Uterine Wars

The Sensory Issue Update

Last week, Moonpie had a mystery "fever" virus, which led to sleepless nights trying to keep her core temperature down, thanks to the anhidrosis that goes along with lamellar ichthyosis.  Her pediatrician had me come in on Tuesday after her fourth consecutive day of fevers over 102 F, and gave me a stern lecture on using the cooling vest to reduce her fever (from 105 to -- gasp! 101).

Whatever.

Anyway, Moonpie is now flaking and peely and totally fine.  I, however, now have bronchitis, and am at least vertical today, a huge improvement over yesterday.  I talked my mom into driving up here to help out (I can't breathe, mom. I can't get off the couch.  She is sitting on my head, mom.  Help. Please....) so Moonpie is thrilled and at the park with her Nanny, and I can cough my spare organs out in peace.

I've been wanting to do a post about Moonpie's sensory issues for a while, and just haven't gotten the time.  It's been two and a half years since she left the orphanage, and I'm still surprised by its lingering effect on her.   When we got home, she had a severe oral aversion, the result of never being allowed to explore the world through her mouth like a normal infant.  She is just now going through an oral fixation stage, meaning that I have to watch my three-year-old like you would an eight month old.  She picks up and puts small objects in her mouth, running her tongue and slobbering over inedible objects of all shapes and size. 

Which means I can't take a shower any more, because I can't trust her not to choke while she's out of my sight.

I fixed her a basket of baby toys that she can put in her mouth, and placed it next to her pile of pillows on the floor by the T.V.  She has shown some interest in them, but they are not nearly as fun as the teeny tiny Barbie shoes or the, dear God, what is that? A ROCK?  Where did she get a rock from?  Spit that out right now, Moonpie!  Are you trying to die?

We still deal with an aversion to loud noises as well.  I stash a pair of earmuffs for Moonpie in my purse, and she uses them whenever a loud noise scares her.  She can now tolerate the vacuum, hair dryer, blender, and the innocuous background beeps and buzzes at the grocery store, but the LOUD POTTY at the book store is still too much for her.   D took her bowling a couple of weeks ago, and her picture was in the paper wearing her bright blue earmuffs, pushing a hot pink bowling ball down the lane. 

I think it's adorable.  She's so brave now! How far she's come!

Most people thought she was just three and dressed herself.

Her diet is still largely limited to things that are orange, red, or brown.  Carrots, which are orange, are acceptable only as a conduit for ranch dressing, which is white but tastes good so it gets a pass.  Socks are shunned, as are long sleeves, but that may have more to do with her being a three-year-old than being post-institutional.

She self-soothes by twirling knots in her hair, a problem that led to a huge tangle just before Christmas that I had to cut out of her hair.  She now has bangs, which not only look really cute on her but reduces the amount of hair she can tangle.  Win-win, don't you think?

Night terrors are still a fixture in our house, as are regular nightmares.   She talks in her sleep, so during her nightmares she calls for me and begs for help, which breaks my heart.  Her biggest fear is being alone, and no reassurances on my part will ever be enough to convince her we aren't going to suddenly go away.  The normal preschool talks about "stranger danger," fires, earthquakes, and the ilk have all triggered a deep, primal fear in her. 

International adoption is so easy.  You just go and get a baby!  You are saving an orphan! You are doing such a good thing!  Here, let me pat you on the back.... 

Muppet Airlines

MOONPIE:  Let's play airplane!

SOPER: O.K.  (Settles onto the bed behind Moonpie)

MOONPIE:  (proffering a doll baby bottle) Would you like some juice?

SOPER:  Yes please.  And some pretzels.

MOONPIE: We don't have pretzels.

SOPER:  What!?  I paid 350 dollars for this ticket, and you don't even have pretzels!

MOONPIE: Here, here, here are some pretzels.

SOPER:  Yeah, I knew you were hording them for first class.  First class always gets everything. Grumble grumble grumble.

MOONPIE: And now I will have a drink before we fly.

SOPER:  You can't drink! You are the pilot!

MOONPIE: But I'm thirsty!

SOPER:  But you are the pilot!  Pilots can't drink before they fly!

MOONPIE:  I want some juice!

