Our corrected documents arrived on Saturday. We went to Tallahassee this morning and got all of our apostilles, and this afternoon I sent everything out to our agency. We should be in the queue for the new region now.
Phew!
Hopefully this is our last "dossier # 1" (we did one for our old region, then an updated one for our old region, and now this one). Third time's a charm right?
I will update the blog when I hear anything about a timeline. Right now, I am just ready for the break from paperwork! We think there are still some families ahead of us, but we hope that this fall will bring at least trip # 1 and perhaps both trips. Meanwhile, it's time to get back to teaching and work on sending out some more research papers before our travels.
Thanks for your prayers, and we'll post when we have news.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Ever feel tested?
Yep, we needed our last two documents, which arrived in the mail yesterday -- both with errors. New ones are being sent today, for arrival tomorrow, so that we can go to Tallahassee on Monday instead of today.
I have never, before entering this process, been in a situation where I actually felt like physically exploding with sheer frustration. I wonder if this is how people with short tempers feel all the time. It's miserable! I actually wanted to walk outside and scream at the top of my lungs - I would have, except people would have been worried about the crazy woman outside :) There have been many times that I've been glad that they do the interviews/home study/psych exams at the beginning of the process, since the process itself can actually drive you into insanity.
Fortunately, Rob had just the ticket to calm me down last night after we got the mail - he made me chicken soup and peanut-butter toast (yes, I like them together, it was an elementary-school-cafeteria thing). And then we watched some comedy shows and a couple episodes of "The Wonder Years". Nothing like a little Kevin-and-Winnie puppy love to cheer you up. Mix that with a glass of chocolate milk and life looked a little better.
I hope, hope, hope to be writing with good news on Monday -- once we send that stuff out, then it's back to the waiting game. While we're still hoping the wait won't be more than a couple of months, one thing we have learned is that nothing is predictable. Praise God that he has a plan:
"God sets the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6a).
And so he will, in His timing.
I have never, before entering this process, been in a situation where I actually felt like physically exploding with sheer frustration. I wonder if this is how people with short tempers feel all the time. It's miserable! I actually wanted to walk outside and scream at the top of my lungs - I would have, except people would have been worried about the crazy woman outside :) There have been many times that I've been glad that they do the interviews/home study/psych exams at the beginning of the process, since the process itself can actually drive you into insanity.
Fortunately, Rob had just the ticket to calm me down last night after we got the mail - he made me chicken soup and peanut-butter toast (yes, I like them together, it was an elementary-school-cafeteria thing). And then we watched some comedy shows and a couple episodes of "The Wonder Years". Nothing like a little Kevin-and-Winnie puppy love to cheer you up. Mix that with a glass of chocolate milk and life looked a little better.
I hope, hope, hope to be writing with good news on Monday -- once we send that stuff out, then it's back to the waiting game. While we're still hoping the wait won't be more than a couple of months, one thing we have learned is that nothing is predictable. Praise God that he has a plan:
"God sets the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6a).
And so he will, in His timing.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The switch is almost complete
We have finally reached the end of the series of documents that needed to be modified/changed/updated/created in order for us to switch regions! The last two are in the mail from our home study agency. We should get them this week, and then it's off to Tallahassee for (you guessed it) the chance to drop another $200 or so on apostilles.
(I decided not to blog about the last few weeks, which were among the most frustrating paper-chasing I have ever experienced....just glad it's over.)
After that's done, we'll send the packet to our agency and officially be in line for the new region. There are only a few people ahead of us, so we still hope to travel on our first trip in September or October if things go smoothly. We'll probably just get a week's notice.
PRAISE GOD THAT:
* We seem to have all of the correct documents, finally!
* Two families working with our agency successfully went to court last week (in our new region) and now have custody of their children!
* We had a great, relaxing vacation in Canada last week, which helped take my mind off of the stresses of this stuff
* My department has worked with me to arrange a substitute professor to teach for me when we are traveling to Russia
* Both Rob and I can use sick leave (instead of unpaid parental leave) for our adoption travel
* I have just been given the opportunity to revise another of my articles for possible publication - this is good to get done now rather than later!
