After having lunch today with my very good friend, Adrianne, (it's Adrianne's Birthday today--Happy Birthday Adrianne!) I noticed there was a message from my adoption agency. I called her back, a little fearful because of the swine flu news going around, I had been thinking "oh no, what if the Russian government bans families from the US traveling into Russia for adoptions... Sorry, I digress... anyway, I called her back on my way home and she said "I have travel dates for you!" I can't believe it, I was expecting them to call next week. Sooo...we have to be at the Department of Education in Moscow on May 26th. They request we arrive by the 25th and stay until Saturday the 30th so that we can see the children all week. So we are feverishly working on trying to use our points to travel for free. And tonight we also have to start working on filling out our Visa paperwork. Has anybody out there gone on the site GoToRussia for purchasing/requesting your Visa's? They seem cheaper and I don't know why...???
Well...just wanted to share the good news but now I must try to also find some decent, fairly inexpensive hotels. That might be difficult in Moscow...
I'll post later when I have more details.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Keepin' Busy
Our paperwork is now in Russia being translated. I am told it is still likely we will travel at the end of May to Moscow to meet our kiddos. They only give a window of about 2 weeks notice to travel. So, sometime in May we should receive a call that tells us when they want us to be there. And, on Monday we're going to get fingerprinted to get our FBI Clearances done. That should be the last of the paperwork shuffle.
In the meantime, we are keeping very busy with getting the rooms ready (just in case all works out as planned). If not, we got two new rooms. :-)
Here's a before picture of the sub-floor. Roger & I will begin installing the wood floors in the girls room this weekend. Mind you I just painted in this room (took 4 coats!) and THEN we decided to put in wood floors. Oh...the mess. Now I'm going to have to wash down all the walls. Oh well...what are ya gonna do?
In the meantime, we are keeping very busy with getting the rooms ready (just in case all works out as planned). If not, we got two new rooms. :-)
Here's a before picture of the sub-floor. Roger & I will begin installing the wood floors in the girls room this weekend. Mind you I just painted in this room (took 4 coats!) and THEN we decided to put in wood floors. Oh...the mess. Now I'm going to have to wash down all the walls. Oh well...what are ya gonna do?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Dossier Sent (again!)
I went down to the Secretary of State today and had all my new Docs apostilled. Whew! That's a load of my mind/plate. Now on to the list of the things I want to get done around the house. My agency will send to Russia and the docs will be translated and registered. They believe we should travel mid to late May. It'll be here before I know it. I'm going to try and get ready/organized, but I know like the rest of you have mentioned, you just end up scrambling to get all packed in time.
Friday, April 3, 2009
A 3rd agency & A REFERRAL!!!!
Yep...you read that right. It's a long story, but hear goes...
In a past post, I mentioned that our international agency did not inform us of the russian blacklist of adoption agencies (our local, homestudy agency is on this list) and that we had stumbled across that information from my wonderful friends in the adoption blogworld. (that's why I never really wanted to go private--you are able to help out so many families from not being private. I have definitely been helped by reading so many blogs) We asked our international agency about it and they responded that we shouldn't worry cause it only has to do with families close to going to court. So, ok...we wait. About 2 1/2 weeks later we stumble across more information from our friends in the blogworld that everyone affected by the blacklist is switching homestudy agencies because Russia will not give you a referral if you are a family whose paperwork says you are working with one of these blacklisted agencies. Again, we call our int'l agency and they say "yes, that is correct." Were they ever going to pick up the phone and share any of this news with us??? NO. So, I begin the scrambling to find another homestudy agency asap and begin the paperwork trail (and fees) all over again. Soon after I began searching for a new agency, I received an email from a wonderful person I've gotten to know in the blogworld, Amy. Amy said for me to call her agency because she had just read a bulletin from them (Amy, at the time, was in Vlad on her 2nd trip picking up her little girl) saying that they need paper ready parents for several children. So I call. The conversation said something about 3 sets of sibling groups...I was interested in one of them...she mentioned there was another family interested but their agency was on the blacklist and they are re-doing paperwork. And, I said...Oh...no...my agency is on the blacklist, too and I just began the process of re-doing my paperwork. She believed that the other family interested was going to take 6 - 8 weeks to get their paperwork complete because of the state they live in. I said mine would only take 2 - 2 1/2 weeks. She said to give her a call back in 10 days. Well...I did, because my new homestudy agency has been wonderful and very sympathetic to our situation and has been diligently working on our case. ( I must say as of today it is complete. ) L from new (3rd) int'l agency was wonderful and said that they had another sibling group in mind for the other family and if we wanted to proceed with this sibling group, they could be ours. OMG!!!! Double Freakout! Well...without further delay...it is a sister and brother in Moscow (now we should change our blog title...). The girl is 3 and the boy is 2.
