friends – Anne's Site

August 5, 2012

Another Day Gone

migraine — This is My Brain on Migraine
(source)

I wake up; the pounding in my head forces me to. I drag my sandy eyelids up and try to focus on the clock. 4:45 a.m. My mouth tastes like dirty socks and my stomach wants to heave. I make myself sit up and the room reels. The telltale rush of saliva into my dry mouth warns me that I don’t have much time. When the room stops moving I put my legs over the side of the bed. Somehow I’m vertical and staggering toward the bathroom.

I keep the shots of Imitrex ready to go. Finding the injector in the dark is not a problem. The container is on the bottom shelf of the bathroom cabinet, right where it’s supposed to be. My fingers fumble and pry up the lid on one of the twin ampules. The only reason I can do this now is years of practice. When my doctor first gave me the shots I was slower. The novelty meant I sometimes couldn’t prime the injection device properly and a spray of precious triptan would shoot across the room instead of into my flesh. When the headaches are really bad, sometimes that still happens. Migraines steal fine motor coordination. Gross motor skills are pretty much out the window, too, but it’s the fine motor I need now. And the dismay of seeing an injection that costs over a hundred dollars wasted into thin air has no equal. This morning I manage to load the syringe and press it to my flesh. My thumb hits the button on the end of the device and I can’t help but hiss as the sting of the medication hits my intramuscular tissue. It takes a couple of tries, but I manage to cram the injector into its holder and prime it for the next shot. Then I stagger a couple of steps to the sink.

Surely I will feel better if I get those nasty gym socks off my teeth. My hands tremble as I load my toothbrush. Applying toothpaste to my toothbrush takes extra time and effort. It’s hard. I turn the water on and wet the brush, then bring it to my objecting mouth. No sensation is good, because every sensation is amplified with a migraine. The sharp taste of minty-fresh explodes in my mouth and I rinse the brush again. I just want to peel off the cotton that coats my mouth, not breathe on anyone. I don’t want to sanitize myself yet. I just need to get rid of the grimness of first waking up.

Afterward, I grip the sink with both hands. The Imitrex still isn’t working, and even the slightest head movement is agony. Maybe if I lean here for a moment the drug will kick in. But not yet. The jack hammer in my skull subsides with stillness. When I think I can bear it, I move tentatively toward the toilet. Whether or not I really need to go, I need to sit down, and, at a distance of twenty feet, my bed is too far away. I miss the three-foot-tall stacked cube shelf that I used to have in my bathroom. I could sit on the toilet, pull it close, and rest on it, my head lying on my folded arms. Sometimes I would drift into unconsciousness that way and my husband would call to me, asking me if I was all right. If I had assumed that position, I was never all right. Now, though, the shelf lives at his house and the twelve-inch distance to the tiled wall is to far to lean, no matter how good the cold tiles might feel on my skin. I sway as I sit there.

My eyes are closed. I lose track of the minutes. I beg the drug to start working. I wait for the sensation at the back of my neck that signals its effectiveness. Nothing happens.

Eventually, I think I can make it back to bed. The nausea is a reminder that the meds aren’t working, and I know that on my way I need to get the Phenergan. Dr. Archer has prescribed it in a cream. Philip at the Drug Store compounds it and puts one dose into a syringe without a needle. A plastic cap at the tip of the syringe keeps the cream from drying out. It’s hard to get those caps off. I dread the effort, but I know it is necessary. If I start throwing up, I won’t stop. Vomiting with a migraine doesn’t make anything better.

I stand before the door of the medicine cabinet again, reach into the Ziplock bag that contains the Phenergan cream syringes, pull out a syringe, and start wrestling with the cap. Not only do I lose coordination with migraines, I lose strength. It takes me more than a minute to pry the cap off. With a grateful sigh I push the plunger and spread the cool cream on my wrists. I aim the syringe at the trash can and let it go. Of course I miss. I’ll pick it up later. Now it’s time to stagger back to bed and hope that the combination of drugs will stave off the nausea.