PLEASE PRAY THAT:
* Our documents are indeed acceptable to our agency and to Russia
* The lineup in our new region continues to move and does not stall
* We are able to concentrate on our work and on practical preparations (rather than unproductive worrying)
Thanks to everyone for continuing to support us in this very long and difficult quest to find the child God has planned for our family. We will continue to update the blog, whether or not there is news, every few weeks - so stay tuned!
(I decided not to blog about the last few weeks, which were among the most frustrating paper-chasing I have ever experienced....just glad it's over.)
After that's done, we'll send the packet to our agency and officially be in line for the new region. There are only a few people ahead of us, so we still hope to travel on our first trip in September or October if things go smoothly. We'll probably just get a week's notice.
PRAISE GOD THAT:
* We seem to have all of the correct documents, finally!
* Two families working with our agency successfully went to court last week (in our new region) and now have custody of their children!
* We had a great, relaxing vacation in Canada last week, which helped take my mind off of the stresses of this stuff
* My department has worked with me to arrange a substitute professor to teach for me when we are traveling to Russia
* Both Rob and I can use sick leave (instead of unpaid parental leave) for our adoption travel
* I have just been given the opportunity to revise another of my articles for possible publication - this is good to get done now rather than later!
PLEASE PRAY THAT:
* Our documents are indeed acceptable to our agency and to Russia
* The lineup in our new region continues to move and does not stall
* We are able to concentrate on our work and on practical preparations (rather than unproductive worrying)
Thanks to everyone for continuing to support us in this very long and difficult quest to find the child God has planned for our family. We will continue to update the blog, whether or not there is news, every few weeks - so stay tuned!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
making some preparations
Well, we still have a couple of weeks before we can get our final documents from our home study agency, and when they arrive we will be in Canada for a week...so we hope to send our new dossier on August 15. We still don't know for sure which region we will end up in...a total of 19 agencies have been reaccredited, but ours is not one of them. So assuming they are not reaccredited within 3 weeks, we will go with the new region.
Meanwhile, we thought we should be thinking ahead a bit and learning some Russian for the trip. Although we probably would have done a short/simple program for tourists, some friends were kind enough to pass along a longer course that they no longer needed. It is a completely "aural" course (all on CD's, listen and repeat, no book). It took us a bit to get used to it, but we are starting to catch on. We listen in the car almost every day. We have finished 20% of the course (6 out of 30 lessons) and I can already say some important stuff:
(note: I am making up my own spelling, because of course we are just learning how to say them, not write them in Cyrillic)
"Zdrastvuit-ye. Ya nimnoga goveroo parusskie. Ya Amerikanke. Ya khatchelee ba shtonyboot payeest."
"Izvineet-ye. Skazheechee puhzhalste, gjeuh shtonyboot payeest?"
Translations:
"Hello. I speak a little Russian. I am American. I would like something to eat."
"Excuse me. Tell me please, where is something to eat?"
I figure these will help me in any number of situations :)
I know that the language is starting to sink in, because I was trying to wake Rob up yesterday - "Time to get up!" - and he mumbled something at me. I said "What?" He repeated: "mozhitbweets poe-zhuh".
Translation: "Maybe later".
Meanwhile, we thought we should be thinking ahead a bit and learning some Russian for the trip. Although we probably would have done a short/simple program for tourists, some friends were kind enough to pass along a longer course that they no longer needed. It is a completely "aural" course (all on CD's, listen and repeat, no book). It took us a bit to get used to it, but we are starting to catch on. We listen in the car almost every day. We have finished 20% of the course (6 out of 30 lessons) and I can already say some important stuff:
(note: I am making up my own spelling, because of course we are just learning how to say them, not write them in Cyrillic)
"Zdrastvuit-ye. Ya nimnoga goveroo parusskie. Ya Amerikanke. Ya khatchelee ba shtonyboot payeest."
