Shelby's Life and Whatnot

I feel the earth move under my feet

So we had an earthquake a couple of days ago here. It wasn't a big one, 5.4 (considered "moderate") but it also wasn't that far from Anaheim so we definitely felt it. I was at work building bears when it hit. A seasoned veteran of earthquakes, I knew instantly what it was. Primarily because it initially felt like a large tractor-trailer or train going by, but I happen to be intimately familiar with the layout of Downtown Disney and there's no way our building could be affected by traffic, so any building movement can only be an earthquake (or I suppose a large explosion somewhere nearby, but that would be accompanied by an even more obvious noise).

At any rate, the building started to shake and then continued to shake. This one was a roller, not a jolter--that is, you felt like you were rolling up and down instead of being jolted from side to side. Nothing was damaged in the store--some displays fell down and some of our recessed lighting jiggled free from their canisters (but did not break). Shortly after the quake we were given the order to evacuate by Disney Security so we all filed out of the store in an orderly manner. Except for the customer who argued with me about not taking the elevator. Um, hello? Earthquakes are followed by aftershocks, and do you want to be stuck in an elevator in an aftershock? No? Me either.

Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon of the event was the fact that nobody's cell phones worked afterwards. It wasn't a matter of the towers going down (in fact, nothing collapsed in this quake), but rather that literally thousands of people at Disneyland all attempted to use their cell phones at precisely the same time. Interestingly enough, the cell phone outage actually causes significantly more panic and anxiety than the actual shaking. People were like, "Yeah, the building started to move and OH MY GOD MY CELL PHONE DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Disney Security checked out everyone building-by-building, which lead to some frustrated and grumpy customers who pointed across the street and three buildings down and said, "Why are they open but you aren't?" Um, does it look like our building is connected to that one? Don't you want to be sure the building is safe before you take your children back inside? However, for the most part people were very calm, orderly, and good-natured about it. I think it really helped that there was no visible damage (or bodily injury) anywhere. If you hadn't actually felt the shaking, you never would have known there was an earthquake.

As for me, I can honestly say that earthquakes of this size just don't bother me this much. For one, it wasn't that big. Yes, it was big enough to get your attention, but on the whole, not that large (as evidenced by the lack of damage to pretty much everything, even at the epicenter). It doesn't help that I gauge all of my earthquake fear based on the Landers quake in 1992. The Landers quake is the biggest earthquake ever to get zero attention. It was a very large 7.3 quake but it hit in the middle of the desert so there was very little damage (in comparison, the Loma Prieta quake that collapsed the Bay Bridge in 1989 was a smaller 6.9). Californians may recall its more memorable younger brother, the 6.7 Big Bear quake that hit a couple of hours later. At any rate, I happened to be working at Girl Scout camp during the Landers quake, and our camp happened to be essentially sitting right next door to the epicenter so we got the full impact. Now THAT was an earthquake. That was a leap out of bed, pull on your shoes, run for the kids' cabins, and trip and fall because the ground was buckling beneath you earthquake. That was an "Oh my god, are those trees actually bending???" earthquake. That was a makes you jumpy for months earthquake.

So basically, my earthquake measuring bar is pretty high.

It's...

It's...

...an umbilical cord!!!

Today's ultrasound was nothing short of a fiasco, which I will post about when I'm less traumatized (suffice to say that Insurance Company Rules are in full force!), but in the end we did get to see the baby. Unfortunately the baby's umbilical cord was right between his or her legs, making it impossible to be certain whether it's a boy or a girl. The good news is that I'll be getting another ultrasound some time next week (see fiasco, Insurance Company Rules, above) so hopefully we'll get a better look. The baby was very active and was sucking his or her thumb, which was really cute. Everything looks great!

Insurance Company Rules!!

I don't know much of anything about the organization/website that created this "commercial" so I can't vouch for them, but I have to say that this pretty much sums up how I feel about our health insurance company right now:

A couple of weeks ago we got a call from the ob's office informing us that UC Irvine, the medical center, had cancelled their contract with Aetna, our insurance company, and therefore my doctor and care was no longer covered. By law they're supposed to give us 60 days notice in writing, but since everyone plays by Insurance Company Rules (see above) we had to pay for our genetics appointment (which was the following day) out of pocket with the hope of getting reimbursed from Aetna. The good news is that there's a "continuity of care" clause in the state law that says that if you have certain conditions (pregnancy being one, a terminal illness being another) your insurance company has to continue to pay for your care even if their contracts change. We applied (and were approved with remarkable speed, all things considering) for continuity of care so I can continue seeing my specialist at UCI and will be able to deliver there. So that's good.