SOPER:  O.k., just don't put anything in it.

MOONPIE:  (drinks her pretend juice)  O.k., we can fly now.  Kitty wants to fly, too.

SOPER:  Kitty is going to be your co-pilot?  I knew I shouldn't have booked a flight on Muppet Airlines...

**********************

I'm still struggling what to think about the human trafficking/international adoption issue.  I know corruption is endemic any time a business becomes lucrative -- and adoption is a business, despite what we desperately all want to think.

When D and I were weighing our options for a second child, we hugged Moonpie to us and thanked God that we knew her story.  That we knew for certain  she had truly been released by her family's free will, that we would never have to look her in the eye and say "well, yes, you might have been kidnapped/bought/conceived for cash, we'll probably never know." 

We also knew that we couldn't take the risk of not being able to give the same assurance to our second child.

Domestic adoption can be equally ethically involute.   Some women are pressured to place their child.  Some really are lied to, threatened, put into emotional situations you would never want for your daughter, sister, or friend.  Some women deeply regret their decision, and spend a lifetime carrying the guilt and the pain.  I know all this.  I worry about this.  I worry about the woman who is, somewhere, carrying a child I will someday call my own.  I worry for the family who will lose their connection to that child, no matter how open our adoption may be, no matter how well-intentioned and fastidious we may be.

I know this adoption will never be ethically perfect.  I know there are some who say that adoption can never be ethically perfect.  Those who believe the biological family should be given more help to raise the child, that D and I are less than even the second/third/fifth choice for a child.   Someday I will have to look an adolescent in the eye and admit  "Yes, your first mother might have been able to raise you if her circumstances had changed.  She would have raised you if her circumstances had changed.  She loved you.  She wanted you.  She gave you life."

But I will know, in my heart,  that I did too.  And that I have done everything in my power to make sure the other family knew of every option available to them, carefully considered each of them, then made the adoption decision of their own free-will.

This is your Captain speaking.  We have reports that there is turbulence ahead, so please return to your seats, fasten your seatbelts, and remain seated until the fasten seatbelt sign is turned off....

I Wish People Would Get Their Heads Out Of Their Asses....

You know, now it's two countries that Angelina has adopted from where it turns out children are being trafficked....

Hmmm.

Excerpts from the report:

75% of birth parents who were interviewed by a consular officer stated that in addition to payments for food, medical care and administrative expenses, they received payment from the orphanage in exchange for placing their child in the orphanage. On average this payment was six million Vietnamese Dong, which is the equivalent of 11 months salary at minimum wage in Vietnam. Many of these families cited these payments as the primary reason for placing their child in an orphanage.... Many of these parents also report that orphanage officials told them that the child will visit home frequently, will return home after they reach a certain age (often 11 or 12), or will send remittance payments from the United States. In these cases, the majority of birth parents have said they do not consent to the adoption if any of these conditions are not kept.

****

In over 10 cases, Embassy investigations have discovered the identity of the birth mother in cases where a child was purportedly deserted. In all of these cases, the birth mother was known to orphanage or hospital officials, but these institutions fraudulently document the case as a desertion. In some cases, this was to conceal payments to the birth family. In others, children were declared to be deserted with unknown parents after the birth parents failed to pay outstanding hospital bills.

****

In addition, statements from adopting parents and ASP employees show that many ASPs ask adopting parents to pay cash donations to orphanage directors and staff. These payments are illegal according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice, but the Ministry acknowledges that they are widespread and that they are a key factor in the irregularities seen in the adoption system in Vietnam. Further, ASPs have reported that cash and in-kind donations have been diverted by orphanage officials and used to finance personal property, private cars, jewelry and, in one case, a commercial real estate development.

****

I predict that we'll see similar reports from Guatemala, Kazakhstan, and China soon.

What will you do if it turns out your child's birth family was paid or lied to, just so you could adopt a child?

Guiled

O.K., people, I am now only $80 shy of my Ichthyosis fund-raising goal.  All I'm asking for is $10.  TEN DOLLARS.  That's ... two and three quarters gallons of gasoline, a dozen soft tacos at Taco Bell, seven loaves of bread, and four and a half dozen eggs.  Which would be, what, 54 eggs?  For the price of 54 eggs, you can help children like my daughter fight a rare, itchy, awful skin condition.  What, do you hate children?  Ok, well, dogs can be born with ichthyosis too.  Do you hate dogs too?

