First of all, I just have to tell everyone that I finally have a crib. This ebay nut finally got one! YEAH! It is a Pali and they start in the stores around $350. I got mine from an Orange County lady for $180 and it included the mattress. The really great thing is that it matches the changing table I got off of ebay(for $41) perfectly. I couldn't have planned it any better. Guess I owe this to my mother for teaching me how to find a bargain! Thanks Mom!
On the adoption front, this past Saturday, Steve and I drove down to San Diego to attend our adoption agency's reunion picnic. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of people there. I felt a little weird being there with no children but that subsided quickly. One of my message board buddies told me to look for a couple and once I saw them, I walked right up and introduced myself. They were very helpful and I love talking to her. She also adopted a boy and a girl at the same time from Russia. She was very informative and gave me her email address. After that, Steve and I just sat on the bench in front of the playground and just watched the children. They were all so beautiful. It just makes me want this NOW! I want the children home with us ASAP. While we were sitting on the bench, a guy came up to us and asked if we were adopting from Russia. We said yes and he said he was in the same boat last year. He was so friendly. We walked with him over to the swings and Steve and I took turns pushing his 20 month old Connor on the swing. He and his wife have been home for 3 months now with their son. He was also very candid and informative and gave us his business card to contact them with any questions. I am finding that all of these post adoptive parents are so willing to help and answer questions. He told us that next year it was our job to find another person sitting on the bench and talk to them. I told him I liked that idea. It falls under the "pay it forward" category. Loved it!
After the picnic, we had our appointment with the psychologist. It was more of an interview so she could write a letter stating that we're not wack jobs or anything. And just so you all know, yes we did pass! Some of you might be asking how....don't know! We collected all of our documents and we were on our way. $400 less in our pockets but we got everything we needed. Of course the traveling notary took his share as well. I think I have told many of you that practically everyone has their hand in this cookie jar! Oh well. If it brings our children home to us, I'm all for it!
So skip ahead a few days and we are again traveling down to San Diego again. Poor Steve is sick and we drove down there on a Tuesday so we could listen to a speaker that the agency had brought in. She is a pediatrician that specializes in adoption medicine. She was really great and had a hand out for us. It basically went through all the things that we could encounter medically before, during and after this process. It was great for Steve to hear all of the things that I have been reading about. I think he thought I was being "freaky" about wanting to have the kids evaluated when they get home. This doctor told us to have it done within 2 weeks of returning home. I found a guy, who is a doctor, out in Long Beach that was referred to me by the agency. He and I have already spoken. I know this sounds freaky to do this so early but I don't want them to tell me it's going to be a 3 month wait before we can get in. I want to be able to be proactive here instead of reactive. WOW! What an educational thing to say. Guess all this educational background helps. Also, it would be difficult to go to a regualr pediatrician and expect them to be up to date on international adoption issues along with health issues and vaccines. By going to someone who understands this, they will give us a thorough evaluation instead of, "go home and feed and love them." The speaker last night told us the same thing. It was sort of funny last night, Steve leaned over to me and whispered, "do all of this times TWO!" I guess I didn't fell overwhelmed because I have been trying to read my books. I am hoping to get a lot more reading done this weekend. Steve and I are leaving for Pismo Beach tomorrow, Thursday Oct. 12th, for a long weekend with the American Coach group. So in some aspects I want the kids to be home tomorrow but then I pop back in to reality and think of the fact that I still have 2 rooms to decorate, 2 books to read, doctors to find, 2 wardrobes to buy, etc., etc. I then realize we still need a little bit of time to get prepared and the way these past few months have been flying by, it'll be March before I know it.
People keep asking me where we are in this process. We're on the referral list waiting for them to call us and give us a referral which basically means they will be offering us 2 children. We are number 5 right now in line. I guess I should see if we have moved up at all. We have also basically completed our Dossier which if you all remember was a list of documents we had to compile. It will then get translated and sent to Russia. The only things that are not done are the time sensitive documents which are the police letter(yes we have to have the police dept. write us a letter), our employment letters and another doctor physical. These are only good for 3 months so we will actually get these done after we accept the referral. If you have been reading the other posts I have done, we keep hearing that things will begin to open back up once the reaccreditation comes through which they are hoping will be taken care of by the end of October early November. We are still really hoping to travel by March. Steve says February. We'll just have to wait and see. Going to the picnic and seeing all of those adorable kids didn't help this waiting period. I have been meeting a lot of people those who are post adoptive and they are very willing to help which makes it better.