Too late, I forget that I have a bead of blood on my skin from the Imitrex injection. I know I smear the sheets with red as I lie down. I hope it has dried and I can brush off the crumbs of blood easily. I washed and changed the sheets just yesterday, using strong spot remover on the blood stains from last week’s migraines. They never seem to come out completely unless I use bleach. I care, but not enough to do anything but pull myself into a fetal position. My pillow is too hard. There’s nothing I can do about it except keep very, very still. My body is covered in a sheen of sweat from the nausea. I don’t want under covers yet. Warmth amplifies the pain. When the Phenergan kicks in, the sweat turns clammy, then evaporates, leaving a salty residue. Once my skin is dry, I find the coolest spot on the smooth sheets. I tug the top sheet over me, and a few minutes later pull up the quilt, too. The Imitrex still isn’t working. I am grateful for Phenergan’s fortunate side effect of drowsiness. I lie there, waiting for the Imitrex, and waiting for sleep.

Sleep evidently came. I am wake again. It’s 7:40 now, and the Imitrex has only dented the migraine pain. The nausea is mercifully gone, but even though every shift of my head doesn’t bring waves of agony, a full-blown migraine still actively assaults my head. I try to sleep again, lying still and letting my mind drift hypnotically. It’s no use. I’m awake and alert, pain and all.

I can dose myself with Imitrex again. After two hours, if I don’t have relief I can take one of the tablets. I carefully leave my bed and make for the bathroom. The blackout curtains in my bedroom don’t close completely, and the shaft of daylight stabs my eyes as I pass through it. I need a ladder to reattach the last drapery hook to the rod. Not now, though. I can barely walk steadily. Climbing a ladder is out of the question.

Imitrex’s packaging is intended to be impossible to open. Insurance only pays for nine pills a month, and they come in paper and foil-backed blister packs. Normally I take all the pills out of the blister packs and transfer them to a pill case as soon as I get home from the pharmacy. Stupidly, I neglected to do so this time. It’s a new box of pills, and I fumble even to tear away the box top to get at the blister pack. I still have no fine motor coordination, and tearing away the paper and foil backing is beyond me. Finally I stab the back of the pack with tweezers to get it open. The pill breaks as I extract it. It will leave a horrible taste in my mouth because of that. I swallow it anyway, and take a long drink of water to wash away as much of the residue as I can. Now for the other weapon in my migraine arsenal.

(source)

Hydrocodone. I hate it. I love it. I hoard it. Dr. Archer allows me twenty pills a month, but I rarely use them all. It scares me. The last thing I need is an opiate addiction. My tolerance to it is high. For all I know, I’m already addicted. I don’t know. What I do know is that hydrocodone is an extra lifeline for when the triptans don’t work. Today, I need it. Maybe I can go back to sleep. It will be an hour before either it or the Imitrex tablet will take effect. I shake the fat tablet into my palm and wash it down with water. I go back to bed.

I doze, but I don’t go back to sleep completely. After an hour, there is no change. I am tired of my bed. The cats have been anxiously head-butting the door and crying. They’re hungry. Their water dish is probably empty, too. I debate taking another hydrocodone tablet, but decide to wait. I want to see how the effort of climbing the stairs affects me, and if I take one now it will make me itch. Of course, I can always take Benedryl with it. The antihistamine will help with the itching and make me drowsy again. No, I’ll wait.

I should have taken the second pill. In my kitchen, I sink onto a stool at the breakfast bar and lay by head on my arms. The cool granite of the counter feels wonderful. The pounding in my skull does not. When it subsides, I reach for the bottle of hydrocodone I keep on my lazy Susan. The cats are sitting next to their empty food bowls, expectant. “Just a minute, guys,” I whisper. I run water into a dirty glass sitting in the sink and swallow the pill. I stand at the sink for a moment, waiting for the pounding to start again because of the movement. Thankfully, it does not.

The cats’ food dishes are on the floor. I squat slowly, not wanting to bend or even tilt my head for fear that blood will rush into it and the throbbing will begin again in earnest. I nearly lose my balance, but I’ve thought to hold the edge of the counter to ease myself down, so I have a lifeline. I’m shaky as I rise. The three steps to the bin of cat food in the pantry go well. I scoop food into one of the bowls. No wet food this morning, kitties. Sorry. I can’t bend over to get the can, and the smell of it would destroy me. I can smell the litter box across the room, and I know it needs attention, too. There’s no way. Not now. Not yet. Please understand and don’t do your business in the house plants, I beg them silently.

