Post-Christmas update

the blog postings have been sparse this month! We have been pretty busy running around the past few weeks.

I had a GREAT visit back in Ohio with both Cris' family and my family. I spent the first day in Toledo with the Stickley/Matus gang, and had a great time catching up with everyone.


Then over to Willard to see the Saccenti/Alford crew. Everyone was home for Christmas, and I got to visit with all the neices and nephews. It was really a great time. Next year will hopefully mean my trip will be accompanied by Cris and 2 baby girls.

That's right, i did say 2 baby girls. In case you haven't heard the news, 2008 will be bringing 2 additions to the Stickley family! Cris and I found out we are expecting a baby in May, and we are so excited that Juneau will have a sister! We were in a state of shock and slightly overwhelmed for the first couple of months, but we are now pretty much ecstatic as we are in the 5 month of pregnancy, and anxious to have both babies here by summer.

Here is a little ultrasound pic of the baby girl soon to be Nova Joelle!

recovering from the holidays!

well, i survived the cold, and made it back to the rainy season here in Hawaii. It's so funny because on the radio here in the mornings they will say "be careful out there, the roads are really wet". I'm like, 'are you kidding?? warnings for wet roads?'. But i guess if wet is the worst the roads ever get i can kind of understand the warning.

Christmas was aweseome. I spent some time with Cris' family my first day home, and then headed over to meet with some PAP's and AP's in Columbus. It was really cool to finally meet some of the people i already "knew" so much about. Then back to my parents house, which was packed with all 5 siblings, 2 spouses, and 3 grandkids. Next year will be great to add 2 more to the grandkid crew. My mom had bought these little electric bumper cars that little kids can actually ride in, and they were zipping all over the house in these crazy little things.

In adoption news, our agency director is headed over to Vietnam the first of the year to visit the orphanages and get the scoop on what's happening. We are hopeful that her trip will bring great news for our family. I can't wait to hear all about the little girl who will become our daughter next year!

Nothing really new in preggo news. I had my formal ultrasound yesterday (my friends and i had already done like 1 million ultrasounds - cris is afraid we're gonna fry the baby), which confirmed it is indeed a baby girl (sorry cris! you will remain the only male figure amidst me, juneau, nova, -- and summit and sherpa--our dog babies). Everything looked great, and she is growing right on target. Her movements are becoming very obvious now, and it is extremely weird. I jump everytime she moves. I imagine i'll probably get used to that. or at least i hope i do!

and in yucky news, i'm back to work. not that i don't like work, but i was really enjoying doing absolutely nothing at all for the last few weeks.

I know i need to post some pics, but i'm at work and no camera or cord, so i will post some soon. I've really really enjoyed all of the adorable and amazing Christmas pics my blogger buddies have posted!

the big news!

I'm leavin' for the airport in less than an hour, so this is a quickie post, but i couldn't leave everyone hanging until tuesday, when i will be back in blogger land.

2008 will be bringing special additions to the stickley family x 2!!!

During this long wait for the little june-bug to come home, we found out we will be adding another little one to the stickley clan. This was a HUGE suprise, and still hasn't totally sunk in. We've known for a little while, but wanted to wait to tell to be sure everything was ok. then, when we were ready to announce the big news, we lost our referral, and everything seemed to fall apart. But, now that things are settling down a bit, we are excited to announce that Juneau will soon have a sister!

I'm just about 19 weeks, and due May 13th. It's been an overwhelming, but great experience!

So, we'll leave you with a little glimpse at the baby girl soon to be Nova Joelle!

Christmas Lunch Vietnamese Style

Yeah!! I'm so excited to finally get to meet some fellow PAP's and AP's! Hawaii's a small little place, and i don't know a single other adoptive family in real life, so i'm soooo excited to finally get to meet Elaine and Jenn! I know there are other Ohio families out there, so I hope we can make it a bigger get together. Who doesn't need a trip to columbus to complete their holiday shopping?!

And I LOVE Elaine's idea for the title of the get-together "Adoption Angst Regional Gathering". Suits me just perfectly.

So, anyway, if you live near Columbus, make a little trip down to meet for lunch at 12:30 on Wed, Dec 19. It will be awesome. promise.

Also, there were some really great comments on my last post. i really appreciate the ideas. To clear things up, our agency director said "no way, absolutely not, are you completely insane?" to the idea of taking some other families baby. thankfully. That would really really suck. That probably means we have a way to go to get our new referral paper-ready, but that's cool. i can live with waiting a few more months, as long as we get her home. and hopefully before the year 2020. In spite of the the drama, I really like the director. She's a smart, independant, single mom, and she's just a cool lady. I think she had no idea about our individual situation until last month (she really didn't have a reason to be involved before then), and i really believe now that she's involved things will be better. So, i guess we'll see. Still approaching with caution, but at least not hopelessly.

oh, also i can't wait to post the picture of the present i am making for my fellow residents. you guys are gonna freakin' love 'em.

and, also i have other big humongous news.....(cliffhanger!!!) so check back this weekend.

The Meeting

Yesterday was the meeting with our adoption agency to figure out where to go from here.