"Izvineet-ye. Skazheechee puhzhalste, gjeuh shtonyboot payeest?"
Translations:
"Hello. I speak a little Russian. I am American. I would like something to eat."
"Excuse me. Tell me please, where is something to eat?"
I figure these will help me in any number of situations :)
I know that the language is starting to sink in, because I was trying to wake Rob up yesterday - "Time to get up!" - and he mumbled something at me. I said "What?" He repeated: "mozhitbweets poe-zhuh".
Translation: "Maybe later".
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Let the games begin!!!
What games? Why, the Olympic games for one thing. Russia just won the bid for the 2014 winter Olympics.
But that wouldn't be enough to write a blog entry about. Instead, I have great news -- yesterday, on the 4th of July, seven American adoption agencies were given their reaccreditation by Russia!!! Ours was not among them (there are around 40 still waiting) but this is a huge turn in the tide. No agency had been reaccredited since April 2006. This is a symbol of a giant breakthrough: Russia has demonstrated that it is going to continue with its system of accredited agencies being allowed to facilitate adoptions (which at times people had begun to doubt). Our agency "hopes to be" in the second batch of reaccreditations (who doesn't?), and we aren't sure when they would be. However, last time Russia did reaccreditations the first two "batches" were only about 3 weeks apart. So it may not be long. But who knows?
What does this mean for us? Well, the timing is interesting. It is still another month or so before we are able turn in paperwork to switch regions. If our agency is reaccredited before that, we plan to stay with our original region. If not, we will prepare our documents for the new one and send them in mid-August. In either case, we very much hope that we will be traveling in September or October!
Fun fact: Our original region is in Siberia, and would require a plane trip from Moscow. Our potential new region is just a 3-hour drive from Moscow. While sort of attached to the old one, one nice thing about the new one was that we could at least save money from not needing those flights. Then we learned that in the new region, there is an extra doctor's visit required in Russia. Each of us would need to go to a special clinic where they do these exams (most people say they're quite brief) and it would set us back $700 PER PERSON!! Scandalous!
But that wouldn't be enough to write a blog entry about. Instead, I have great news -- yesterday, on the 4th of July, seven American adoption agencies were given their reaccreditation by Russia!!! Ours was not among them (there are around 40 still waiting) but this is a huge turn in the tide. No agency had been reaccredited since April 2006. This is a symbol of a giant breakthrough: Russia has demonstrated that it is going to continue with its system of accredited agencies being allowed to facilitate adoptions (which at times people had begun to doubt). Our agency "hopes to be" in the second batch of reaccreditations (who doesn't?), and we aren't sure when they would be. However, last time Russia did reaccreditations the first two "batches" were only about 3 weeks apart. So it may not be long. But who knows?
What does this mean for us? Well, the timing is interesting. It is still another month or so before we are able turn in paperwork to switch regions. If our agency is reaccredited before that, we plan to stay with our original region. If not, we will prepare our documents for the new one and send them in mid-August. In either case, we very much hope that we will be traveling in September or October!
Fun fact: Our original region is in Siberia, and would require a plane trip from Moscow. Our potential new region is just a 3-hour drive from Moscow. While sort of attached to the old one, one nice thing about the new one was that we could at least save money from not needing those flights. Then we learned that in the new region, there is an extra doctor's visit required in Russia. Each of us would need to go to a special clinic where they do these exams (most people say they're quite brief) and it would set us back $700 PER PERSON!! Scandalous!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Finally some progress!
It is nice to write that in the subject line!
We have decided to switch regions, within our agency, to one where there is currently movement in adoption processes. (You can call me/talk to me if you want to hear the long version of why we didn't have this opportunity earlier.) So what's the scoop on the new plan?