I sit on the stool again to recover from this round of activity. I need to eat something. Lack of food will only make things worse in the long run. I keep coffee in the fridge. Caffeine sometimes helps, sometimes hurts. As bad as this headache is, I decide to give it a try. Iced coffee with a bit of hazelnut-flavored sweetener and a dollop of milk. It isn’t as sweet as Starbucks, but then nothing really needs to be. My sister says those sweet coffee drinks from Starbucks are “a candy bar in a cup.” She’s not far wrong. I sit and drink. It tastes good. I feel stronger after sustenance. I mix myself another iced coffee, and munch on a few strawberries. The carbs will give me strength and energy.

It’s 8:25 now. I move to my computer, which sits in an alcove off the kitchen. I bring my coffee with me. I can sit relatively still, reading blogs and news, and wait for the hydrocodone to do its magic. Eventually, the itching starts. I keep a back scratcher next to the computer because my perpetually dry skin always itches. Itching from too much opioid is not satisfied as easily. I read. I sit. When I get up to forage for more food, my head reminds me that I need to stay still. I return to my computer chair with a small chunk of Havarti cheese and rice crackers.

A little after eleven, my phone rings. It’s Jan, wanting to go to The Full Monty at the Weekend Theater. She’s not sure we can get tickets. Tonight is the last night. Even though I tell her I am not up for it, she is determined to go. She will have to drive in from Hot Springs, so if the show is sold out then she’ll have a wasted trip and an hour’s drive home. I turn down the volume on the phone, because the conversation is unnaturally loud. I tell her I’m not feeling well, but that she is welcome to come by if she can’t get a ticket. I hope the show is not sold out. I hope she can go. I realize I need to go back to my bed. We hang up, and I take a deep, slow breath to steady myself. The phone call has brought back the raging throb.

I get a glass of ice water before descending the stairs to my bedroom again. I climb into bed. The sheets are smooth and cool, and I think again that I need to rehang that drapery hook so the curtains close completely. The shaft of midday sun coming through the opening stabs my eyes. My head hurts too much for me to turn my back to the windows. Besides, the light bounces off the wall; it doesn’t really go away if my back is to it. I close my eyes and hope for sleep.

I haven’t yet started to doze when I hear the garage door open. Jack is home. Lora is with him. They’re going to hang out in the basement. He brings me an icepack. I’m glad he’s come home, because I can really use that icepack. I drape it over my forehead, pressing its ends to my temples. The kids go to the basement. They know to be quiet when I have a migraine. Poor Jack. His whole life, his mother has been sick. Sometimes, she’s sicker. Like today. He has told me that by the time he was eight, he could read the labels on my meds and even spell hydrocodone. I don’t doubt it. I sent him to get them from the cabinet often enough.

I doze, and finally I sleep. It’s almost 5:00. The migraine has receded to the back of my brain. It’s still there, but right now it’s not attacking me. It doesn’t hurt. I go upstairs again. If I don’t eat a meal, I’ll suffer for it. I need protein, vegetables. I make a sandwich and chew it slowly. I don’t really want it. I’m not hungry. The consequences of not eating will be worse than forcing myself to eat now. I sit at the kitchen counter and read a magazine while I take unenthusiastic bites. I hear the kids come upstairs. They’re leaving. They chat cheerfully. Their good moods and the sandwich have combined to lift me up. Lora tells me she’s reading The Princess Bride, and I am delighted. It has been my favorite book since I was sixteen. I refused for years to see the movie, because I was so afraid that Hollywood would ruin it. I shouldn’t have worried. William Goldman wrote the screenplay for his own great book, so everything was as it should have been. Miracle Max and Valerie. Fezzik and Inigo Montoya. The Man in Black. Buttercup. Prince Humperdink. The Six-Fingered Count. Talking about it with Lora, I feel animated for the first time today.

