Sleepless in... Insomnia Land

Sometimes I hate my husband: he's one of those people who can drop right off to sleep. I have NEVER been one of those people. He'll take fifteen minutes, but I can take anywhere from 30 min to an hour. By the time I do fall asleep, he's got his physiological chainsaw going full blast. It kills me.

But that was not the problem last night. Hasn't been for awhile.

No... it's my latest issues. Last night, I tried to sleep, but my whirling brain just would not stop. Busy Brain Syndrome is my other plague when I try to sleep, and you can guess what my brain cells were burning over. Changed beds because I was restless - nope, no good. Went down and read (works about 90% of the time), tried again. Nope. By 11:30 I said "Screw it," padded to my home office, turned on the light and the compy.

To make the drudgery of sleeplessness useful, I prepared the letters for the attorneys I've been referred to. They were essentially form letters. I'm sending them so that I get an idea of what some of them charge to "hold" my profile before I actually send them (also to find out how many copies they want). If I'm spending $.44 to inquire, they can reciprocate that $.44 to tell me how much that privilege is going to cost.

Speaking of cost, I casually mentioned to Boss about his attorney buddy's little charges to display our profile. He was surprised, and said, "Are you sure that it wasn't just a form letter sent out by his paralegal? ... I'd like to see that letter, would you bring it in?" I have it with me this morning, right now, here at work.

(Oh, hush. Like you've never frittered away time when you're half-asleep at work.)

So, in my suffering without sleep last night/this morning - I didn't call it until 2:30am, ugh - I went back and read that sucker. If it's a letter signed off by the boss, generally the initials at the bottom will read something like "AAA/bbb," like in my office the AAA would be the attorney, bbb would be my initials. It's more for figuring out who did what letter, who typed it, who signed off on it.

Lo and behold, I look at the bottom of the second page, and it says, "sa/enc" - not the initials of the attorney anywhere to be found. Yup, Boss was right. A form letter. And it wasn't even the guy's assistant's initials, it was some other minion. Ayup.

In my restlessness, I also started a spreadsheet. One tab is for tracking correspondence - if you're going this route, I suggest something like this. I already have eight attorneys on the list and I need to keep them straight.

Another tab is expenses - this is the biggie, for obvious reasons. App fee, home study, postage, copy costs for your profile, costs of how much it costs to send five of those suckers.

There was a third that I'm having problems recalling. Brain is mushy.

~~

A good part of my sleeplessness was because DH flipped out earlier this week (he does this on an irregular basis, I noticed, as I looked back on other posts and my journal). I have been on him gently to do his research, to make sure he's as informed as I am - but it's this issue, work this, tired that. I don't want to nag and make it unpleasant. So, when I got Boss's buddy's letter and went through the questions with him, he got a little rattled. Again.

As an aside, in Arizona, there's a statute that says that adoptive parents can pay up to $1,000 of general itemized expenses, and after that they must be court approved. This is why AZ is considered an adoption-friendly state, since there are statutes in place to protect adoptive parents. That said, it is within the realm of reasonableness for the attorney to request that other expenses be paid through the court. It is very common. It still protects the PAPs because the Court must approve anything past that one-grand threshold.

So when I got to the question of "If a birthmother requested additional living expenses beyond the $1,000.00 statutory limit, would you be agreeable for us to petition the Court for approval of these additional expenses?" DH's eyes kind of caught on fire.

I have warned him about this, tried to get it through his head, and told him he needs to read up and then talk to me.

Now, to be fair, DH works in a high pressure corporate job. He gets paid well to take the sh*t he does, and I know that he's overwhelmed by it sometimes. I know this is why he's left the adoption stuff to me, which is fine - I expect that anyway. But he cannot stick his head in the sand and claim ignorance when I've told him time and again a, b, c, or nudged him to do his research.

His response to the above question was essentially Hell No, along with various and sundry other uncharacteristic remarks from my usually gentle and generous hearted husband. A couple of days after this exchange, I realize that it was the pressure of his day, but his remarks cut to the core nonetheless.

This morning, I'm going to opt for the calm sea. I'm not going to let myself get ruffled over his reactions that spawn from his mental exhaustion. I decided that the answer on the questionnaire will be something to the effect of 'yes, within certain limits and only with the consent of both of us.'

It will be fine. He'll do his research, I'll get him to talk to Boss so this thing can be explained to him mano a mano. All will be well. I think, again, it's that fear of this unknown lake into which we're jumping that's contributing to this.