Round 2 of Our Lovely Government

Well I got another letter from our Government requesting more information that they already have but want the documents certified, just something else to add to the cost because it is not expensive enough to adopt. I asked them on the phone last week before I drove down there and put the other stuff in their hands if they were sure that I did not need anything else and they assured me I did not. I was just about to explode when I opened the letter thinking it was our approval once again (exactly 1 week later) and it was a request for the same info that they just told me a week ago that I did not need. I had a feeling it wasn't our approval, it's a good thing Jeff was sleeping or I would have screamed at the top of my lungs. I was told that the lady handling our case changed her mind, isn't that nice. I spent the whole morning going to different place and getting these documents certified and driving down to Detroit to once again hand delivery them. I thought the office of Homeland Security would be closed tomorrow but it is not but no one from the Orphan unit will be in, sounds like it's closed to me, so our documents will sit there until Monday but at least I know they are sitting on her desk waiting for her.

Any ways, I hope next time I post it will be good news, we have not heard anything yet but our agency assures me by the end of April, we'll see. It seems like for-ever but it really has only been 3 weeks since our documents have been over-seas and a little over a month since we signed with our agency. I guess Jeff is correct and I am impatient.

Our lovely Government

Well I was so excited when I checked the mail yesterday to see a letter from the Office of Homeland Security, I opened it up to find a letter from them asking us for more documents not our I-171H that I thought it was. I was expecting it any day and now we hit a little bump in the road. It is nice not working days I was able to take care of it right away and Jeff and I hand delivered them a certified copy of my divorce decree, I sent a photo-copy but I guess that was not good enough even though that is what they asked for, all of our other documents had been photo-copies not original. I think it is just another way for them to have a power-trip orphan unit was transferred to Detroit and it seems like everything goes so much slower down there than in the rest of the state. The letter was so vague that I along with 2 others that read it got confused by what they were asking for but thankfully I was able to get a call in first thing this morning and they only need 1 thing not 5 like it said. So Jeff and I flattened that bump quickly.

Any ways, no other news yet, I spoke with our agency at the beginning of the week about a referral and they said maybe next week if not by the end of April for sure. I hope so it has been a month since they have had our documents but they have only been over seas for about 2 weeks. They told me about a month, lets see how much longer it takes, I really am trying to be patience but trying to be a Mom for 4 years is getting old. I hope I get to post good news soon.

Still Waiting

Well there is not much to post, I know for sure our documents are where they need to be. I pray they will match us with a baby soon. I guess there are babies becoming available in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully they will match us with one of them. We asked for a boy or girl under 15 months.

We are ready to leave ASAP and can't wait. Still no news about our INS approval but I think in the next couple of weeks, I can't understand how and why it would take so long we are already in there system from last time.

I do feel so good about our decision to change agencies, the support group they have in place is wonderful. It is nice to be able to post on a private forum to chat with others in the same boat with the same agency.

Well hopefully soon we will tell our friends and family (besides the few that know). Jeff and I thought after last time that it would just be easier to not get everyone involved until it we are ready to go. I know our parents are going to be nervous about us leaving the country because of being harassed by the police in Kazakhstan, that was sooooooo scary.

Any ways, I hope to have great news soon, I cannot wait to go meet our son or daughter.

The Rush to Wait

Well it has been a week since we signed up with our agency. We ran around getting everything together to be sent to Russia for the wait for a referral. I have no idea when a referral will come in, it could be 2 weeks or 2 months (I pray for 2 weeks). I know from last time around the waiting makes me very impatient. I think I have been doing OK, it has only been a week but it feels a lot longer than that.

In Russia a baby/child must stay on an in country registry for 9 months before they can be adopted internationally, in hopes that a Russian family will adopt them. It is very uncommon for a Russian couple to adopt a child that is not blood related.

