Just a quick post to let you know we will be meeting with a local homestudy/adoption agency this Saturday. We would appreciate your prayers that it would become clear if we should change course in any way.
Thanks!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
a good thing
We have been thinking about how to make this process easier as we re-do several things. The list of documents can be broken into roughly two pieces: those provided or filled out by us (passport copies, Russian adoption registration forms, etc.) and those provided by our home study agency (the home study itself - which is a 7 page document all about us - as well as copies of their licenses and some other forms they need to sign and notarize). There are only a couple other miscellaneous forms that don't fit into these categories - so this about covers it.
Upon reflection, we've realized that the difficult and stressful part of this has consistently been with our home study agency. Though certainly no one is intending to be malicious, we just haven't had a smooth experience with them. I think the distance (they are not within an easy drive) has made the process of sending things back and forth too cumbersome. One possibility this time around is to have our updated homestudy done by a local agency (meaning a local social worker with a non-profit organization) rather than continuing to work with the agency that we have been using. This would mean we could physically bring over forms, stop by to pick them up, and be able to get things quickly fixed if there are any quirks. Rob has talked with one organization already and they have indicated their willingness to do this. We also have another one referred by some good friends who did a Russia adoption in 2006 and lived in FL at the time. Though we need to finalize it, we think this will be a really good move for us to ease the stress of the paper chase.
Meanwhile, we are also re-examining our options as far as adoption agencies go. Each time we've done this before, there has been a hopeful development with our current one. It's hard to imagine what that would be this time, though. We have a few leads, so we'll be checking into them in the next couple of weeks.
That's all from the adoption front for now - we'll let you know if there are any new adventures :)
Upon reflection, we've realized that the difficult and stressful part of this has consistently been with our home study agency. Though certainly no one is intending to be malicious, we just haven't had a smooth experience with them. I think the distance (they are not within an easy drive) has made the process of sending things back and forth too cumbersome. One possibility this time around is to have our updated homestudy done by a local agency (meaning a local social worker with a non-profit organization) rather than continuing to work with the agency that we have been using. This would mean we could physically bring over forms, stop by to pick them up, and be able to get things quickly fixed if there are any quirks. Rob has talked with one organization already and they have indicated their willingness to do this. We also have another one referred by some good friends who did a Russia adoption in 2006 and lived in FL at the time. Though we need to finalize it, we think this will be a really good move for us to ease the stress of the paper chase.
Meanwhile, we are also re-examining our options as far as adoption agencies go. Each time we've done this before, there has been a hopeful development with our current one. It's hard to imagine what that would be this time, though. We have a few leads, so we'll be checking into them in the next couple of weeks.
That's all from the adoption front for now - we'll let you know if there are any new adventures :)
Friday, January 25, 2008
My oh my
Well, the news from Russia is not very good. We've basically learned three things since our caseworker returned from her maternity leave. (Praise God that she is back - I now have a clear communication channel again with the agency and she is very responsive.)
Here's the scoop:
1) The document we sent (twice) has not arrive either time. According to the FedEx tracking number of the second package, it was attemped to be delivered at 5pm last Friday and the business was closed, and since then every day it says "in transit". Don't know if that means it is on its way back to the U.S. or what. But they never received it at our agency's office in Siberia.
but that doesn't really matter because....
2) We also learned that even though we had talked with our director about moving our file from the new region (where we applied last August) back to Siberia, he never actually did it. This means the other documents that we updated last fall are also not in Siberia. We thought they were there already, since we were told to only re-do the one document.
3) Also, our agency cooperates under the auspices of another one for the Russian side of the adoption (staff in Russia, etc) and apparently that other agency did not have the appropriate updated documents for our case. I don't even know what this is about, but apparently it will be fixed within a week.
What this all means is....
Our file is not ready to be submitted to the Dept of Education in our region, despite our best efforts and our following of every instruction we were given. It is missing several pieces. By the time those pieces arrive (about a week for the stuff coming from the other region and for the stuff from the Russia-side agency, and who knows how long for our document sent by FedEx) it will be February. By late February all of our Siberia documents begin to expire because the signatures are over a year old. (We submitted all of them last time around in April 07, but the ones we obtained first were signed as early as February, and the rest in March.)
Folks, we are just about back to square one. We basically need to do all the paperwork once again. It is hard to believe. We are still promised that we will be first in line (at least within our agency's set of parents) when our documents are submitted, but they will not be submitted for a while because we need to get everything updated. It wouldn't be bad if it were just filling out forms, but we have to get forms from other people/gov't agencies. This includes stuff from our home study agency, and that is always a difficult situation because they are not usually comfortable with our many, detailed requests and it tends to take a couple of rounds to get anything done.
Please be in prayer for us. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we need to rethink whether to stay with this plan or try something else. We will not give up on becoming parents, but we may need to change course.
Here's the scoop:
1) The document we sent (twice) has not arrive either time. According to the FedEx tracking number of the second package, it was attemped to be delivered at 5pm last Friday and the business was closed, and since then every day it says "in transit". Don't know if that means it is on its way back to the U.S. or what. But they never received it at our agency's office in Siberia.
but that doesn't really matter because....
2) We also learned that even though we had talked with our director about moving our file from the new region (where we applied last August) back to Siberia, he never actually did it. This means the other documents that we updated last fall are also not in Siberia. We thought they were there already, since we were told to only re-do the one document.
3) Also, our agency cooperates under the auspices of another one for the Russian side of the adoption (staff in Russia, etc) and apparently that other agency did not have the appropriate updated documents for our case. I don't even know what this is about, but apparently it will be fixed within a week.
