I know it has been since August when I last posted, that mostly has to do with the autumn season at work exploding with much to do, and partly because of the news we received from our social worker.
On August 24th, our Japanese homestudy was conducted. Everything went smoothly and things were fine. Before the homestudy, the social worker spent quite some time speaking with us to make sure this was something we wanted to move forward and do. I was concerned about how my job contract is anual and thought it would reflect negatively towards our adoption. Our social worker was confident that it wouldn't be a problem as long as we show that we have the appropriate visas, (which we do) and that we show our renewed contracts every year (which we can). She also said, that foreign contracts have never been an issue with their agency before. So we went through with the homestudy. During the homestudy, we again addressed the visa/job concern and she said that she would emphasise to the committee that I will keep renewing my contract to stay in Japan during the entire adoption process. She tried really hard to calm our anxieties. She also said that she wouldn't have made the trip out to us if she didn't think we would pass. Then she went over the next steps and discussed, in detail, all the classes, costs, and stages coming up next. She told us she would email us the details again after the committee meeting at the end of September. When October rolled along, we still had not heard anything. I emailed her and asked about it. She responded with "we haven't had the committee meeting yet. An answer is scheduled for November 14th." This was when I started to get concerned. With the law change, even the agency we were using wasn't fully aware of all the vast differences that this law now entails. Since the US pulled out of the international circuit with Japan, we began to think that the government won't approve us because we aren't Japanese. The law was changed to make it nearly impossible for foreigners to adopt unless they were planning to permanently reside in Japan. Our visas, nor our job contracts can guarentee that unless we have permanent residencies. Plus, she made it sound like they had the meeting, but they were still arguing about whether or not to approve us. November came, and I just wanted everything to be over. I knew they were going to say that we weren't approved, and I just wanted them to come out and say it instead of making me wait so long. It was making me depressed and I was not doing so well at my job. On November 13th, I had the worst day ever at my job. The students were down right evil monsters. They were fighting, physically fighting. The teacher had tried to break them up but they were pushing her away. They were being obnoxious more so than usual. It was obnoxiousness times 10. They were purposefully looking up offensive phrases, sexual phrases, and curse words, just to say to me and laugh about it. Normally, when they say curse words to each other, I draw no attention to it so that the other students don't become aware and remember those words, but this time they were doing it to me. They would look me in the eye, and say things like "Are you a virgin?" "Have you ever f***ed your husband?" "I want to masturbate with you." I would of course scold them, but they thought it was a game. The teacher couldn't do anything because they were just evil monsters like I said. I almost walked out of the classroom. Thankfully, that class was the last of the day, so I grabbed all my stuff and clumsily left. I forgot things at work, which is unlike me to do. I usually double check my notebook to make sure I didn't forget anything (the following day I was going to a different school and needed materials). I rushed to my bike, completely forgetting to put my gloves on, and it was particularly cold and windy that day. My hands instantly turned into ice. I was going to tough it out and just bike home anyway, but I was losing my grip on my handles due to the cold. I took a different route home because I thought it would be faster but I didn't know it very well. I couldn't take my hands feeling so cold so I attempted to put my gloves on. I was going to stop but I saw my students. They were the same evil monster students I just had. So like an idiot, I put my gloves one while biking. I can do that, if there is nothing in the basket to lose my balance. There was something in the basket. I got one glove on semi ok. I wabbled but nothing serious, then I go to do my other hand, and I don't really remember what happened after that, I just know that I was on my bike, and then suddenly, I was not. I don't remember the last time I was that stunned from a fall. I fall in skating ALL the time, but I always imediately get right back up. I was on the ground for a while. I briefly forgot what I was doing and where I was going. I looked around to make sure no one saw me. No one noticed, so that was good. I felt pain everywhere, and I knew I injured myself quite badly, but there was nothing I could do at that point. I picked up my bike, and saw that my purse was broken, and several of my favorite pins on my school back were either broken or missing. I checked myself and my clothes were fine, but my right knee was screaming. My left knee was bleeding so I had to get home quickly. I could barely move my right knee but I had no choice. I had to get home. So I pretented that I was Yuzuru Hanyu skating for his second Olympic gold and pressed on. I thought my knee was going to explode. I did go to a doctor, but they couldn't do anything other than tell me to ice it and rest it for a few days. No duh! After I got home from the doctor, I sent a message to my boss telling him everything that happened in my class. He told me he would talk to the other teacher with me to decide what to do. I wanted something to be done and I made sure he knew that. Their behavior was inexcusable. It was nearly impossible to sleep that night because not matter what I did, my knees were on fire. The next day I asked a co-worker to pick me up from the bus stop, completely forgetting that I have to walk to the bus stop. That took three times as long as it should. The nurse at that school gave me an icy patch to put on my now blackened knee. That helped relieve the pressure, but I was sure my knee was going to pop open. It felt like someone tied it off and it was slowly filling with blood but the blood couldn't flow back. That's what was happening. The only way to stop it from feeling like that was to raise it up quite high. During my breaks I went to the teacher's lounge and lied on the floor, and put my leg on the back of the couch. When I finally got home, I looked at my leg again, and it was basically black and purple. However, taking a hot bath really helped reduce the color to blue and purple. (I posted a picture on Facebook after my bath). After my bath, I received this email: "We had