The Plan

As most of you know, the Plan was posted earlier this week. I've had a number of queries asking what I think about it, so here it is. But first, a bit of background - My file went to Ethiopia on June 23, 2009 so, of the 229 families of Imagine Adoption whose files are currently sitting in Ethiopia waiting for referrals, I'm about as far down the list as you can get. The Plan, in a nutshell, is that new management will step in, a new Board will step up, and an Advisory Committee, which includes yours truly, will chip in when requested/required. An additional $4,000 per family will have to be paid - $2,000 now and $2,000 in the New Year once operations have been commenced and stabilized and a determination made that the restructuring plan is, in fact, viable. Referrals are scheduled to start again early in 2010, but reasonable expectations are that this will happen earlier.

As a parent at the bottom of the referral list, I needed to get comfortable that the Plan presented a reasonable opportunity to keep the agency viable for at least 3 years, without the need for my further financial input. By putting in $4,000 now, I need to be reasonably certain that in 2 years, I don't get another cash call. Because by the time that cash call comes, if half the families have brought home their kids, that's not going to be a $4,000 cash call, it's going to $5,000 or $8,000 or $10,000. In other words, if the Plan doesn't keep the organization operating, more fees will have to be paid by the remaining families to wrap up their files. For that reason, the team that created the Plan made sure to include 3 years of cash flow statements. In doing so, the assumptions presented with the Plan are crystal clear that the agency has to be viable as an ongoing business in order for it to be successful.

The Plan is not perfect. It provides no guarantees. It is risky. There will be an operating deficit again after only one year in operation, despite the additional family contributions. The agency will be micromanaging its costs for the next few years. Despite this, the Plan is not destined to fail. Success requires that parents vote yes at the creditors meeting on September 21st and pay their first $2,000. Success also depends upon those parents whose files are not yet in Ethiopia paying their remaining agency fees (if any) in 2011 and upon the agency being able to continue operations by accepting new clients in 2011. If any of these things fail to happen, there is little doubt that the agency will re-enter bankruptcy within the next couple of years. If this happens, depending on at what stage it fails, some parents may well have been able to bring home their children, while others (including me) will be unable to do so. If that doesn't sound bad enough, notwithstanding that our relationship with MOWA is apparently stable, our orphanages have not been paid since bankruptcy was declared. Failure to maintain and mend those relationships quickly could be the end of this agency.

This all sounds very dire, but the reality is, this is a start up business now, with start up risks similar to those of any other new business. The Plan itself clearly states the assumptions (conservative) that are being made so that affected parents can make informed decisions about whether this will be a viable business, warts and all.

The $4,000 being paid by each family will not cover all the operational costs of the agency for three years. This amount was merely arrived at because that was the sum that seemed to reflect what parents could reasonably pay in order to keep as many families in the program as possible and realize their adoption dreams, while recognizing that money would have to come from elsewhere to supplement those funds. That includes fundraising and it includes new clients. There are no guarantees, and there is no question that the plan will have to be modified and updated as time goes by, operations get under way, and circumstances become clearer.

Nonetheless, I support this Plan, and I have voted yes. I will contribute whatever time and expertise I have to get this agency back up and running and turn it into a success we can all be proud of. And I hope that in the next two years I'm able to describe "The Call" that heralds the arrival of Daughter #2. Please wish us luck for September 21st and thereafter.

Vaykay

Earlier today, I got back from my much anticipated long weekend in Vegas. Sans child of course. I love leaving Mak with her Gramma and Grampa as she gets so excited she won't nap, which means when I come back from my long weekend, I have an exhausted sleep deprived child on my hands who sleeps extra long naps for at least the next 3 days, thereby extending said vaykay. I could post photos, but as we all know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So, for all of those hard partying gamblers out there, just log off now. For all you single mamas, rejoice and express your envy at the following:

Day 1: sleep in til 8am; 3 hours at the spa; extended lunch; 2 hours beside the pool; extended amazing dinner at Bellagio; Cirque de Soleil

Day 2: sleep in til 10am (practice makes perfect); extended lunch; 5 hours shopping at the premium outlet mall; extended dinner; gambling (win $200 on slots); get on plane; arrive in Vancouver where cute customs guard lets me in without paying duty on over-the-limit purchases.

Day 3: sleep in til 10am. Get latte. Walk dogs. Daughter hand delivered with love at noon. Afternoon at the beach with lovely daughter followed by dinner with friends at a pub. Yes, I take my daughter to the local pub. It's a single mother prerogative.

And now, I shall peruse the half-dozen trashy mags left on my doorstop by Auntie Judy while I was away and try and drag myself to the gym tomorrow morning as not everything was left behind in Vegas - my ass followed me home.

'Night all.