To summarize, the director of the agency will be going to Vietnam the first week of January. She wants to visit the orphanage director, and the children, and try to figure out what went wrong, and how to prevent it next time. She said the orphanage director feels very horrible about the error, and is anxious to rectify the situation.

The other big news is that they have already identified a baby for us. We don't know anything at all about her. We asked her to please wait until she had all of the paperwork ready to go, and was totally sure everythign was perfectly in line before she gave us any information. we don't know how long that will be, but we should have more information after the director gets back from her trip in January.

We both feel pretty good about the meeting. We are not really anxious to rush the process at all, as we don't want to risk any errors, so we are ok with waiting however long it takes to get her paperwork ready before we find out any info about her.

Otherwise things are going well. Betsy and I are leaving on Sunday to come to Ohio for a visit. Cris will be holding down the fort and watching Summit and Sherpa until i get home next week.

The Meeting

i think it went pretty much exactly as i thought it would. This time there was considerably more kicking under the table. Cris looks at things much differently (and by differently i mean more positively) than i do sometimes. I kind of feel like the Agency made a huge mistake. We hired them to do a job, and paid them lots and lots of money, and yet they still failed miserably. And i know for a fact, if i messed up at work as miserably as they did at their job i would have serious consequences for that, as would most people. Cris, however, feels like it's water under the bridge. They made a mistake, lets move forward and try to fix it next time. Darn those positive thinkers.

Soooo, down to the important stuff. The first thing she said is basically "i'm leaving for Vietnam in 3 weeks to work on your situation". Once again I felt like this should be a given, she should be in Vietnam working on our situation. Cris thought "isn't that great! She's going to Vietnam to fix the problem herself!".
I still don't have much info about what happened. I guess i don't really care because it can't be changed. Supposedly the orphange director did give our referral to another family. At first i didn't see how this could be possible. We had our referral for 6 months! we had signed a letter of acceptance that went straight to the DIA. But then she basically said that after the orphanage director told her the news, he offered to take a "paper ready" baby that had already been referred to another family to give to us so we didn't have to wait so long. so that's starting to make a little more sense. maybe the same thing happened with our baby. But honestly, who really knows. i think it would border on impossible to actually find out what happened. Too many intricacies of the process. Too many areas to mess up.
I did tell her that i wasn't completely satisfied with that answer, as it seemed like there were other areas of the process that could have contributed to the break down. My main concern is the in-country facilitator. What in the world was she doing for the last 6 months? I said that whenever we requested specific information, like "where EXACTLY is our daughter's dossier" we got the run-around. She said she has already addressed this problem, and that is part of what her trip is for, to go over in detail what she expects of the facilitator.
Also, about the license, since there has certainly been some confusion. I asked for physical evidence of a license in Thanh Hoa, as the agency is only listed as being licensed in Quang Nam, and supposedly they have had their Thanh Hoa license since Jul 25. She said she will provide it.
(by this time she and I are not really BFF's).

So, the good news. They supposedly have a referral for us. But (per our request) are not going to really tell us anything about her until things have really moved along. I don't know when that will be, and i'm really not stressed about it at all. I now realize that whether we see her picture now, or in 3 months, the wait for travel will be the same, so i would rather see it later rather than sooner. The director will be visiting her in the orphange when she goes in January and will take some pictures etc. So i imagine they will have a lot more info in January.

Oh, also she is in Thanh Hoa. AAAAhhhh, scary. At first i was like, "Absolutely not". But then she said basically that in this situation the orphanage director is anxious to right a wrong. That because he knows about our situation he has personallly promised to help move the paperwork along at a reasonable speed, and be sure everything is done perfectly. Who knows if that is true, but it might help. I asked her to please check into Quang Nam to see if there would be any referrals from that province (which has only had 2 referrals this year), and she said she would.

So, that's basically it.
off topic, As for the question about why do a GYN residency if i want to do lipo? Excellent question! I should have done a plastic surgery residency. But i didn't know that's what i wanted. AND i do love love love ob/gyn. But i've finished almost 3 years of residency, and plastics would be another 7-8 years of making very little money and working my butt off. So, i looked into ways to get trained in doing surgery other than GYN surgery. Incidentally, i found that a large portion of "cosmetic surgeons" who are performing lipo/etc. are Dermatoligsts (not surgeons at all!) and Ear nose and throat guys (surgeons, but of course of the face). As gynecologist we already operate in the lower abd every day! It's our specialty area. So basically lipo is just expanding a procedure in an area we already know really really well. Plus, patients ask for it all the time. They usually feel really comfortable with their GYN, and i think would love it if we could be trained to do other procedures they would like to have. so, that's how that happened.

Anyway, sorry for the longest post of all time! thanks for following along!