SOOO...now we have to RE-DO our Dossier! More paperwork! All on new forms and this region requires different things than Vlad. So as of Wednesday, I have been feverishly working and just plain buried in re-doing everything. I am so proud of ourselves because we are done as of today. All we have left to do is get everything Apostilled, photocopied, and another check mailed out on Monday to our new wonderful agency! They say our docs have to be sent to Moscow, translated and then registered in that region and THEN we should expect to travel on Trip #1 (finally!) towards the end of May. Wow! I have a lot to do between now and then. I was never really expecting two children. And now it seems it's happening so quick.
We are still overwhelmed. It was a hard decision to make to switch agencies and jump right into something blindly. I hope we have made the right decision. My gut tells me so.... I pray and wish all turns out perfectly when we meet these two cuties in May. OMG...I still can't believe I'm writing this post.
In a past post, I mentioned that our international agency did not inform us of the russian blacklist of adoption agencies (our local, homestudy agency is on this list) and that we had stumbled across that information from my wonderful friends in the adoption blogworld. (that's why I never really wanted to go private--you are able to help out so many families from not being private. I have definitely been helped by reading so many blogs) We asked our international agency about it and they responded that we shouldn't worry cause it only has to do with families close to going to court. So, ok...we wait. About 2 1/2 weeks later we stumble across more information from our friends in the blogworld that everyone affected by the blacklist is switching homestudy agencies because Russia will not give you a referral if you are a family whose paperwork says you are working with one of these blacklisted agencies. Again, we call our int'l agency and they say "yes, that is correct." Were they ever going to pick up the phone and share any of this news with us??? NO. So, I begin the scrambling to find another homestudy agency asap and begin the paperwork trail (and fees) all over again. Soon after I began searching for a new agency, I received an email from a wonderful person I've gotten to know in the blogworld, Amy. Amy said for me to call her agency because she had just read a bulletin from them (Amy, at the time, was in Vlad on her 2nd trip picking up her little girl) saying that they need paper ready parents for several children. So I call. The conversation said something about 3 sets of sibling groups...I was interested in one of them...she mentioned there was another family interested but their agency was on the blacklist and they are re-doing paperwork. And, I said...Oh...no...my agency is on the blacklist, too and I just began the process of re-doing my paperwork. She believed that the other family interested was going to take 6 - 8 weeks to get their paperwork complete because of the state they live in. I said mine would only take 2 - 2 1/2 weeks. She said to give her a call back in 10 days. Well...I did, because my new homestudy agency has been wonderful and very sympathetic to our situation and has been diligently working on our case. ( I must say as of today it is complete. ) L from new (3rd) int'l agency was wonderful and said that they had another sibling group in mind for the other family and if we wanted to proceed with this sibling group, they could be ours. OMG!!!! Double Freakout! Well...without further delay...it is a sister and brother in Moscow (now we should change our blog title...). The girl is 3 and the boy is 2.
SOOO...now we have to RE-DO our Dossier! More paperwork! All on new forms and this region requires different things than Vlad. So as of Wednesday, I have been feverishly working and just plain buried in re-doing everything. I am so proud of ourselves because we are done as of today. All we have left to do is get everything Apostilled, photocopied, and another check mailed out on Monday to our new wonderful agency! They say our docs have to be sent to Moscow, translated and then registered in that region and THEN we should expect to travel on Trip #1 (finally!) towards the end of May. Wow! I have a lot to do between now and then. I was never really expecting two children. And now it seems it's happening so quick.
We are still overwhelmed. It was a hard decision to make to switch agencies and jump right into something blindly. I hope we have made the right decision. My gut tells me so.... I pray and wish all turns out perfectly when we meet these two cuties in May. OMG...I still can't believe I'm writing this post.
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