The kids leave and I return to the computer. I need to sit still. If Jan comes tonight, I need to be functional. I’m functional now, but I don’t know how long it will last. I start writing this blog post. I feel myself tiring, but Jan calls at 7:30 to say she could not get a ticket to the play. For the last hour I have been checking the clock, wondering if she will call. About fifteen minutes ago I had decided that she must have gotten in, or I would have heard from her. “No, no, it’s fine,” I tell her. “Come on by.” I go downstairs to get the skirts I need to alter for my niece’s school uniform. They are hand-me-downs from her sister, who is shaped differently. As Jan and I visit, I rip out the hems. By 9:30, she says she’s tired and is going to get back on the road. I’m glad, because I’m fading, too. The headache isn’t back, but it’s skulking in the recesses of my skull, waiting to strike. And all those meds exhaust me. I’m happy to have seen Jan, though.

After Jan leaves, I rip the hem out of the last skirt, and I head downstairs with a fresh glass of ice water.

I read a little in Sacré Bleu, the newest book by Christopher Moore. I’ve had it since its greatly anticipated release, and I keep getting distracted from it. I love Chris Moore’s books. I wish I had his wild imagination. I want to keep reading, but my brain won’t let me. I’m too tired.

Another day sacrificed to migraine. Another day, gone.

February 10, 2008

Tornadoes in Arkansas

Arkansas isn’t technically considered part of the region referred to as “tornado alley,” but we certainly get more than our fair share of these powerful, capricious storms. Two days ago one twister stayed on the ground in Arkansas for an astounding 120 miles through 6 counties and carved a mindblowing path of death and destruction. The town of Atkins, Arkansas, about 45 miles northwest of me, practically doesn’t exist any longer.

I have a friend in Iraq. He hadn’t caught me online since the storms and actually managed to call me today – yes, he called me from Baghdad – to make sure I was okay, even though he knows I’m in Little Rock, an hour’s drive south of the storm’s path.

Friends from all over the globe have emailed, IMed, and called to make sure my family and I are safe. We’re fine. I lost a few shingles in the storms that rocked our world Tuesday. They match the few I lost several days earlier when strong straight-line winds came through.

I take tornadoes seriously. I’ve seen firsthand what they can do. Little Rock was hit hard twice in the late 1990s by tornadoes, one of which leveled communities in the southwest suburbs of Little Rock, and another of which smashed a horrific swath through the Quapaw Quarter, little Rock’s oldest historic neighborhood. There were a lot of poor people living in these areas, people without luxuries like renter’s insurance. They lost everything, and there was no money for recovery. Years later they were still trying to put their lives back together. There are still homes that have not been completely repaired even a decade later.

I’ve seen twisters dip from the sky and my stomach has dipped and twisted along with them. Once, when I was a teenager, I was riding a horse in the country and saw a storm front to the north of me. The clouds looked ominous, so I headed for home. It wasn’t raining where I was, but I could see that the rain was pretty powerful not far away.

To my horror, a sideways rotation dipped down from that cloud, called a beaver tail. I didn’t just gallop home. My horse ran.

Tornadoes are the most capricious storms that have winds to blow. Miracles of survival and stories of bizarre damage seem to come from every storm. Truthfully, when they have the power to blow an entire house off its foundation leaving no trace behind, toss fully laden transport trucks around like plastic toys, and drive 2×4 planks through the trunks of 40-inch oaks, nothing short of caprice allows a jar of pickles to sit, apparently unmolested, on a concrete slab, or blows 40-year-old letters hundreds of miles without damaging them.

This picture was the Astronomy Picture of the Day on June 13, 2005.

The storms that hit Tuesday in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama were killers. More than 30 people died in Tennessee. The last news report I heard said we lost 13 here in Arkansas. Kentucky lost 7 and Alabama four. These deaths are the most in one day from a thunderstorm system spawning tornadoes in a decade.

Search and rescue operations lasted throughout yesterday. Rescue workers went door to door checking houses that were barely standing after the storms. They also walked around debris-filled lots where houses used to be and the fields near where houses used to stand. Many of these lots and fields were filled with toys. In Tennessee, searchers came upon what they thought to be a doll at first. The doll moved, though, and searchers realized they had found a living miracle. The eleven-month-old baby’s mother was found in the same field. She did not survive.

This story is achingly familiar to me.

On the night of Friday, November 10, 1995, the National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm warnings for Arkansas. The worst of the storms were supposed to hit Des Arc, my hometown, around 11:30 p.m. The storms moved faster than expected. Some families took cover. Others slept through the warning, only to be awakened by their windows breaking as the angry winds pummeled their homes.