the homestudy meeting today. The committee has decided to postpone the registration of you as prospective adoptive parents at this moment. The committee members think that financial stability of your family is not clear because your job contract will finish by next July and you are the main income provider. The committee members understand that you have a visa to stay in Japan longer and will try to find your new job. However, it is difficult to place a child with you due to the uncertainty." What a great 24 hours I had! I ignored the email. My leg hurt, my spirit was already crushed from falling like that the day before, and I was still upset from how my students treated me. (OH! I should also add, that Spyro the Dragon was rereleased on the 13th of November. After my class I bought the game so I could play it when I got home and release some steam, but ended up not playing ANYTHING because I fell off my bike). At work, people noticed that I was walking funny so I went to the nurse. When she saw my leg, she immedately asked how it happened and what I did, so I told her that I was just not paying attention. I tried to laugh it off but she said "That's really unlike you. Did something happen? Did you get upset by something that day?" This caught me off guard and at the time, I really didn't think that the behaviour of my class would cause me to make stupid decisions and fall off my bike like that. So I told her what happened in my class. She told the principal and my boss, and they asked to speak with me privately, and also to see my poor injured leg. My left leg was fine, maybe I didn't notice because of my right knee being so bad. They ended up doing an investigation because the students at this school have high standards to meet, and it is very unlike them to be acting that way. They also believe me to be telling the truth so they wanted to know how something like this could have happened. It took a week but they did find out what happened and they punished them severely for their actions. They blamed them for my accident. The homeroom teach appologized on the student's behalf and wished me well. I personally, would like the students to each write me an apology letter, but that is just not how they do things in Japan. Then Thanksgiving happened and I hosted a party at our place with some friends. We needed to prepare for everything and get all the food together. We went shopping at Costco to get our American ingredients, all while my leg was exploding, and I had to cook everything, again, while my leg was exploding, and on top of that, I had Japanese language lessons because I am taking my JLPT N2 on December 2nd. I have been go, go, go, go for the past 2 weeks. Not only did I have all of these things going on, but I also had to be a questioner for the prefectural speech contest. That lasted all day, and again, my leg wanted to explode from that as well. I never had a chance to process anything or really respond to the email from our social worker. It wasn't just that we got an email that our adoption process in Japan is over, it was a combination of things that made the blow that much harder. I had wanted them to tell us know, so that we could start planning for the future. I think it would have been better had they told me before November 14th, then maybe things might have played out differently, but there is nothing I can do about that now. For right now, I am upset, but just trying to get by. I was going to post a link to my crowdfunding page for some FAQs but I don't think anyone will actually click on it, so I will just post everything here: What does this mean? It means that unless I have a job that can guarantee me a 3 year contract at the very least, we cannot continue to persue adoption in Japan. The only jobs that can offer that type of guarentee are engineering jobs or becoming a business owner. All other jobs are less than a year to 2 year contracts. Why didn't your social worker tell you this concern before? She didn't know. Like I have said before, the law has changed in Japan back in April 2018. Based on the information she had always used before, my anual contracts would not be a problem as long as I demonstrated that I had the appropriate visa and contract renewals. Even during the homestudy, Josh and I asked several times regarding the visa/contract concerns and she assured us that she never had an issue with prospective adoptive partents (PAP) before. She also said that she wouldn't have come all the way out there to conduct the homestudy if she didn't think we were going to pass. This decision by the committee was completely new and unknown. It could not have been predicted. Do you get any sort of refund? No. The money has been spent, and it has been used. There is no possible way we can get a refund. What happens to the money we donated? It's gone. It has been spent towards the adoption. There is nothing we can do. I understand that some people will be upset because they have supported us along the way. We are upset too. The total cost that we have spent on this adoption has been $15,000. The amount of money we received from donations has been $3,000. So that means we have spent out of pocket over $10,000. We are feeling a loss same as you, but there is literally nothing I can do about it. We just have to accept that the money is gone, it has been spent and used, and now it is gone. That happens sometimes. It's part of the risk people take when persuing adoption. What are you guys going to do now? We are going to move forward and continue to enjoy life in Japan. Will you guys persue adoption again in the future? Maybe. Though, if we do, we will not make it public. I wanted it to be private from the beginning, but some members of my family strongly encouraged me to create a crowdfunding page. Against my better judgement, I started YouCaring and now here. I didn't want to start a page or make it public for this very reason. Nothing can be for certain with adoption and we (Josh and I) knew that a failed adoption was a possibility because neither of us are Japanese (Japan is VERY nationalistic). We didn't want to make it public, receive donations, then have to tell everyone that it failed and then people would be asking for their donations back that we can't pay. Should we attempt adoption again, it will be 100% quiet. No one will know about it. Sorry everyone. (T_T) Will you return to the US? We didn't come to Japan to adopt, it was just something we decided to do and we happened to be in Japan. As for returning to the US, we don't have definite plans as of yet, I still have a job contract to fulfill. Maybe after that we will decide, but it is too soon to say now. I hope this answers some of your questions. I also hope you can understand our decisions at this time. *If you have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment.*
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorJeny B Archives
August 2021
|