Update tomorrow

Hello all, sorry for the absence. Things have been a little crazy. After the devastating news, and the thanksgiving holiday, everything got really busy. Cris finished his very last written final EVER yesterday! Since moving to Hawaii he has been pursuing his PhD at the University of Hawaii. With the class portion of his degree finished he will now be focusing full time on his research and dissertation, along with teaching his normal classes.
Late last night i returned from a weekend conference in Las Vegas. It was a great conference, focused on "cosmetic gynecology". Basically hosted by OB/GYN's who have been driven out of their normal practice by malpractice lawsuits, and very poor insurance reimbursements. These OB/GYN's are now concentrating their skills in the cosemtic realm, doing things like liposuction and tummy tucks. It was certainly an interesting perspective.
Las Vegas was FREEZING cold (at least to this hawaii girl), and is making me think twice about my trip to Ohio next week, where i might actually die of coldness.

On the adoption front, we finally have a meeting with our agency arranged. We will be meeting with them tomorrow at one o'clock. We have no idea what they will tell us, or where we will be going from here, but we will be sure to update the website when we start to figure it out.

back to the sunshine

we got back from our conference late last night. Vegas was a blast. I'm not much of a gambler (i hate setting money on FIRE)! but i did a little. unsuccessfully. And, it was so, unexpectedly cold. I thought Nevada was warm, even in the winter, but it was FREEZING! it made me think twice about my upcoming trip to Ohio, where i might actually die of coldness. It's really funny that I've grown up and lived in cold, snow, icy, northeastern ohio my whole life, and now i can't stand the idea of it.

Anyway, the conference was awesome. The field of medicine is changing soooo much. Malpractice lawsuits, and poor insurance reimbursements are forcing physicians out of their normal fields, especially OB/GYN's. This conference was basically for OB/GYN's who have decided to leave the traditional field, and practice cosmetic gynecology. This includes things like liposuction, tummy tucks, vaginal rejuvenation, etc. It means not working 100 hours/week, not being on call 24 hours a day, and not getting sued for 5 million dollars for doing the best you can under these circumstances. I have always like plastic surgery, but had a bit of a different vision for what my life would be like. Residency has kind of skewed my initial vision, as i deal with hundreds of entitled, difficult, ungrateful patients. There are of course the patient's who make this job totally worthwhile, and that is the part that i love, but it gets really stressful at times. And you are always on edge, afraid to do the "wrong thing". anyway, Cosmetic gynecology could provide me with a lifestyle (40 hrs/week and no call!) that would allow me to actually be a mom, and not just some random lady that shows up at the house sometimes. so, that may be the career path i pursue after finishing residency. who knows though.
My meeting with the agency is set for one o'clock tomorrow. I'm nervous. i don't know what is going to happen. The email i got only a few weeks ago saying we had lost the little girl we dreamed was our daughter somehow seems so distant. i am so anxious to see what they have to say. i can hardly stand it.

MotherMotherOcean - if you read this and have a chance to email me today i would love to hear from you. I know you might have a little info about our agency, and i am really interested to be armed with everything i can before we go in there. please email me if you can! crisandemilie@yahoo.com.

new meeting time

well, today isn't the day we get any info. Yesterday the agency people emailed and asked if we could meet either Friday or next week b/c they were following up on some things from the Summit and may have more info next week. Sure. So the meeting will be sometime next week (probably wednesday).
In the meantime, I've gotta pack for Vegas (which also involves cleaning my house, which i am dreading).
So, hang on to those good thoughts for out meeting until next week.

busy month ahead

December has officially arrived, and we are ready for a busy month! We've got our Christmas tree up, and our little house decorated.

On Thursday night I leave for Las Vegas with 2 other residents to attend the much anticipated "Cosmetic Gynecology" conference.

After returning from the conference on Monday, i work for another week, and then I am off to Ohio. I'm already trying to figure out if i have anything warm enough to even wear on the plane, much less to last me a whole week in the coldness. I guess my sisters will have to dress me out of their wardrobes while i am home.

Then I come back to Hawaii on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas day with my wonderful husband (Cris won't be making the trip back to Ohio).

So lots to look forward to.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with our agency director. I'm quite anxious to see how that goes. I really hope she is willing to take responsibility for what happened. I hate when the agencies always find someone else to blame for whatever problems arise. I guess I've pretty much come to the conclusion that an error could have been made by the orphanage director, but I do believe it is our in-country facilitor's error that led to a 6 month delay in us finding out. So, I guess we'll see what she has to say. We still don't know what to do from here. A lot of the money we've paid is "non-refundable" (although in this situation i believe it would be a huge mistake for them not to refund our money if that is what we request). Worse than losing the money is the prospect of going to the bottom of someone's 2 year long wait list. The idea of that makes me want to cry right now. Ultimately, I don't think the agency did anything necessarily "unethical", depending on how you define unethical. There was no harm or wrong done to the child, and no illegal money changing hands, no falsifying of paperwork. I think it was more just ignorance, or dare i say stupidity, that led to our heartbreak. So the issue is more can we trust them to try again, or should we just leave everything we've invested for the last 15 months and start all over again. I know lots of people would probably abandon ship and find a new agency, i just can't even fathom going back to the beginning. So, hopefully I'll have some more answers tomorrow.

In other news, the "gyno-girls" (my class of OB/GYN residents is a group of all girls!) new edition of the annual holiday greeting card is out. Unfortunately, i don't have Year 1 on my computer, but perhpas you can imagine Charlie's Angels with speculums instead of guns.

Year 2

Year 3