At about 11:30, Jeff Calhoun called his father, Butch, because something large had blown up against his house. Despite the storm, Jeff’s sister Heather and her husband Lance Stallings decided to drive over to Jeff’s to check on things. When they turned up the country road leading to Jeff’s house, Heather said, “Lance, stop. I can’t see Donna’s house.” Rather than going on to Jeff’s, the pair turned around to check on the home of Donna and Keith Walls. It was gone. Donna was Heather’s aunt.

Lance and Heather stopped at a fish farm where several men were working to call Heather’s dad to let him know that his sister’s house was gone. Then Heather and Lance returned to look for Keith and Donna.

Emergency and law enforcement personnel came to the scene despite the storm still thrashing around them. Most of the debris from the house was scattered in a wheat field northeast of the home site, so that is where the searchers began looking for the young family. A firefighter called to the others that he thought he heard an animal whining in a field of rice stubble to the west. Rice had been cut weeks before, but the field had not yet been readied for the next spring’s planting.

The source of the cries was not a puppy. It was six-month-old Joshua, face down in a tractor rut full of mud, water, and rice stubble, pushing himself up on his sturdy little arms and wailing. He had been there for 45 minutes or more.

The men and women who found the baby knew that he had to be suffering from hypothermia. A deputy sheriff wrapped the baby in his jacket and gave him to another searcher, who happened to be a cousin of little Joshua’s on his mother’s side. (We’re all related in these small farming communities, especially when our families arrived together in covered wagons in the decades just before the Civil War.) Then, because the rain and wind still lashed them with the fury of the storm, the deputy led the baby’s cousin through the field to a paramedic.

The paramedic, Linda McIntosh, stripped Joshua’s wet, muddy clothes and wrapped him in the warm towels. Holding the baby in her arms, Linda got into the car of Des Arc’s police chief, Leon Moon (a schoolmate of mine) and they rushed the baby toward the nearest hospital. They were met by an ambulance at the county line. The ambulance crew took the baby the rest of the way to the hospital.

When he reached the hospital, Joshua’s body temperature was 90 degrees. His arms and legs were literally blue from the exposure. The trip to the hospital had probably taken the better part of 45 minutes, so Joshua’s body had regained some of its warmth by then. He was probably only minutes away from death when he was found.

Meanwhile, back in the rice field searchers found Keith about 10 feet from where the baby had been lying. He was dead. Donna’s body lay a little further away. Along with the debris from their house, the family had been blown about 270 yards – yes, the distance of almost three football fields. All that remained of the frame house were a few scattered cinderblocks from its foundation. Many of the family’s possessions landed miles away from their home.

Keith Walls was my cousin. When we were kids we skated at the roller rink his parents owned. It was the hot spot in our little community for kids who weren’t yet old enough to drive but who were too old and too social to want to stay home on Friday or Saturday nights.

I saw my brother and sister the next day. We hugged a lot. We talked a lot about Keith. We all had good memories of him. He was a sweet kid, and he grew up to be a kind, compassionate, good man. We didn’t know Donna as well. Donna was older. We knew Donna’s family, though. There are a lot of Calhouns in the Des Arc area.

Josh is a sweet kid, just like his dad. Keith’s parents have Josh, and he is a source of light to them. Both grandparents smile joyously when they talk about this miracle baby, who is now a teenager. Both the Calhoun family and the Walls family have a wonderful legacy from that tragic night: Josh survived.

October 3, 2007

We’re Going to China!

Jack and Maggie

I’m going to be an Auntie Anne again. Or maybe a godmother. I’m getting another baby from China, and I’m sending her home with my best friend.

As some of you know, almost two years ago I traveled to China with Jane and Rich and got Maggie, their first daughter. Maggie’s full name is Margaret Lili Anne… yes, she was named after me. Why?

It’s complicated.

Jane came to work for me in October 1994. I was just back on my feet after my first bout with cancer. Thanks to Gloria, her predecessor, my solo law practice was able to hobble along for the six months I was at home. Almost as soon as I returned to work full time, Gloria told me she was moving back to Virginia. I was devastated. I was losing a phenomenal legal secretary and the woman who had kept my hopes for my business alive. I was our primary breadwinner at the time, and without Gloria I can’t imagine how bad things would have been for us financially. Jack was three years old.

