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.