It's been a while since I've posted. I've been extremely busy with work but mostly, I just needed some time to get my feelings in check. I'll explain. Last week when all the frenzied emails between Pam and us were going on, we realized that if we didn't expedite our documents in Houston we wouldn't have our dossier ready to be mailed out on the 30th. So the night before the courier in Houston was going to deliver our documents to the Chinese Consulate, I called Pam and asked her to expedite them. This would essentially get our paperwork to CWA several days sooner which would allow time to get them translated into Chinese and mailed out to China. Of course, you don't get expedited documents for nothing. In fact, it cost us $240 more. But with all things considered, we were willing to do it. I emailed our adoption counselor and told her the documents should arrive by January 26th. Well, when I got home the next day, I went to check email and received one from her telling me that it was very likely that our dossier would not be mailed until February 10th because of Chinese New Year. Apparently, they close down offices in China for 5 - 7 days during this time. I WAS FLOORED!! I had been telling this woman all month that we were shooting for the 30th and now only when I had a date did I ever hear that Chinese New Year could interfere with the mailing of our dossier. The tricky part was that in the email, the last thing she said was that if they had enough dossiers they might mail them anyhow. This to me was a big clue that maybe they just didn't have very many to mail and Chinese New Year was just an excuse.
So I typed an email very nicely telling her that perhaps that news could have been given to me sooner since we HAD been talking about getting it in all month and knowing would have saved us $240. Then I launched into how if they would be more forth coming with details, it would be easier to deal with the wait and the entire adoption process. I carefully selected my words so as not to make them mad. A little while later, I received a reply. Apparently, I didn't select my words carefully enough or just shouldn't have expressed my feeling on the matter at all. The email actually said, "Oh Wanda I get the feeling that you are difficult to work with." You know, she couldn't have said anything worse to me. No one has EVER told me I'm difficult. Instead I've been referred to as a nurturer, peace maker, easy going… anything BUT difficult. I cried… and cried. I couldn't talk… was just cut down to core. I wanted to email her back and be mean. I even typed a message, consulted with my sister who is more vocal than I am and then decided to wait until I could get my thoughts together. I sat there and whittled away my email message until I got it down to "I'm not trying to be difficult. I’m sorry if it appears that way. Please do what you feel is best with our dossier." End of story. Everyone I've talked to has gasped when I told her what she wrote. They know I’m not difficult. I moved on and have been so busy that I've not dwelled on it.
So long story… the dossier IS in Charleston and according to an email we got last night, it may be mailed on Friday or Monday. Our adoption counselor has not emailed a response to me and I've not asked. I did find out in our correspondence that they didn't expect to have many dossiers at all. In fact, they only had 2 including ours. That was probably the main reason for not sending it out. The Chinese New Year was probably just an excuse. I’m sure it takes about a week for the dossiers to reach China anyhow. It takes us 3 or 4 days to just get mail from Georgia to Virginia. In the meantime, Geoff has taken on the role as peacemaker and HE has been handling any correspondence between CWA and us. It's like my mom always told us, better to say nothing at all if you can't be nice. With me not talking to them, there's no chance of me offending them again with the truth.
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