Why do you hate children and puppies?

Have I guilted you enough?  Or just made you hungry with all that talk about soft tacos?  Click here to give a donation to Ichthyosis research.  Tell them it's in honor of Moonpie, so I know you gave and don't black-list you.  Oh, and I will send you my yummy bourbon pudding recipe if you email me afterwards.

So.  Change of subject.  Remember Overused-last-name-for-a-first-name and her bloodbath biting orgy? And all the great advice you gave me?  Well, I took it, and had a talk with the director, who told me through a fake smile and clenched teeth that Overused-last-name-for-a-first-name was just "having a bad day" and that the school was handling it.

Today she stabbed one of Moonpie's classmates with a pair of scissors. 

Granted, it was in his hand, and he was "tough" and didn't even cry, but one of the other girls told me there was "BLOOD! BLOOD EVERYWHERE!" when I went to pick Moonpie up.

Once again, the school did not call either of the parents whose children were involved.

Am I making too much of this?  Is this kid seriously mentally unstable, or do normal kids really do this kind of thing when their new baby is ... four months old?

Spiderman is My Kind of Man

Thank you to everyone who contributed to my fund raiser tea party.  I realized, in retrospect, that I was a wee bit ambitious with the party -- given my inability to respond to the simplest comment or email, why did I expect the masses to delurk for coffee and scones? 

I guess I was deluded with memories of the halcyon days, back when Getupgrrl was our champion in sweatpants and Coffee Talk with Soper was a Thursday morning staple.

But for those of you who did participate, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope you enjoy the recipes, and for those of you who haven't donated yet the party will be on-going through June.   I'll leave a link to it on the sidebar, because, dude, when I throw a party, it lasts for months.

In other news, I am still infertile, Moonpie is still hilarious, and 928 days have passed since our adoption without me getting pregnant, so suck on that, adoption-cures-infertility urban legend pushers.

My birthday was last week, and when we got up I told Moonpie I only wanted one thing for my birthday this year:

MOONPIE: What's that?

SOPER: I want you to go potty in the potty all day.

MOONPIE:  Mommy, that's strange.

(after a few moments)

MOONPIE:  Mommy, that's icky.

SOPER:  No, Moonpie, I don't want what's in the potty, I want you to go to the potty.

MOONPIE:  OH!

Glad we got that one cleared up. 

Later in the week, Moonpie announced that I was going to marry Spiderman.

SOPER:   But I don't want to marry Spiderman, I'm already married to Daddy.  Besides, Spiderman fights bad guys all the time and gets his clothes all dirty.  I don't want to have to do all that laundry.

MOONPIE:  Spiderman does his own laundry.

MOONPIE:  AND Spiderman will take you to the farm store and let you ride the tractors whenever you want to.

MOONPIE:   AND Spiderman will take you to Mexico.

I think D might have some competition.  Does his own laundry, let's me ride tractors, and takes me to Mexico?

We are still waiting for a second child.  The fact that Moonpie is adorable and hilarious makes the wait harder, in some ways, and lessens the sting in other ways.  I know now, concretely, what I am missing, and I want another little person just like her in our lives. 

If I could clone her I would.

The latest child we were offered for consideration turned out to have a heart defect.  We live in a rural area, far from a pediatric cardiologist, and we weren't going to be able to give this child the quality of care he deserved.  So I am, once again, waiting for a child who doesn't seem in any hurry to get here.

And feeling like an asshole for saying "No" to a child.

While we wait, I'm nesting again, and am decorating the new nursery with a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme.  I ordered the new Eric Carle fabric here, and oh my God, it is so cute!

You fixed the bed up for me again, didn't you?  How kind!

I'll post a picture of the quilt when I get it finished.  If I ever finish....

Tea Party

Do you have on your princess crown?

Welcome to my first annual tea party fund raiser!  For those of you who didn't get an invitation, let me formally invite you to join us:

If you aren't familiar with Ichthyosis, or what it has to do with my family, you can read about our struggles with Moonpie's skin disorder here.   