But this just opens the door for all kinds of other battles. Our experience over the last 8 years has been that insurance companies (and I'd like to pick on Aetna, but everyone else we've had has done it too) like to quibble over small specifics and deny care or payment at in-network levels seemingly randomly. Much like trumping four aces with a pair of nunchucks. We have also found over the years that as we meet our deductible and out of pocket limits for the year, the insurance company tends to make a lot more "mistakes" in billing. The result is that we have to pore over every statement and bill and pretty much fight for half of the charges, usually over a prolonged period of time.

Perfect example of Insurance Company Rules? Several months ago I passed out at work and was taken to the hospital by ambulance (turned out to be no big deal--this was before I was pregnant). Kevin is still going back and forth with the insurance company because I had the audacity to be picked up by an out-of-network ambulance carrier. They've finally decided to pay most of the bill, but they won't pay for the oxygen that was administered to me because it's an "incidental." That and the little bottle of rum I took from the mini-bar. I guess next time I have a medical emergency I'll call 911 and have them call around to find an in-network ambulance company and go ahead and pass on the supplemental oxygen since my insurance company will probably decide later that I didn't need it.

Consult your crystal ball!

On the 24th we have an ultrasound that will hopefully tell us whether or not we're having a little Biff (boy) or Buffy (girl). Here's your chance to practice your psychic abilities! Consult your crystal ball, your Chinese astrology, your old wives tales, or your canny intuition and vote (right hand side of the blog, scroll down if you don't see the poll) on whether you think we're having a girl or a boy. You've got a 50% chance of being right, so take a chance!

And cross your fingers that the baby won't be shy on the 24th and keep us in suspense--haha.

Cap'n Crack

Ahoy, mateys! We just returned from a lovely extended weekend camping (that's right--camping!) at lovely Pismo Beach. We had a great time. This annual camping event coincides with the Event-Formerly-Known-As-The-KCBX-Wine-Classic, now called the Central Coast Wine Classic as it ceased to be a fundraiser for KCBX (a Los Angeles NPR station) some years ago. I still call it KCBX out of habit. At any rate, there's a group of wine folks who attend the event and over a decade ago, a sub-group of them started tent camping at Pismo Beach State Park over the weekend. Strangely enough, those people stopped attending the actual event a number of years ago, although they do attend an event that is related and happens on Thursday (a barrel and reserve tasting with a smaller group of wineries). Part of this tradition is that the wine folks who do attend the KCBX event but don't have the cajones to camp come to the campground on Saturday night and there's a big group cookout. Last year Kevin and I were invited to join the campers (since we're Scouts and all) and we had so much fun we did it again this year.

I was a bit nervous about camping whilst 4 months' pregnant, but on the whole it went quite well. The campground is very well-kept and has flushing toilets and hot showers (I can just hear my dad's voice in my head, "Wow--flushing toilets! Hot showers! Where's the fun part?"--he's not the camping type) so the roughing-it was kept to a minimum. Our tent is a roomy 4-person tent, which is to say that it's roomy for 2 people but will not be roomy enough for the 3 of us next year (yes, believe it or not, I think we're going to attempt camping with a 7-month-old next year!). For the comfort of everyone involved, we don't sleep on a shared air mattress. Given the amount that I toss, turn, and flail, Kevin practically gets motion sickness from the movement at night. Instead I have been using his old Boy Scout cot, a small but comfy cot about 4 inches off the ground. Kevin himself has finally decided that he's too old for the Thermarest, so he may be getting his cot back next year and I'll get one of my own.

I found the weekend very relaxing. Thursday we went to the barrel tasting, and both Friday and Saturday the rest of the group headed out to go to various wineries while I stayed back at the campsite, read, and napped. The big dinner Saturday night was a blast as usual--tons of great food. I think there's something about being cooked outside on a fire that makes food taste better. I got a little bit sunburned but otherwise it was a very fun and satisfying trip.