What this all means is....
Our file is not ready to be submitted to the Dept of Education in our region, despite our best efforts and our following of every instruction we were given. It is missing several pieces. By the time those pieces arrive (about a week for the stuff coming from the other region and for the stuff from the Russia-side agency, and who knows how long for our document sent by FedEx) it will be February. By late February all of our Siberia documents begin to expire because the signatures are over a year old. (We submitted all of them last time around in April 07, but the ones we obtained first were signed as early as February, and the rest in March.)
Folks, we are just about back to square one. We basically need to do all the paperwork once again. It is hard to believe. We are still promised that we will be first in line (at least within our agency's set of parents) when our documents are submitted, but they will not be submitted for a while because we need to get everything updated. It wouldn't be bad if it were just filling out forms, but we have to get forms from other people/gov't agencies. This includes stuff from our home study agency, and that is always a difficult situation because they are not usually comfortable with our many, detailed requests and it tends to take a couple of rounds to get anything done.
Please be in prayer for us. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we need to rethink whether to stay with this plan or try something else. We will not give up on becoming parents, but we may need to change course.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Wondering when this will speed up....
Well, today is the big day that the government in Russia comes back from vacation and back to work. I wish I had some confidence that today was the day that our documents would be submitted, but unfortunately we have never been told yet whether the document we sent (on Dec. 22) arrived and was obtained by our facilitator there. It had been sent to the wrong address, but we were told that the facilitator would probably be able to get it from there. Unfortunately, we've gotten no information from our agency since hearing from them before Christmas (when they let us know the correct address) and our attempts to communicate have been unsuccessful.
We decided to wait until today to re-send the document, as it is costing big bucks to FedEx it all the way to Siberia. It is now sent! This means we have a tracking number and it should arrive in 1-3 days (I'm guessing 3!). So even if they never got the first one we sent, this one should be successful in arriving at the correct destination. Then it is just a matter of our facilitator there putting it together with our other documents and submitting it to the Russian government.
Please pray for us. I'm really unhappy about the communication issues that are going on and I just want things to get moving! This coming weekend Rob and I are going out of town for a couple of days just to relax - hopefully our last vacation before the child arrives. If I remember, I'll try to post some pictures to the blog when we return!
We decided to wait until today to re-send the document, as it is costing big bucks to FedEx it all the way to Siberia. It is now sent! This means we have a tracking number and it should arrive in 1-3 days (I'm guessing 3!). So even if they never got the first one we sent, this one should be successful in arriving at the correct destination. Then it is just a matter of our facilitator there putting it together with our other documents and submitting it to the Russian government.
Please pray for us. I'm really unhappy about the communication issues that are going on and I just want things to get moving! This coming weekend Rob and I are going out of town for a couple of days just to relax - hopefully our last vacation before the child arrives. If I remember, I'll try to post some pictures to the blog when we return!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Happy New Year!
Well, we have just returned from our holiday travels. It was a real mix of joy and sadness this year, as Rob lost both his grandmother and a cousin on the same day (Grandma from illness and Ted from a car accident). Our time in Canada was mostly spent preparing for the arrival of relatives and putting together funeral plans, a picture collage, etc. It was good family time, for which we are thankful. We are also comforted that both Grandma and Ted had committed their lives to Christ and are now with him. After our time in Canada, we headed to Minnesota to see my family, which was wonderfully relaxing and (thankfully) uneventful.
But even though our holidays are over, the holidays in Russia will not be over until January 14. This is when we hope that our packet can be submitted to the Department of Education in our region in Siberia. (By the way, for those who know the exact region we are going to, please do not post it in your comments, as we are supposed to avoid posting such detailed info on the web.) We only had to re-do one document, but the copy of it that we sent before leaving town on December 22 was actually sent to an outdated address in Russia (long story, not our fault), so we are sending another one. It is on its way to Tallahassee to be apostilled and we will get that back next week and send it along to the RIGHT address in Russia. I hope to be writing an update here soon when we confirm that the document has arrived and is ready to be submitted with our packet in Russia! Then it is just a matter of waiting for the Department of Education to give us an invitation to travel (when they have a child in mind for us), which could be weeks or maybe a couple of months from our submission.
Wishing you all a happy and blessed New Year! I suppose you can guess what our hope and prayer is for this year (same one as last year and the year before, since we started all this in January 2006!). We believe this WILL be the year, and we'll be sure to post if there's any news!
But even though our holidays are over, the holidays in Russia will not be over until January 14. This is when we hope that our packet can be submitted to the Department of Education in our region in Siberia. (By the way, for those who know the exact region we are going to, please do not post it in your comments, as we are supposed to avoid posting such detailed info on the web.) We only had to re-do one document, but the copy of it that we sent before leaving town on December 22 was actually sent to an outdated address in Russia (long story, not our fault), so we are sending another one. It is on its way to Tallahassee to be apostilled and we will get that back next week and send it along to the RIGHT address in Russia. I hope to be writing an update here soon when we confirm that the document has arrived and is ready to be submitted with our packet in Russia! Then it is just a matter of waiting for the Department of Education to give us an invitation to travel (when they have a child in mind for us), which could be weeks or maybe a couple of months from our submission.
Wishing you all a happy and blessed New Year! I suppose you can guess what our hope and prayer is for this year (same one as last year and the year before, since we started all this in January 2006!). We believe this WILL be the year, and we'll be sure to post if there's any news!
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