Gloria assured me she would find me a good replacement for her. I despaired. She smiled at me in the cooly confident way she had and told me not to worry. Worry? I had to rebuild my practice and train a new assistant at the same time, making sure the bills were paid, while still recovering from cancer. What, me worry?

We interviewed several people. Gloria handled most of the questions. For some reason, I remember Jane’s interview but not any of the others. Maybe it’s because Jane was such a superlative candidate for the position.

Jane had worked for a part-time municipal judge who had an active law practice in her home town, which was about 45 minutes from Little Rock in the Ouachita Mountains. “The commute will be long,” I remember saying.

“I’m moving to Little Rock whether you offer me this job or not,” Jane replied with determination.

I explained they type of practice I had. It was a general practice, and I handled a little bit of everything. The complex things I referred to lawyers who did those cases more frequently, or I associated the lawyer on the case and let him do most of the work. There were lots of divorces and post-divorce matters, settling estates and probating wills, writing wills, advising small businesses, creating corporations, the occasional car wreck, real estate transactions, evictions for landlords we represented, leases, paternity cases, boundary disputes, juvenile delinquency, custody cases, and child welfare cases. She’d be exposed to almost everything but securities work and adult-sized criminals.

“Not a problem,” she said. “That’s what my boss and I do now.” She had worked for this lawyer for six years.

During my conversation with Jane, Gloria excused herself then reappeared with a cup of coffee. She set it carefully on my desk, then turned to Jane.

“I want to hire someone who will take good care of Anne,” she said to Jane. “That means bringing her coffee, calming clients who are upset, screening her calls, and making sure her parking tickets are paid.” That last bit was not a joke. Someday I’ll tell about the parking tickets. It’s a subject for a completely different blog.

Jane smiled. “Right now, I pay my boss’s bills for him, arrange for babysitters, screen his calls, and handle the calls from the defendants in municipal court who think they can talk directly to the judge. I’m used to taking care of my boss, and I think he will tell you I do a good job. Call him and ask him.”

I will do that, I thought to myself, an I’ll check these other references, too.

Gloria and I were both impressed with her. “That’s my replacement,” Gloria said as Jane left the building.

I called her references. First was Jeannie, a lawyer in her hometown I knew from some volunteer work she had done in Little Rock’s juvenile court while she was in law school.

“Jane can’t spell her own name,” Jeannie told me, “but she goes the extra mile. She knows what to do and when to do it. She is the person I go to when I have questions about cases.”

“You don’t ask her boss?” Jeannie and Scott, Jane’s boss, were sharing office space.

Jeannie snorted. “Why would I? Jane does all his work.”

Next I called the insurance agent whose office was next door to Scott’s.

“Jane is the best lawyer in Morrilton,” he declared.

I laughed.

“Really,” he insisted. “She writes all the wills for my clients. I send them over there and Jane fixes them right up. I’m really going to miss her.”

I called Scott. Jane had said I could, and the current employer is no better person to give an assessment.

“She told me she had interviewed with a lawyer in Little Rock,” Scott said ruefully. “I guess this means I’m going to lose her for sure.”

“You don’t want her to leave?”

“Lord, no! She’s the person who runs my practice! I’m not going to find anyone to replace her anytime soon.”

“How’s her work?”

“She’s fantastic. She can’t spell, but that’s what spell check is for. She writes my letters, takes care of my clients, and makes sure I know where to be and when to be there. She does it all.

“I can’t keep her here as long as the big city lures her. I think there’s a man,” he confided.

Offering Jane the job was definitely not a mistake. Over the last 13 years we’ve had our ups and downs, but not with each other. She’s become my best friend, my confidant, my cherished girlfriend. She’s my right hand and my left brain. She’s the reason I have time to write the occasional blog.

I’ve sent her to paralegal school and announced on Friday afternoons that we needed to go see a chick flick. Our husbands wouldn’t take us to them, so if we wanted to see tear-jerkers we were on our own. Every once in awhile we’d take the morning and go for pedicures. It’s not all about work. The work gets done, though.

