First purchases

Hey everyone. There hasn't been anything much going on with the process. Since I finished the huge project I was working on this past week, David and I decided to go looking at baby stuff. One reason was to make the adoption seem a little more real than it has been. So, we went to Babys-R-Us and then stopped in to Target to glance at some stuff there. We looked at Cribs and Car Seats and Jogging Strollers, Sippy cups, utensils and even little people clothes. Everything was very cute, and also a little daunting. In the end, I wanted to just buy "something" since we've not made any purchases for our child, but have received several gifts from our friends and family. So, here are the little things we bought and I think they're really fun, even if they aren't major purchases. :)

More Paperwork... -revised

Got an email from our Family Coordinator saying that some things have changed on the paperwork front. We have one paper we have to re-do and another form we have to provide a second original. What does that mean? More apostilles! yay... not.

Something else that changed was that we will have to pay the foreign fees before any travel. It was my understanding that it wasn't ALL due until just before our second trip, but that has now changed, according to my new understanding, to being ALL due before the first trip. We're trusting God to provide. :) REVISED: Thanks to Heather's comment, I got clarification that the money is NOT due sooner than before. So, that's a relief. (Thanks Kristen for clearing that up).

This leads me to our new fundraiser page. I'm in the process of working out the kinks in the form, but if you'd like to see what I'm up to so far... please visit our fundraiser homepage here.
I'll be adding more products as things progress, but here's where we'll begin. TFL!

Please pray during the conflict

As many of you might know, there has been a difficult conflict between the little country of Georgia and Russia. Since the USA is an ally of Georgia, that doesn't speak well for our relationship with Russia. Please pray that adoptions from Russia aren't affected by this invasion and that things will continue to go as smoothly as possible for those of us waiting to bring our children home. Also pray for all parties involved who are having to suffer in this war-like time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/atoothless;_ylt=Ajb7Gv5EbAJn3Rm8GNrkOwpbbBAF

Lovely Getaway

This post is about our vacation. You might be wondering what this has to do with our adoption, so I'll explain. This was probably one of the few remaining vacations that David and I will have as a couple, until after our child(ren) are grown. So, in some sense, this does have to do with the adoption. It's what we did during our Wait. woohoo!

With David's work schedule being so full these last few months, and the big project finally completed, David was able to take several days off and we decided to head to the beach. David's brother and sister-in-law had been to Sanibel Island a while ago and recommended a small resort and that's where we landed. We would also recommend it to anyone who is interested. Here are some snapshots of what our time away was like.

They had bikes for us to use, and the first thing we did when we arrived was head around the corner to the beach!

This is where we ate dinner one night. Good food, fun atmosphere.

Path to the beach...

Time....

It's been a very full couple of months here at our house. Time has literally flown by! The last time I looked at the ticker at the bottom of this blog, it said 7+ months... Now it says 9+ months! Where did those two months go?

Work, for David, has been extremely hectic, with very late work hours and work weekends. It has also been very busy for me, with graphics work and also party planning and craft jobs. It's finally starting to slow down, and I have been able to find some time to get some required reading done.

I've also been able to spend some time watching youtube videos of other Russian adoptions. One in particular made me cry just thinking that one day we will be those people, bringing home our little one.

I encourage you to take just a moment and go to youtube.com and search for "russian adoption". I'm sure you'll find it interesting to see some video of what it's like over there.

Wanna hear something new?

Me too! So it goes during the "waiting period". Haven't heard anything except that there are about 15-20 people ahead of us waiting to be assigned a region. Things have been very busy around here. I'm getting a little nervous that I'm not going to have enough time to study up on everything that I need to know before bringing a little one home. One day at a time!

Excited/Freaked

Hey everyone. As many of you know, I like to figure things out. I like to try to figure when things will happen or how long it will take, and work things "just so I know", etc. So, when I heard that a family on our adoption message board got a referral early this week, I started my mental calculations. I've figured that if everything continues as it has with Russia and our agency, then we might receive our referral in 3-4 months!!! When I say 3 months, it sounds like such a short period of time and that makes me nervous, but when I say October, it sounds so deceptively far away. Time just flies by... it's already July and I feel like it should still be April!

There are so many things I have yet to do and many things I need to read, and many things I need to be aware of, and many things I need to prepare, and so much money we need to have. That's the Freaked part of me. Then, the thought that we could be visiting our child soon... well, as you might guess, that's the Excited part of me and I just know that God will work it all out.