All continues to go well with the pregnancy. We met with the genetic counselor last week and the appointment went very well. Because I am "AMA" (Advanced Maternal Age *rolls eyes*) the doctor is required to offer us an amniocentesis to check for Down Syndrome and other chromosomal problems. Apparently at age 35 your chances of having a baby with Down Syndrome go up to 1 in 273 and for Trisomy 18/13 (two other chromosomal problems) the chances are 1 in 493. The genetic counselor was very, very nice and based on what we know of our family histories, we seemed to be in exceptionally good shape. I had a blood screening test at my last appointment that tests for markers of Down Syndrome and Trisomy 18/13 and while it's just a screening test (only an amnio can determine if those syndromes are actually present) it does give you a much better look at risk ratio. Since the results of my test were not in my file, the counselor went off to go find it, and we decided that if the screening test showed an increased risk, we would go ahead with the amnio. Well we got the results, and the risk of Down Syndrome is 1 in 5,441 and for Trisomy 18/13 it's 1 in 9,841. Those numbers looked pretty good to us! So we decided not to have an amnio. Phew! One less thing to worry about.

Now I just have my latest addiction--Cap'n Crunch cereal. I don't know why, but I started really craving Cap'n Crunch and then I bought a box and it was like the best food I'd ever tasted in my entire life. I got it on Wednesday and we didn't bring it camping--a shame, because I lamented its sugary goodness while I was there. Today I filled up again. I haven't had Cap'n Crunch in like 25 years and I don't even remember it being one of my favorites as a child (I was a Frosted Flakes girl) but man, now I can't stop eating it. I think they make it with crack, actually. Cap'n Crack.

Update on China

China sent their July matches this weekend, so I thought now was as good a time as any to give an update on our adoption. In a nutshell: Still waiting, still slow. We've revised our estimated match time to "Sometime in 2011." I know this is vastly different than what we were saying before and it seems hard to believe, so I thought I would put everything in a table to give you an idea of what I mean when I talk about a slowdown and how I've come to believe that 2011 is very likely.

As a reminder, China matches families once a month according to Log-In Date (LID). Your LID is assigned when your completed dossier is entered into China's system, and LIDs from all countries in the world and all agencies are matched in order. So each month a batch of referrals (matches) has a cutoff LID, which is that all families from the previous cutoff to that date have been matched.

Our LID is March 20, 2007.

First, let's take a look at the matches for this calendar year:

As you can see, it will take them over 5 months to finish off January 2006 LIDs. Incidentally, in the "old days" LIDs were referred an entire month at a time, not just a handful of days like it has been lately.

Here's a look at referrals since our LID:

It's not hard to see a trend, and not a cheerful one either.

There's no way to predict what's going to happen, but the evidence is clear that this slowdown has been happening over a long period of time. Some believe that China deliberately slowed things down for the Olympics, but the fact is that by the numbers, this started back in late 2005. China has long maintained that the Olypics will have no effect on adoptions, and that historically appears to be the case. No word on what or when the August batch will be, but it will likely be the only batch to have been affected by the Olympics. This also means that the chances of a post-Olympic speed-up are unlikely as well.

The next batch will likely appear to be a larger one, but only because it will probably cover January 28-February 7, 2006, which was Chinese New Year and their office was closed, therefore very few people have LIDs in that week. Following that, a dramatic speed-up is not likely.

So why so slow? That's the million-dollar question here. Nobody knows for sure--even China says that they don't know for sure. What we do know is that the China adoption program became increasingly popular among parents culminating with an enormous amount of dossiers in late 2005-early 2007. The number of children has not grown, however. China reports a rise of domestic adoption and a decrease in abandonments--both of which are wonderful for the children but result in a longer wait for us.

Since it seems unlikely that China is going to somehow produce more children, the fact is, really the only factor that will improve our wait is attrition--families ahead of us dropping out. There is definitely evidence of increased attrition, but it doesn't appear to have resulted in any appreciable speed-up yet. My personal prediction is that by this time next year we will start to see some tangible effects of attrition. On China message boards, it seems like a lot of people are waiting until December of this year to decide whether or not to stay in the program. Since I don't think there will be a speed-up, I think a lot of families will drop out in January, except for those who are "next" (my second prediction is that in January they will still be matching March 2006 families) so by July we'll start to feel the effects of January drop-outs.

No matter what, it seems clear that, doing the math, our earliest hope is 2011 for our match. But we are committed to the end, no matter how long it takes!