Looks like good news

The other day my office manager asked me how much of my time is spent being preoccupied with our adoption - she can tell how it weighs on me. It was a good question, to which I didn't have a specific answer. I just know it's a lot.

Yesterday was particularly remarkable in the amount of time I spent preoccupied with our adoption. Along with my usual few emails each day related to something other than work (church, etc.) I received 1 email from our new home study social worker, 2 emails from a prospective agency that I had asked for more info, and 3 emails from our current adoption agency. I responded to all of them. I don't want to think about how much time that probably took. But I'm not really able to let that stuff wait.

Our home study worker learned that she needs to do a background check for us in Wisconsin as well as Florida because we lived there less than 5 years ago and that is a new rule. So I looked into getting that process moving. Our meeting with her went very well on Tuesday and we are busily assembling the paperwork she needs to finish our home study update (which is needed no matter which adoption agency we end up with).

The prospective agency was working on sending along a fee schedule to us, as they just finalized it for 2008 (in other words, we're just slightly late!). We have narrowed the search down to this one or one other one that I talked with back in November.

But the most important emails yesterday were from our current adoption agency. They have confirmed that our paperwork made it to Russia and was brought to the office of the Ministry of Education, and was turned in, and was NOT rejected outright (even though some of the documents were prepared for another region of Russia). We are surprised and cautiously happy about this. Our caseworker said that the MOE could still ask us to redo some things once they look more carefully through it, but at least for now it looks like we are actually "in line". We like the idea that the Russian government actually HAS our paperwork for the first time. Our agency was told by the MOE to check back in 10 days to check the status of the situation. This could mean that they would be ready to give us travel dates, or to tell us about a specific child, or to ask us for updated paperwork (could be one document, could be all 12 or so). I emailed back and forth with our caseworker to try to understand more, but this is really all the info they have. This could be very good news, but we just can't tell for sure yet. (Notice my lack of exclamation points - I am holding off on getting excited right now).

There was an interesting turn of phrase in our caseworker's email in which she was explaining the possibility of getting a referral. She said that after 10 days "they might have someone ready." For some reason, this stuck with me: "someone". I think everyone always says "a child" or "a baby", not "someone." It seems much more specific to me, for some reason. Even though it's unlikely that the 10 day mark will bring this best-possible news, it has helped move me toward a more hopeful mood about all this.

If we are instead told we have to redo all the documents, we are still planning to switch agencies. Both of the our candidate agencies are moving at light-speed right now, with first-trip travel happening within a month after submitting paperwork. So no matter what, we should be in a good situation within the next few months, God-willing.

Please pray that God is willing!