1) While summer vacations occur in Russia, we'll be putting together new paperwork for this region. It's similar to the other one, but there are still some new/different pieces. We'll also be re-applying for our permission to adopt, from USCIS (formerly the INS, i.e. U.S. immigration). Our old permission was good for 18 months, but its associated fingerprints were only good for 15 months (brilliant, I know!) so we are redoing all of it at once. Looks like it will be free to get the update, which is a plus :)
2) In about 6 weeks, we'll send our new paperwork to Russia. There are others also waiting to adopt from this region (sorry, can't name the place for confidentiality reasons) so at that point we'll see how quickly things move. The earliest we could be asked to travel would probably be September. In the grand scheme of things, this is just around the corner, though it is still a bit of a wait. If we did get to travel in September or October, there's a good chance we'd be able to go back for trip # 2 to complete the adoption before Christmas. I am trying my best not to anticipate that, though....what can I say, I am a Christmas addict, so I always build my mental schedule around Christmas! I tend to build up anything and everything surrounding "the most wonderful time of the year."
3) My impression from others who've worked in this region is that there is generally a "waiting period" during the second trip, after you've been to court to get the adoption approved. It looks like most people are not given custody yet during that time (about 2-3 weeks) so sometimes, instead of waiting in Russia, it makes sense for people to return home and then go back to Russia once again for "trip # 3" to take custody and come home. We don't know yet how this will work itself out for us, but just thought we'd let you know what the process is looking like.
ALL THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Boy, is it ever! Please pray with us that this avenue remains open to us. My optimism has gotten very cautious these days, but things are looking up.
We have decided to switch regions, within our agency, to one where there is currently movement in adoption processes. (You can call me/talk to me if you want to hear the long version of why we didn't have this opportunity earlier.) So what's the scoop on the new plan?
1) While summer vacations occur in Russia, we'll be putting together new paperwork for this region. It's similar to the other one, but there are still some new/different pieces. We'll also be re-applying for our permission to adopt, from USCIS (formerly the INS, i.e. U.S. immigration). Our old permission was good for 18 months, but its associated fingerprints were only good for 15 months (brilliant, I know!) so we are redoing all of it at once. Looks like it will be free to get the update, which is a plus :)
2) In about 6 weeks, we'll send our new paperwork to Russia. There are others also waiting to adopt from this region (sorry, can't name the place for confidentiality reasons) so at that point we'll see how quickly things move. The earliest we could be asked to travel would probably be September. In the grand scheme of things, this is just around the corner, though it is still a bit of a wait. If we did get to travel in September or October, there's a good chance we'd be able to go back for trip # 2 to complete the adoption before Christmas. I am trying my best not to anticipate that, though....what can I say, I am a Christmas addict, so I always build my mental schedule around Christmas! I tend to build up anything and everything surrounding "the most wonderful time of the year."
3) My impression from others who've worked in this region is that there is generally a "waiting period" during the second trip, after you've been to court to get the adoption approved. It looks like most people are not given custody yet during that time (about 2-3 weeks) so sometimes, instead of waiting in Russia, it makes sense for people to return home and then go back to Russia once again for "trip # 3" to take custody and come home. We don't know yet how this will work itself out for us, but just thought we'd let you know what the process is looking like.
ALL THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Boy, is it ever! Please pray with us that this avenue remains open to us. My optimism has gotten very cautious these days, but things are looking up.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Looking at our options - there is hope!
I try to write on this blog once a month, whether there is news or not.
In one sense, there is no news. Russia still has not reaccredited any agencies. Our dossier remains in our assigned region (a city in Siberia) and our agency continues to hope that reaccreditation will come soon. We are less optimistic, given our experience so far.
However, in another sense, there is news. It looks like there are a couple of paths we might take to move forward with a Russian adoption. This is feeling good!
One option is to switch to an agency that is still able to help people adopt in some regions (without accreditation). This is called "independent adoption" and it is legal in Russia. Essentially, we would be hiring an agency as a "facilitator" but the adoption would not be done "through" the agency in the usual way. My understanding is that most people find the experience to be basically the same; the agency does the same amount of the work, provides the same services (translator, driver), and so on. The smoothness - and even existence - of this type of process is built on personal relationships set up between agency facilitators and regional officials. Let me say again, though, it is legal. The only downside is that it is always possible that the Russian government decides to change policy on this...but that is a risk no matter what we do (as we have learned already!). Oh yes, and the other downside is that we lose a lot of money and have to redo some paperwork.