Please keep us in prayer, and Please Please keep our child-to-be in prayer. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support so far!

Don't forget to comment on this blog!

Check Cashed!

So I was checking our bank statement and noticed that the check we sent with our Dossier, way back in April, for the translation fee has finally been cashed. I was starting to get "concerned" that something "wasn't" happening correctly because none of the three checks we sent with the dossier had been cashed. The one I was most concerned about was the translation fee and now it has cleared!!! WooHoo!

Daydreaming...

Some of you may have read my Daydreaming post on my other blog. Well, I've been at it again. This time I'm dreamin' about what kinds of things we might need for our little one. Tough thing is that we have no idea how old he* will be when we get to bring him* home. The youngest he'll be will probably be about 12 months. We're hoping the oldest he'll be when we get home is 22 months.

So, another blogger who's in the process of adopting has a link to Kaboodle, a wish list. I thought it was a really cute website and decided to start a couple of lists myself. See side bar under Links of Interest. I put a few things on there but I'm kind of clueless as to what to get!

I need your help!

Those of you 'in the know', please comment here on what you think we'll need, or can't do without, for a child that's between 12 and 22 months old. You'll need to sign in to make a comment. If you don't have a blogger account, it's super easy to create. Just click HERE , or go to blogger.com. (Be sure to write your username and password somewhere so you don't forget it)

On the topic of Comments: I am creating a memory book using these posts along with their comments, so please make comments so I have something to look back on. Thanks to all who've commented so far. It's really fun to read what you're thinking and it's encouraging to know you're checking on us.

Latest news about our paperwork is that our i-171H has been apostilled, sent to our Agency, and they have sent it to Russia. Woohoo!

I think that's all I have for you today! Thanks for lookin'!

*Though it's remotely possible we get a little girl, it's not likely, so rather than always say he/she or them, I will just use "he/him".

Reality.....

So we get this letter in the mail. It's from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (our government). It basically says that our orphan petition application (the one we had approved), has been forwarded to the "visa-issuing post"... in Russia. The letter also includes a real address in Russia where our case has been forwarded.

It's becoming more and more real that this is truly happening. There is a place in Russia that is getting our personal information. Real people are going to be looking at it.

REALLY!

i-171H Received

We have finally received the "Notice of Favorable Determination".

We have been approved, by the USCIS, to adopt a child from Russia!

We have to make a copy and send it for an apostille. The copy will then get sent to Russia to join our other paperwork that's being translated. This clearance was pretty much the last thing we've been waiting for in order to be registered in a region. It will still be a while before we get assigned a region but at least all our "ducks are in a row". Woohoo!

7 months & Counting

According to the ticker at the bottom, we've been on this "expedition" for over 7 months. So, now we are in the waiting room. I got word that our Dossier is most likely being translated right now. That would be in Russia! The estimated time for a referral, from when we submitted our Dossier to the agency is 6 - 9 months. Looks like November might be the earliest we'd hear anything. Of course, we are praying for it to be sooner.

So then, how's about another Vocab lesson?

For Mrs. Salty:
Good morning = DAWB ra ye OO tra
Good night (couldn't find good evening) = spa KOY ne NAWCH ee
Hello = ah-LOH!
Goodbye = daas vee DAAN ya

Yes = dah
No = nyeht
Please = Puh-ZHAHL-stuh
Thank you = spuh-SEE-buh

Car = mah-SHEE-nuh
House = dohm
Boy = MAHL-chik
Girl = DYEH-booch-kuh

pryee-KRAHS-nuh (excellent!)

Anybody there?

OK, so I know some of you are wondering what is going on with our adoption. Well, I'll sum it up for you... I dunno! haha

We're waiting to hear where our paperwork is and I'll let you know as soon as I hear back from our coordinator. She's been really swamped and with the holiday weekend, I'm sure she's been overloaded.

Vocab. lesson #2 coming soon... what words would you like to learn?

Vocabulary Lesson 1

Thought it would be fun to share some of the words we are learning. Our agency sent us a little booklet on a bunch of useful words. Would you like to learn some Russian? :)

These are the pronunciation of Russian words,
not their Russian alphabetical spelling.

