the paper you.

The ministry approves the referral based on the paper you and adds one more piece of paper to the mix.

The court finalizes the adoption based on the paper you and the ministry's approval.

Travel is approved based on the paper you, the ministry's approval and the court's finalization.

You can then finally hold your child in your arms while you wait for the final piece of paper to be issued, a visa allowing him to come home to America.

Paper is everything. The paper trail you build leads to your child. If everything goes smoothly, the paper trail is easy to walk. It takes time but there is an ending point on the paper trail.

Paper is everything. Every piece of paper is important. If one piece of paper is missing or misplaced, this paper trail becomes a roller coaster ride.

If a piece of paper is missing, your court case gets adjourned one, maybe two times.

If your name is erroneously put on a piece of paper you are informed you passed court when you did not. You are so high.

When the paper error is discovered, you come careening back towards earth at 100 miles per hour.

When the misplaced paper is found, you are notified that you have passed court. Your travel is approved. You have climbed so, so very high.

When a piece of paper goes missing, maybe the same one, maybe another, the ministry refuses to issue a birth certificate or a passport for your child. Your travel is revoked. Your euphoria is gone. You only have the terror of crashing back to earth.

Paper is everything.

One little piece of paper can unite you with your child.

One little piece of paper can keep you from holding your child in your arms.

One little piece of paper can break your heart into a million pieces.

(About two hours after I published my last post about bringing Lion home, we were informed that another piece of paper had gone missing and that our travel had been revoked. We will not be leaving in two weeks. We do not know when we can see our son.)

Floored

Last night was the first time in three weeks that Bunny spent the night in her bed. She hasn't taken refuge in our bed, although she's asked. No, she has been sleeping on her floor.

I'm not really sure how it all started. I think it was an attempt to stave off going to bed. She said she wanted to lay on the floor. Since we couldn't make her sleep we agreed. When she fell asleep we carried her to her bed. We didn't think anything of it.

But then she only wanted to sleep on the floor. We had to bring her animals and blankets to the floor. If we tried to put her in her bed after she fell asleep she would wake in the middle of the night and cry. She would only sleep on the floor, no bed for her.

So we let it go. We figured it was just a phase. But we asked why she didn't want to sleep in her bed. We received answers such as "my bed isn't comfortable" or "the floor is more cozy". When we asked what we could do to make her bed nicer, she was vague. I think she liked the floor. She thought of it as an adventure.

This past weekend she slept in a bed with no fuss. Granted I was in the bed with her and it was a hotel bed, but it was a bed nonetheless. We thought she would go to her own bed when we got home. We thought wrong. She wanted the floor again.

We didn't know if this was a problem. If it was bad to sleep on the floor. It didn't seem to bother her at all. She slept soundly, through the night. So we didn't worry too much. Well we worried a little but not as much as we would have if she wasn't sleeping.

Finally, Bubs came up with an idea. He asked if she would like it if we made her bed into a tent. She was thrilled at the idea. But how would we do it? I found a sheer curtain that I was going to put up in her room (before I realized that sheer curtains in a kid's room was a bad idea). So we draped this over one edge of her bed (she has a little day bed so there are three rails). This worked. She and her bunnies camped out in that end of the bed and she slept there all night long.

I don't know if it will continue or if we'll be back to camping out on the floor. But for one night I felt better.