I have been doing a lot of research on the Region that our paper work has been sent to and it seems like there will be a lot for us to do. We will not be there very long, the first trip will be 5-7 days and our 2nd 7-10. It is in a mountain region so I am sure it will be beautiful. I know I am not giving out much info on our region or agency but I am scared that our old agency will get to much info and try to sabotage our adoption, that man is evil and I have been told stories about him doing this. I do not know if they are true but after what he did to us it would not surprise me.

Any ways, I hope to be able to post info on a referral soon. My horoscope said I need my passport ready I would be traveling for work, love or both, very strange. I will not be able to post pictures until after our court date, The Russian government does not want their children displayed on the internet. Well enough for now and hopefully we will get our approval from the US government in the next couple of weeks, I have all our paperwork we need for court besides our medical, I will wait to do that until right before we leave because they are only good for 3 months and I wouldn't want to redo them. I pray I can post soon that we have accepted a referral and that we are leaving soon.

Finger Prints

We went for our finger-prints on Weds. March 1st, that was a big step forward. We have also decided to make the switch to another agency. I feel like I finally have some clarity of what is going to happen. The first agency we picked is great but with what is going on in Russia with the post placement reports and the child abuse cases its scary, they are just not sure what is going on . Things have slowed way down for them and with the other agency things have not. I have a great feeling about the switch,(God, please prove me right).

I am very excited and from the way it sounds things are going to move along pretty fast, we are basically "paper ready". I am driving to Detroit on Monday morning to get all of our documents apostilled and I will UPS next day air them that afternoon so our agency should have them on Tuesday. I do believe they should be in Russia the week of March 6th. I am being told that once I submit our dossier we should get a referral within a couple of weeks, I am hoping we will travel by the end of April. Hopefully we will get our I-171H by the first week of April. I know not to get to excited about anything with IA until it is done, you just never know dealing with a foreign country.

It's going to be an exciting couple of months.

I called Dana today to let her know about our finger-print date and she was very happy for us and could not believe how fast it came. Dana told me that she mailed our Dossier to Russia last week so hopefully we will hear something about a referral soon. She said it should take about 4 to 6 weeks to get our final approval.
I am praying that everything will be smooth this time around.

I wish I would have checked the mail yesterday, our fingerprint date came from the INS, WOOHOO!! It is for Wednesday March 1st at 9:00am, only 2 weeks away. I hope this is the beginning of good things to come. That was a really nice surprise.

We thought that our Dossier would have been sent to Russia by now and it still has not, I am sooooooo disappointed in that. Jeff and I thought we had found the right person to help us and as the days go on I am starting to feel like we may have made a mistake. It has been 3 weeks since our home-study was ready to go and our mini Dossier was in Dana's hands and she still has not sent it to Russia. After the first horror agency I will not deal with to much and I will jump ship at any time.

I got copies of all of our documents from Dana just in case, I was reading our home-study and found many mistakes and hopefully Dana will fix them fast and we can move forward, this week after week of waiting to send our Dossier because something might change is getting really old. If there was 1 thing we learned from our Kazakh experience is that anything can change at any time. The laws changed 4 different times in the middle of our adoption from there and we just rolled with the punches but at least we were still moving forward because our Dossier was over there. I guess I can keep going on and on about this, I am just so upset I raced around driving to her house a half hour away 3 times to get her those documents so she could mail out our Dossier the first week of February and she still has done nothing. I told Jeff I was getting upset and I wanted to change to Adoption Ark and he said what ever I thought was best, I decided to give her until the end of next week and if it is still not on it's way to Russia I am going to switch to a different agency. That will be a month of her having it and not sending it out. Waiting to see if something changes is not a good excuse to me, with IA anything can happen at any time.

I did get a receipt from our INS, they cashed our check for $685 but still have not gave us an appointment for our fingerprints. They say it should all be wrapped up within 3 months, so by the end of April we should have our I-171H. I do have our whole Dossier together besides our medical and local police clearance, they are only good for 6 months so I was told to wait as long as possible for them. I plan on doing them in the beginning of March.