A second option, which is better if we can do it, is to switch regions WITHIN our agency. Although they were not taking applications for a while, our agency is now starting new cases in ONE region of Russia where they have been able to set up "independent adoptions" while they wait for accreditation in their other regions. A couple working with our agency recently returned from there with an 11-month-old baby boy. Our caseworker has said that we may be able to redo just a few documents and be able to transfer the rest of our paperwork to that region instead, where we would then be able to register our paperwork with the government and actually be in the queue for a travel date!
However, the first thing we have to do, before deciding on anything, is wait for a couple more weeks. (I am sure that doesn't surprise you at this point!). The head of our agency is going to be in Russia trying to establish what is going on with the accreditation. If she returns at the end of the month with good news of truly imminent accreditation, it may make more sense for us to leave our finished paperwork where it is, because we are the first in line there for a travel date as soon as the accreditation occurs.
We have no idea where God has placed our little one. We think this child of ours is in Russia, but we simply don't know where! Please pray for us to make good decisions in the next month as we try to find the way.
In one sense, there is no news. Russia still has not reaccredited any agencies. Our dossier remains in our assigned region (a city in Siberia) and our agency continues to hope that reaccreditation will come soon. We are less optimistic, given our experience so far.
However, in another sense, there is news. It looks like there are a couple of paths we might take to move forward with a Russian adoption. This is feeling good!
One option is to switch to an agency that is still able to help people adopt in some regions (without accreditation). This is called "independent adoption" and it is legal in Russia. Essentially, we would be hiring an agency as a "facilitator" but the adoption would not be done "through" the agency in the usual way. My understanding is that most people find the experience to be basically the same; the agency does the same amount of the work, provides the same services (translator, driver), and so on. The smoothness - and even existence - of this type of process is built on personal relationships set up between agency facilitators and regional officials. Let me say again, though, it is legal. The only downside is that it is always possible that the Russian government decides to change policy on this...but that is a risk no matter what we do (as we have learned already!). Oh yes, and the other downside is that we lose a lot of money and have to redo some paperwork.
A second option, which is better if we can do it, is to switch regions WITHIN our agency. Although they were not taking applications for a while, our agency is now starting new cases in ONE region of Russia where they have been able to set up "independent adoptions" while they wait for accreditation in their other regions. A couple working with our agency recently returned from there with an 11-month-old baby boy. Our caseworker has said that we may be able to redo just a few documents and be able to transfer the rest of our paperwork to that region instead, where we would then be able to register our paperwork with the government and actually be in the queue for a travel date!
However, the first thing we have to do, before deciding on anything, is wait for a couple more weeks. (I am sure that doesn't surprise you at this point!). The head of our agency is going to be in Russia trying to establish what is going on with the accreditation. If she returns at the end of the month with good news of truly imminent accreditation, it may make more sense for us to leave our finished paperwork where it is, because we are the first in line there for a travel date as soon as the accreditation occurs.
We have no idea where God has placed our little one. We think this child of ours is in Russia, but we simply don't know where! Please pray for us to make good decisions in the next month as we try to find the way.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
It's probably over the ocean right now...
We (finally) got our corrected documents from the home study agency, and we drove up to Tallahassee yesterday morning to get them apostilled at the Secretary of State. It was an uneventful trip and they did not have any trouble verifying our notaries. So yesterday afternoon I made lots of photocopies and sent our documents "Global Express" straight to Russia. They should arrive within 5-7 business days. Since it doesn't look like accreditation will happen before then, we are in good shape. the documents are good for about a year, but hopefully we won't need to worry about that!