I'm so grateful to F.I.R.S.T. and the work they do on behalf of people with Ichthyosis.  This is going to be a really easy way to do something important in the lives of so many people.  All you have to do is click here, make a donation, then come back to my site for a cup of tea and some conversation.  If you are paranoid and afraid to use the evil, evil, internet, you can print this card:

and send a check with your donation to:

2008 Phantom Tea

Foundation for Ichthyosis and Related Skin Types, Inc.

1364 Welsh Road G2

North Wales, PA  19454

In the UK, you can also donate to the Ichthyosis Support Group, which is not affiliated with F.I.R.S.T. but still works to advance research and support for people affected by this condition.

After you have donated, you can choose which party you want to attend.  There are three conversations going:

(1) "Celebrity Adoptions" (who else would we want to gossip about?!)

    menu:   Earl Grey tea, pimento cheese sandwiches, raspberry petit fours, and chocolate chip cookies

(2) "Adoption and Human Trafficking" (for those who are feeling a bit intellectual),

menu: Espresso, sour cherry vanilla tea cake, ginger scones, and fruit tarts

(3) and, finally, "Love and Illogic"

menu: Cranberry Blood Orange tea, lavender cookies, curried chicken salad, and cranberry bourbon pudding

As an incentive to donate, I prepared a different menu for each tea party.  I will provide the recipes on request, so email me with the amount you donated and which menu you would like.  My goal is to have fifty people give a minimum of $10 each.  Of course, if you want to give more, then -- woot!

* edited to add the various menus, so you can see which recipes you might want

High Tea

As you are aware, Moonpie was born with a rare genetic skin disorder, called Ichthyosis. 

Ichthyosis is not the same thing as E.B., a devastating skin disease that Courtney Cox designed a necklace for in a fund raising effort.   No celebrities champion our cause; little money is appropriated on our behalf.  Pharmaceutical companies can't make a profit treating rare illnesses -- there aren't enough sufferers to justify the research.

And so our children smear on Vaseline and pick off scales with lice combs, just like they did fifty years ago.

If we are going to cure our kids, or at least improve their quality of life, we are going to have to do this ourselves.  So last year, 82 families affected by Ichthyosis banded together for a grassroots fund raising effort -- and raised $32,000 for Ichthyosis research.  This year, we hope to expand and double that amount.

On March 20th, the first day of Spring,  I'll be hosting a virtual tea party.  Put on your princess crown, break out your fine china, and join me here for some gossip and scones.   All you'll have to do is click on the "give" link in that day's post, donate to Ichthyosis research, and enjoy a cup of tea.   If you are in the mood, invite over some friends and have a real tea party in Moonpie's honor.

Just be sure you wear your pirate hat and stab your cookies before you eat them, because she wouldn't be caught dead doing anything girlie....

If you can't make it to our tea party, you can always help by clicking the Amazon.com link at the top left of this site whenever you shop Amazon.   The commission I earn, roughly four to six percent of your purchase price, goes directly to support Ichthyosis research.  You can also give through the Ichthyosis Foundation's website, your local United Way or Combined Federal Campaign Program, the e.script program, or through flowerpetal.com.

She's Got A Point

MOONPIE: (playing with her toys) And you are STUPID!

SOPER:  Moonpie, don't say stupid.  That's not nice.

MOONPIE:  But I don't like stupid people.

SOPER:  Me either, but there are more of them than there are of us.

THE INTERNET:  <poke>

SOPER: Ow!

THE INTERNET:  <poke poke>  Are you alive?

SOPER: Yes.  Quit poking me.

THE INTERNET:  What the fuck is wrong with you?  You haven't posted in, like, three weeks!

SOPER: Yeah, well, stuff happens.

THE INTERNET:  Like what?

SOPER:  Well, Akeeyu had her babies.

THE INTERNET:  You had nothing to do with that.  You were not in the delivery room pushing out twins, so you can't claim that as an excuse.

SOPER: Well, I did send her links to cute animals while she was in labor.

THE INTERNET:  A-hem.  What other lame excuses can you come up with?

SOPER:  My my, don't we have bad grammar when we're feeling snarky.
 