I hope by the end of next week our Dossier will be sent and we will get a finger print date. It took us 7 months to decide on adopting Internationally again I do not want to keep waiting and wasting time.

I never thought trying to have a baby would be the most difficult or saddest thing I would ever go through in my life. The past 4 years have been very heart-breaking.

We got a call Monday night from a social worker in Nevada about Cory, they informed us we were 1 of 5 families that they have narrowed it down too. Jeff and I spent about 30 minutes on a phone interview. They asked us all kinds of questions like how we felt about a special needs, mental health questions, about our failed adoption and many more. Jeff and I thought it went well and were pretty hopeful. We got a call on Tuesday from them but we weren't home so we had to wait until Weds to find out if they would choose us or not. Well I talked to Becky Weds morning and unfortunately they did not choose us, she told me she really liked what our home-study said and she liked us on the phone and wanted to know if it was OK to keep our home-study for a future placement, I told her of course and thanks for considering us(I really wanted to scream). Once again the disappointment stinks. I know that it was just not meant to be and Cory is going to be with the right family for him.

I hope something happens with a referral from Russia soon and we hear about our fingerprints.

Well it's been a crazy week, I tried to put our mini-Dossier and our INS papers together in a day so I ended up forgetting to mail some of the documents. I am so disorganized this time around, I ended up driving to Dana's house 3 times to drop documents off, LOL. I wanted her to have everything to send our I600A in on Monday, January 30th and to get our Dossier Apostilled. I think she sent our Dossier over-seas on Friday, February 3rd if not I hope it goes out on Monday the 6th.

It was an interesting week. I got an email from a social worker (Melodie) in Nevada about a 2 yr old little boy that I inquired about back in September "05" it seems as if they are going to review more people to adopt him. I was told back then that they had stopped taking home-studies for him because of the overwhelming response. His name is Cory and he is just adorable. It is torture not knowing how many other families they are contacting about this little guy, how they will narrow it down and when they will pick a couple for him. I hope they do it fast, he is free for adoption and needs to get with his forever family, he will be 3 in November. I do not like the way this has made me feel, I cannot stop thinking about this boy and it has caused some very long days and nights. I hate that we are ready and he is ready and we can't just go get him, this little man deserves a Mommy and Daddy. I do not like that we have this glimmer of hope and he may not be placed with us. Dana faxed our home-study to Melodie on Feb. 2nd and she told Melodie she thought Jeff and I would be a great match for Cory. I wonder how many others said the same thing about their clients.

Any ways, I'll post again next week. Hopefully we will get a finger-print date soon and we will learn more about Cory. I have been told our INS is moving very slow, it has changed since last time we filed our I-600A, they transferred the office to Detroit, they have 3 people working on orphan petitions and they are moving 10 times slower than they where with just 1 person. It took us 6 weeks to get our approval to adopt last time, we'll see about this time.

Have a great week! I hope I have good news to post soon.

After going through a failed adoption in the summer of 2005 it took us a while to decide if we wanted to go down this road again. It has been very hard to put our trust in someone to help us complete our family. Our last agency, THE AGENCY FROM HELL, lied and manipulated us so much that it really put a bad taste in our mouths about International adoption and Domestic really scared us.

As we embark on this journey I cannot help but feel extreme excitement that with the help of our new agency we are going to find the children that are meant to be ours. We met with Dana on Wednesday January 25th to ask her questions and get our home-study updated. I have talked to Dana many times on the phone, Lisa did our home-study through Dana's agency. Jeff and I both felt so great when we left there, we talked about it and then we called her right away and said lets go for it. We actually both feel very well about our decision to go with Dana, we finally felt that we found the right person to help us complete our family. Dana updated our home-study told me what documents I needed and I got right to it.

I will post about once a week or if I hear something, in the meantime say prayers for us that everything will go well with our adoption and that the children that will become ours are being loved and well cared for.