Interestingly, the national news has picked up on the Russian adoption delays. There have been several stories this last week, I guess because the last couple of agencies' accreditation finally expired. Although this didn't really affect anything, newspapers picked up on the fact that now there are NO accredited agencies in Russia. The only international adoptions occurring there are those that had already started proceedings for a particular child before loss of accreditation, or those whose agencies work in a few regions that don't require accreditation (but are risky in their own way). USA Today decided to write that Russian adoptions had been "stopped", as if the last expiration were instead a new law in Russia banning adoption! That's not the case at all. This is just a long bureaucratic delay, and there's no indication that Russia is going to prevent accreditation. The fact that they have asked for extra documents, while frustrating, suggests that they are paying attention to the agencies' applications in some way.
We'll let you know when there is an update! For now, I'm trying to get through the last couple weeks of the semester....tests to write, papers to grade, tests to grade...plenty to keep me busy!
Interestingly, the national news has picked up on the Russian adoption delays. There have been several stories this last week, I guess because the last couple of agencies' accreditation finally expired. Although this didn't really affect anything, newspapers picked up on the fact that now there are NO accredited agencies in Russia. The only international adoptions occurring there are those that had already started proceedings for a particular child before loss of accreditation, or those whose agencies work in a few regions that don't require accreditation (but are risky in their own way). USA Today decided to write that Russian adoptions had been "stopped", as if the last expiration were instead a new law in Russia banning adoption! That's not the case at all. This is just a long bureaucratic delay, and there's no indication that Russia is going to prevent accreditation. The fact that they have asked for extra documents, while frustrating, suggests that they are paying attention to the agencies' applications in some way.
We'll let you know when there is an update! For now, I'm trying to get through the last couple weeks of the semester....tests to write, papers to grade, tests to grade...plenty to keep me busy!
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Spoke too soon....
In my last post I suggested that we'd be off to Tallahassee soon to get our documents apostilled and sent to Russia. The last background check was supposed to arrive within days, and I thought that once we got that our social worker would send our remaining documents immediately.
I forgot to "figure in" the fact that I was asking the social worker for 8 documents, and inevitably there would be a glitch in the first attempt at the documents. The social worker is not here in Gainesville, but elsewhere in FL, so everything is also delayed because we are sending these things through the mail instead of doing them in person (didn't realize there's be so much paperwork for them; thought it would just be the home visit, so we didn't realize the advantage of going local). So we are doing another round with the social worker, hoping to get everything next week. THEN we will be off to Tallahassee.
This is very frustrating, but (fortunately?) no agencies have been reaccreditted in Russia yet, so we aren't worried about losing our place in line while our paperwork is getting finished. The line simply isn't moving. There's no clear word on when it will start...the Russian government simply hasn't gotten any of the agencies' applications processed yet. The good news is that we know they are working on it -- some people who have gone to pick up their children recently (who are with the few remaining accredited agencies) have gotten more of an inside scoop. Sounds like some people think April will be our lucky month. I am not holding my breath.
I, for one, am trying to plan for fun things that we will be doing in the next few months, without assuming there will be a trip to Russia anytime soon. I've got a conference later this month, then we'll go to a wedding in early May, then I have another conference mid-May, then my brother will be visiting in late May, and then we will be going to Wisconsin (for a conference) and hopefully Minnesota in June. You may notice that conferences qualify as "fun" to me :)
And of course there is plenty to be done at work, so I am not at a loss for things to do! My ability to focus at work is sometimes a little lacking (don't know if I can blame that on the adoption or not!) so your prayers are appreciated as I try to prepare some more research for sending to academic journals. I'm happy to report that I passed my "3rd-year review", so I get to stay here at UF and keeping working toward tenure. I won't be evaluated for tenure for another 4-5 years, but publication cycles are SLOW in economics, so now is the time for me to be as productive as possible!
We'll let you all know when we have actually sent our documents to Russia - no false alarm this time!