Mother = Mama
Father = Papa
Grandmother = Ba-BOO-shka
Grandfather = Dye-DOO-shka
Aunt = TYAWT ya
Uncle = DYAA da

Numbers:
One = ah-DYEEN ----- Two = dva
Three = dryee --------- Four = chi-TYEER-ui
Five = pyaty ----------- Six = shehsty
Seven = syehmy ------ Eight = VOH-syimy
Nine = DYEH-byit --- Ten =DYEH-syit

pah-KAH! (bye-bye)

Update

Got to Tallahassee in great time. Took care of the documents in great time. Went to UPS store and copied papers and sent to our agency (which they've received already) and had a great time. Had Panera Bread coffee for my drive back and it was great. So, Praise God, everything worked out Grreeeat!
(Haven't seen or heard anything about the first set of documents I mailed to Tallahassee, but that's no matter now anyway.)

I've been reviewing the estimate of the remainder of our costs. Praise God, He's provided for us in wonderful ways thus far. I can't wait to see how He'll provide the rest for us! It looks like we'll need approximately $25,000 more for the costs of things such as the country fees, Visas, child's medical, paperwork misc. fees. We'll also need an estimated $11,000 for travel and meal expenses (for both trips). Sounds like a huge number, but I trust God to supply everything, whether it be through gifts and/or through work. He's trustworthy.

Thanks for checking in!

On the road again....

Thanks to our Florida Director of Social Work, we were able to get duplicates of those pages I sent to Tallahassee last week. I will be driving to Tallahassee tomorrow in order to get them apostilled. I figure it will be faster this way since the state office said things are moving slower than usual for the mailed in papers. I might not get those back until end of next week or even the following, if I get them back at all! They only take a few minutes to apostille in person, so that's why I'm just gonna go.

That's the latest!

Sudden Meltdown!

Well, it was bound to happen. I goofed. Probably not "tragically" but when there's a lot of time lost, and potentially some money lost, that's a catastrophe for me.

After we sent our Dossier to our Agency, everything looked great. Our Family Coordinator confirmed we were "expecting". :) Thanks for everyone's congrats! Then we got an email saying that we needed two more documents to clarify why there were two different "Director of Social Work" people. You see, just before we finished the dossier, our local director left and a new director stepped in. (Agency is trying to be efficient with money and can only pay for a director as needed and the previous woman needed work full-time.) So, now we have the Home Study by the original director, and other paperwork signed by the new one.

The agency thought it would prevent confusion if there was a letter stating what happened along with the copy of the previous license. It makes total sense. Hassle is that they had to be notarized and with a notary comes and an apostille. Rather than make the drive to Tallahassee again, I decided to overnight the papers, along with a cover letter that had our phone # and address on it, plus a check. They ask that you also include a Pre-paid package so they can send it back to you.

I had the bright idea to have it sent straight to our agency, rather than come back here, just for me to send it to them. So, I took everything to the courier service office and asked if I could pre-pay for an overnight letter envelope from Tallahassee to Virginia, for the apostille office to use to return our paperwork when it was finished.

Here's my first mistake. In my rush, I hadn't re-read the State's website saying it would take 5-7 workdays.

The courier service doesn't offer a pre-paid envelope (maybe if I had an account with them), but instead, offered another way of sending it. It's actually quite confusing and I'm not sure how the driver handles this, but the guy behind the counter assured me it would be fine. I put our paperwork, clipped to an empty, unlabeled courier envelope (I put a sticky-note on it saying it belonged to me) into a larger envelope that would be overnighted to Tallahassee. Then the courier has it in their system to check back to the office in Tallahassee for three days to pickup the unlabeled envelope that was supposed to hold the apostilled documents. The courier is supposed to have the overnight label for Virginia delivery ready to attach to it.

Did you see my first mistake? Website said it would take 5-7 workdays and my courier is supposed to check for 3 days.....

What's my second mistake? Again, after re-reading the state's website, I remembered that I was supposed to indicate which country the apostilles were for... I hadn't mentioned that in the cover letter.

Could it BE any worse. Well, there's one more.... I didn't put the Virginia office address anywhere in the cover letter, so IF they decide to mail back our paperwork, they will probably send it regular mail (so slow), and it will have to come back to me, if it gets back to me.

So, I was checking the Courier's tracking page and noticed (no surprise) that it's been 2 days of trying, and no getting my package. It would be a miracle if the office did finish it and got it to the courier for Virginia. The lady over the phone said they get hundreds of apostille requests a day.

Ever slap your palm to your forehead and say "stupid, stupid, stupid". Well, let's just say my forehead is pretty red...