Timeline & a few pictures

Lots of people are curious about the adoption process. Ours involves all the steps of a typical adoption, but will likely take less time because of the agency and region we chose. There are an incredible number of details (probably more than some of you are interested in hearing about!). We've been marking off milestones so far and thought you might be interested in them...occasionally we've included a picture too.

Jan. 6 Registered with our agency to adopt from Siberia, Russia. This agency helps us with all the paperwork and connects us with a child (and a translator!) in Russia. Our caseworker is Valerie, who is from Russia but works here in the U.S. for the adoption agency.

Jan. 25 Spent 5 hours being interviewed for our Home Study (conducted by a local psychologist)

Jan. 26-Feb. 22 Got background checks from the City, State, and FBI; got medical approval from our doctors.

Feb. 22 Received Rob’s birth certificate

Feb. 23 Sent Rob’s passport renewal application (w/ birth certificate)

Feb. 23 Sent packet of background checks & copy of Rob’s birth certificate to the Home Study agency, to finalize their report

Mar. 18 Received final Home Study – we are officially approved! I was so happy that I even took a picture of the envelope.




Mar. 20 Sent I-600A (immigration form) and Home Study to U.S.C.I.S. (Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly “INS”) in Jacksonville

Mar. 24 Received invitation for fingerprinting from Jacksonville U.S.C.I.S.

Mar. 24 Finished redoing the walls in the baby's room, after a couple weeks of scraping/painting with much help from friends!

Here's me, scraping a wall that had layers of paint and wallpaper.

Rob was sanding the walls. The air was full of dust - you can see it in the picture!

This is our housemate, Sara Joy, who is an intern with a campus ministry for the year. We are sad that she'll be moving away this summer - it's been a great time! And as you can see, we put her to work too :)



Here's our good friend Burcin from the Econ department. She came over for two different painting days and we listened to 1980s power ballads - quite memorable!

Mar. 25 Got carpet installed in the baby’s room! Below is our final product. The walls are very light green, with one a shade darker and textured. The carpet is actually a light beige, but the flash on the camera made it look darker. We'll be decorating it with a border of musical notes (pictures to come later).

Mar. 29 Received Rob’s new passport

Mar. 30 Got our results from our psychological exams (the MMPI personality test). The official letters state: “Results appear valid and not consistent with any psychopathology.” Phew!

Mar. 31 Got documents notarized at the bank for Dossier # 1 (first of 2 packets of forms). The ladies who work at the bank are so excited!

*** below are the plans for the future and all dates are subject to change! ***

Week of April 2-9 Planning to give our fingerprints at the U.S.C.I.S. (Jacksonville) and to get our notarized documents apostilled (Tallahassee) so that we can submit them to our agency. An "apostille" is a document/seal from the Secretary of State verifying that a notarized document was notarized by a legitimate notary (no, I'm not kidding!).

The following month or two: wait for a referral of a child from our agency

Soon after referral: travel to Russia for a week to meet our child

The following one-three months: get additional documents for Dossier # 2 and wait for a court date from Russia

Soon after court date is announced: travel to Russia to go to court and pick up our child, and stay for at least 10 days (the government’s mandatory waiting period)