I forgot to "figure in" the fact that I was asking the social worker for 8 documents, and inevitably there would be a glitch in the first attempt at the documents. The social worker is not here in Gainesville, but elsewhere in FL, so everything is also delayed because we are sending these things through the mail instead of doing them in person (didn't realize there's be so much paperwork for them; thought it would just be the home visit, so we didn't realize the advantage of going local). So we are doing another round with the social worker, hoping to get everything next week. THEN we will be off to Tallahassee.
This is very frustrating, but (fortunately?) no agencies have been reaccreditted in Russia yet, so we aren't worried about losing our place in line while our paperwork is getting finished. The line simply isn't moving. There's no clear word on when it will start...the Russian government simply hasn't gotten any of the agencies' applications processed yet. The good news is that we know they are working on it -- some people who have gone to pick up their children recently (who are with the few remaining accredited agencies) have gotten more of an inside scoop. Sounds like some people think April will be our lucky month. I am not holding my breath.
I, for one, am trying to plan for fun things that we will be doing in the next few months, without assuming there will be a trip to Russia anytime soon. I've got a conference later this month, then we'll go to a wedding in early May, then I have another conference mid-May, then my brother will be visiting in late May, and then we will be going to Wisconsin (for a conference) and hopefully Minnesota in June. You may notice that conferences qualify as "fun" to me :)
And of course there is plenty to be done at work, so I am not at a loss for things to do! My ability to focus at work is sometimes a little lacking (don't know if I can blame that on the adoption or not!) so your prayers are appreciated as I try to prepare some more research for sending to academic journals. I'm happy to report that I passed my "3rd-year review", so I get to stay here at UF and keeping working toward tenure. I won't be evaluated for tenure for another 4-5 years, but publication cycles are SLOW in economics, so now is the time for me to be as productive as possible!
We'll let you all know when we have actually sent our documents to Russia - no false alarm this time!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Tallahassee, Here We Come (again)
Well, it looks like we should be heading to Tallahassee to apostille our re-done documents soon. Rob's doctor note turned out to be a breeze, but this time the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had a delay with our background checks. They took a long time to send them, and then they never arrived. I have been learning the real-life lesson that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link! So I requested new ones...should be arriving soon. Once those arrive, our social worker can finish his updated home study, and then we can take it all to Tallahassee to be apostilled. After that we send it to Russia.
Let me offer public thanks to my office manager, Laura, for notarizing 19 pages of documents in the last two days. Thank you!!!
It looks like there will only be a gap of a week or two between the expiration of our current dossier in Russia and the arrival of our updated one. Of course, we would have preferred no gap, but this will probably be fine. I'd be shocked if our agency happened to get reaccredited right when we were in the gap. In fact, if they did, that's fine. We wouldn't be the first to travel, but we'd at least know our agency was operating again.
Your prayers are appreciated this spring and early summer. There are baby showers and new babies galore all around us. We will be helping out again this year at the kid's Easter Egg hunt at church -- last year I was fully anticipating coming the next year with our toddler in tow! We even bought him/her an Easter basket on clearance the following week - it has a plush Big Bird (yes, Easter baskets have gotten fancy these days). Alas, it was not to be...not yet.
This will surely be the most anticipated baby of all time. Or at least in second place, behind that time God became flesh.
Let me offer public thanks to my office manager, Laura, for notarizing 19 pages of documents in the last two days. Thank you!!!
It looks like there will only be a gap of a week or two between the expiration of our current dossier in Russia and the arrival of our updated one. Of course, we would have preferred no gap, but this will probably be fine. I'd be shocked if our agency happened to get reaccredited right when we were in the gap. In fact, if they did, that's fine. We wouldn't be the first to travel, but we'd at least know our agency was operating again.
Your prayers are appreciated this spring and early summer. There are baby showers and new babies galore all around us. We will be helping out again this year at the kid's Easter Egg hunt at church -- last year I was fully anticipating coming the next year with our toddler in tow! We even bought him/her an Easter basket on clearance the following week - it has a plush Big Bird (yes, Easter baskets have gotten fancy these days). Alas, it was not to be...not yet.
This will surely be the most anticipated baby of all time. Or at least in second place, behind that time God became flesh.
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