Jane and I celebrated our tenth anniversary together with a trip to New York without husbands or children. We saw shows, went shopping, and played tourist. Our families vacation together in the summers. We go to the beach as soon as school gets out for a week. She is like my sister. In fact, people often ask us if we’re sisters. We’re both short, plump, and have dark hair. We laugh. We are sisters in spirit, we tell them. We are good judges of each other’s moods. We can finish each other’s sentences. We laugh at each other. We are not at all alike, but we complement each other beautifully.

After years of fertility treatment, Jane and her husband Rich, who she met a year or two after coming to work for me, were finally able to have a son. After that, though, the fertility treatment was frustratingly ineffective. She became pregnant twice and miscarried. Her doctor told her he’d keep doing the in vitro, but he doubted it would work. Jane and Rich had spent years and tens of thousands of dollars on fertility therapies. It was time to look into adoption. I was relieved. All those hormones made her into a raging monster. I was glad to put up with it, though. She put up with me, after all.

Jane was terrified of adopting a child through a local agency or through the state. Practicing family law, we were all too aware of how badly wrong things can go, especially when the birth parents start fighting each other and drag the adoptive family into it. Several high profile adoptions going wrong cemented Jane’s resolve to adopt internationally.

Jane came to work one morning and solemnly asked me if we could talk. Their health insurance didn’t cover the fertility treatments and they had borrowed money to keep trying to have a baby. Although they were steadily paying the debt off, and had already paid a significant amount, there was still a lot left to pay. If they were going to adopt, they needed to borrow money.

Jane outlined a repayment plan to me, and I agreed. I would have agreed whether she had a plan to repay it or not. This baby was important to her, and I had the power to make it possible. I told her that day that I didn’t expect repayment. This was something I could afford to do and something she needed. There was no way I could, or would, refuse her. She insisted on signing a promissory note. I never got around to drafting one. Jane is important to me.

China seemed to offer the best program. China’s been exporting girls for decades because of the law that allows each family only one child, and the Chinese preference for sons. They began the long process of applying for approval from China.

From the time they made the decision and started gathering paperwork, it was a year before they were told that Maggie was waiting for them in Guangdong Province, the place we used to know as Canton.

“We’re going to China!” Jane exclaimed joyfully.

“Not without me, you aren’t,” I told her.

That’s right. I tagged along when they adopted her baby girl. In fact, one of my very first blog entries, before I started writing regularly, was made from China.

Jane and Rich’s family still wasn’t complete, though. About six months after we returned from Guangzhou, Jane told me that she believed there was another Chinese girl who would be calling her “mommy.” This little girl’s name would be Kennedi. Kennedy is a family name on Jane’s side.

They started the paper chase again. All the documents that had been gathered for the Maggie’s adoption were out of date and had to be replaced. Jane got busy and replaced them and sent them to China. The debt from the fertility treatment is almost paid off, and Jane and Rich have paid all Kannedi’s adoption fees to date with money they have managed to save.

Jane called me today, in tears. We only work two days a week now. She spends lots of time at home with Maggie, who is now two and a half and acting every bit of it. She is able to pick her son, Cade, up from kindergarten every day.

“We got the referral,” she said. I barely understood her she was crying so hard.

“Tell me about her!” I demanded.

“She has a cleft palate.” We expected this. This time Jane and Rich had requested what the Chinese refer to as a “waiting child” – one with a birth defect or some other special need that prevents them from being the most desired for adoption.

Jane and Rich specifically asked for a child with this particular birth defect. We can have it fixed here in Little Rock at Children’s Hospital. One of our clients works for a local doctor who specializes in this surgery, and makes regular trips to China to donate her time and skills doing the surgeries there.

“We haven’t got the last of the fees saved yet,” Jane told me. They hadn’t expected the referral this soon.

“You know that’s not a problem,” I told her.

Once again she outlined a repayment plan. Once again, I will forget to draft the promissory note.

I’ve spent the afternoon staring at the pictures of a very pretty baby. Yes, she has a funny smile, but that smile will be as perfect as it ought to be shortly after we get her home. She’s bald. She’s 9 months old. She lives in an orphanage near the border of Tibet. If only she was actually in Tibet!

Jane and I are going to get Kennedi without Rich, this time.

We’re going to China!

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