Progress, on More Than One Level

Language is not exactly flowing from Miss M's mouth. Lots of words, yes, but none of them strung together.

This is a typical conversation:

Me: Say, Hi Mama!
M: Hi
Me: Mama
M: mama
Me: no, say Hi Mama!
M: Hi
Me: Mama
M: mama mama mama

You get the drift.

Since we haven't progressed as far as Hi Mama, I've not really tried anything else. This was, perhaps, a mistake. Apparently, it was just the subject matter she was not keen on.

This past weekend we were out walking in the stroller and a man got out of his parked car. She leaned out of the stroller and said "Hi Baby!".

He was kind of old and not my type, but with a little training...

Heartbreaker

The time has come to bid adieu to the great italian love of my life. That's right. Black Death, aka my 2005 Ducati multistrada, is sporting a for sale sign. Sort of. It's breaking my heart. So I placed an unreasonably high sticker price on it and crossed my fingers that no one would go that high. And I do mean unreasonable. I've had this bike for 3 years and I'm almost making money off of this. And so far it's worked!!! Not one phonecall. Nada. Until yesterday. He checked it out. He fell in love. He asked me if my price was firm. I said it was. And... crap. I think he's gonna take it. I'll know this weekend.

But the deal's not done til the paperwork's signed....

I love you italian studmuffin!

Adoption Playgroup Posse

I have been very blessed to meet a number of families who live very near me in Vancouver and who have also adopted from Ethiopia. We all went down around the same time, and the kids are all fairly close in age. They form my local adoption posse and we try to get together for playgroups as often as possible. This was easier before we went back to work, but those lucky few who aren't back yet, or don't engage in the 9 to 5 grind, enthusiasticly lead the charge to keep it going. These pics were taken this summer on a weekend brunch playdate at Rochelle and Ayana's. There's about 8 kids all together, but here's just a couple of shots.















Abdisa and Makeda















Binyam and Ayana















Matteo

We have a diagnosis!!

The cause of the crappy croup has been determined. In fact, there are two separate problems: (1) Myer-Cotton Grade I subglottic stenosis and (2) Laryngcomalacia (a.k.a. floppy voice box). Subglottic stenosis is a narrowing of the airway. Floppy voice box is caused by the cartilage in the larynx being soft. It causes the inlet to narrow, especially if breathing is hard. Either one of these conditions is a factor in recurring croup and my little darling has been blessed with both. For now, we're not doing anything, the hope being that she will grow out of both conditions. But, as of early Fall, she'll be back on a puffer for the duration of cold and flu season, just to try and create a base so that we can hopefully avoid the great 2010 emergency room camp-outs. She put on quite a performance in post-op yesterday. For a mild-mannered little girl she was bringing the house down. At least we know her lungs are clear. While I empathized with her unhappiness, I have to confess to a certain satisfaction over her tantrums. They couldn't wait to get her out of there, and as a result, we got out a couple of hours earlier than if she'd been her typical well-behaved self.

Afrikadeys was great fun. We met lots of new Cowtown adoption peeps and Makeda was rocking out to the music with great abandon. I love this girls' confidence. Here she is wearing Biset's pail on her head. I did not put it there. This is her very own fashion statement. Haze got video as well, and if it turns out, I'll post that later. It was quite hilarious to see her running around the field wearing a bucket on top of her sunhat.

Hey It's Me Staring Back at Me

So I was doing my nightly scroll through the e-news to see if my interview had been picked up (yet) and hey! there i was! That's a bit startling actually to see your own face staring back at you on a website, especially since the interview was so long ago now, I really thought they'd decided not to publish it. For a second I thought I'd logged onto my own blog by mistake. But finally - the promised Sun article.

A bit of an update on the situation - there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel. The Trustee is looking at a "viable" proposal that has been submitted to keep the agency operating until those of us at the pre-referral stage can complete our adoptions. But the devil will be in the details of course. The financial shortfall will be a signifcant stumbling block to overcome. Yours truly is now the BC rep on the Trustee liason committee so hopefully there will be more concrete details soon.

In the meantime, to lighten things up a bit, Mak and I are packing our bags for Cowtown this weekend to go to Afrikadey Festival with some of the Calgary adoption posse. We will be staying with Auntie Haze and Makeda will break in darling Biset's new crib. We hope to meet Dianne and the beauteous Hana and many others that I've only connected with through blogland. AND, Marelise and Mak will FINALLY get to meet in person since I did not bring her as my date to Marelise's recent wedding, much to her chagrin. Marelise, Makeda gets her scope done at Children's on Monday after we leave, so you know I will be pestering you again for info. In fact, if you could just look down her throat while we're there, I'd really rather have you in charge.

See you all soon!