THE INTERNET: At least we have something to say.

SOPER: (rolls eyes)  Anyway, we also *almost* got another baby.

THE INTERNET: Hey, now that is interesting!  You could have written and told us!

SOPER:  Yeah, well, it was too depressing.  Emotions go up, emotions go down.... it's just too much to go into.  Short version is (1) there was a baby, (2) we almost got chosen, (3) in the end, we didn't.  Still no baby for us.

THE INTERNET:  What about Moonpie and the penis thing?

SOPER: Well, we got the anatomically correct doll, which was more expensive than I would normally have been willing to pay, but since this was about my child's mental well-being I splurged and got her a doll with a realistic penis.   Moonpie chose the Hispanic one and named him "Max," and likes to talk about his penis. A lot.  But she is still a daddy, and dresses like a pirate, and makes me use the pronoun "he."  So I give up.

THE INTERNET:  You do know she is just fucking with you, don't you?

SOPER:  Yeah, she is.  And she is three, and I am totally scared of what things will be like when she is thirteen.

THE INTERNET:  So, anything else new?

SOPER:  I made a queen size bed spread for the guest room, and started decorating the nursery for the child-who-will-not-come-yet, and I fell again, and basically that's it.

THE INTERNET:  Wow.  Your life really is dull.

SOPER: Oh, and our adoption agency just emailed that we have to redo part of our paperwork because the state has changed its requirements.

THE INTERNET:  Of course.

SOPER: Of course.  

THE INTERNET:  Well, um, if anything interesting happens, um, you know....

SOPER: Yeah. Ok.

The Dread Pirate Lesley

I am so disappointed that no one guessed "Labor and Delivery" as where I've been hiding lately.  Seriously people, if I could have kept a secret Guatemalan adoption from you, don't you think I'm capable of hiding an oops pregnancy as well?

Sheesh.  A little credit.

So, not Guatemala.  Not L & D, although I totally *could* have kept it a secret had the occasion presented itself.

*cough*

We went to Playa Del Carmen for a wedding.  Not everything is about my uterus, you know...

Speaking of uteri, Moonpie's gender confusion has reached epic proportions.  As you may recall, for over a year now she has been insisting that she is a boy, eschewing all things girl for monster trucks, football shirts, and anything robotic.  And is currently the Dread Pirate Lesley, and is obsessed with the Princess Bride, but only the fighting parts.  I am fine with all of that.  I like that I'm raising a tough girl, who isn't a playing into traditional female stereotypes or acting like Princess Buttercup because my God, woman, pick up a stick and hit the damn rat with it, it's EATING Wesley and he is too yummy to be eaten by rats....

No, all of that is cool.  It's the penis thing that is causing trouble around our house.

MOONPIE: I'm a boy!

SOPER: No, you are a girl.  You don't have a penis, so you are a girl.

MOONPIE:  I do too have a penis! It's under my skin! Right here! (pointing to her absent penis)

SOPER:  No, sweetie, you don't.  Boys have an extra piece of skin, called a penis, and girls have a uterus inside them, which is where they grow a baby.  You do not have a penis, you have a uterus, and when you grow up you can have a baby if you want to but you don't have to...

MOONPIE:  No, I have a penis! I'm a boy!

Frankly, I blame Mattel. 

The only doll Moonpie will condescend to play with is her Ken doll.   And Ken has a, well, a personal problem, which I think is the root of her gender confusion:

He's a Castrati. 

When I noticed her naked Ken the other day, it suddenly all made sense.  Moonpie has never actually seen a penis.

SOPER:  D, you need to let Moonpie watch you pee.

D:  (sputters)  Um, no!

SOPER:  She's three.  It won't warp her,  it isn't dirty, nobody is going to come arrest you.  It's educational.  She is your daughter, and she needs to see a penis. 

D:  Um, no!

Wimp.

So I thought maybe I'd find an anatomically correct doll for her that could help, subtly, explain the difference between a girl and a boy.

And this is what I found. 

I think the Dad doll has a boner.

So that was a bit more graphic than what I was aiming for (and, as an aside, why exactly would you need an anatomically correct Grandma doll?)

Any suggestions?