Alrighty, now that this has turned into a novel, I might just get back to work! Hope everyone is doing well. Keep my children in your thoughts and prayers. They are in an orphange right now not even knowing what is coming their way and that 2 parents are waiting for them and loving them already. They may not be dreaming of us but you know we're dreaming of them!
And the delays begin....
OK, so we have hit our first delay. I am going to try and explain it to eveyone the way it was explained to me. Instead of typing it again, here it is straight off of the agency's webiste...
"Unfortunately our Russian re-accreditation has not been officially approved. Two ministers involved with signing our accreditation have resigned, and now we must wait until two new ministers are appointed. The President of Frank will be traveling to Russia to see
Adoption Options is able to work in some regions in Russia, by allowing us to work independently. We had some families travel and complete their adoption despite this issue, and do continue to receive referrals in those regions. However, there remains several regions that do not allow for this, causing many families to have a delay in their adoption process."
I received an update from the director stating that this could be resolved within the next month. Once this happens, this is when he expects things to really open back up again and the referrals will come a bit faster. This is how I understand it. He did state that some families were receiving "blind referrals." This means that the only thing we would know is the child's name, age and sex. Steve and I talked about it and we have come too far to rush into this. Basically we both looked at each other and said, "we're out on this!" Good thing we agree.
So, here we are in the waiting game. We are going to a picnic this weekend that the agency is putting on. I am looking forward to talking with other families who have been through this already and am especially looking forward to meeting the families who have brought 2 home at once. I have already emailed 2 different families and they have emailed me back. Both were very generous and wanted to answer any of my questions and both offered to have me call them. I am so glad that people are so nice. I hope to return the favor some day.
Well, I guess when I get an update, I will update that info here. Until then, tick tock, tick tock. My hope is still to be home by summer which I think is a very realistic goal. I ran this by the director and he agreed. YEAH!
Hope everyone is well. Take care.
"Unfortunately our Russian re-accreditation has not been officially approved. Two ministers involved with signing our accreditation have resigned, and now we must wait until two new ministers are appointed. The President of Frank will be traveling to Russia to see
Adoption Options is able to work in some regions in Russia, by allowing us to work independently. We had some families travel and complete their adoption despite this issue, and do continue to receive referrals in those regions. However, there remains several regions that do not allow for this, causing many families to have a delay in their adoption process."
I received an update from the director stating that this could be resolved within the next month. Once this happens, this is when he expects things to really open back up again and the referrals will come a bit faster. This is how I understand it. He did state that some families were receiving "blind referrals." This means that the only thing we would know is the child's name, age and sex. Steve and I talked about it and we have come too far to rush into this. Basically we both looked at each other and said, "we're out on this!" Good thing we agree.
So, here we are in the waiting game. We are going to a picnic this weekend that the agency is putting on. I am looking forward to talking with other families who have been through this already and am especially looking forward to meeting the families who have brought 2 home at once. I have already emailed 2 different families and they have emailed me back. Both were very generous and wanted to answer any of my questions and both offered to have me call them. I am so glad that people are so nice. I hope to return the favor some day.
Well, I guess when I get an update, I will update that info here. Until then, tick tock, tick tock. My hope is still to be home by summer which I think is a very realistic goal. I ran this by the director and he agreed. YEAH!
Hope everyone is well. Take care.
We're #5 in line!!!
WOW! I can't believe it's been a month since I have updated this. Time is just flying by now that I am back to work. I swear, every night I come home and think I will update this thing and I don't. So here I sit at work, not working, and typing away. So much i feel has happened since the last post! So here it goes!
Once we got the home study back, we also got some contracts to sign. Well, we signed those and had them back in the mail in no time flat. We then got a HUGE packet of paperwork called our Dossier. The gal we are working with now told me not to panic. I got the packet in the mail, of course after stalking the mailman, and what did i do....PANIC. I was quickly going through all the paperwork thinking, oh my god, oh my god, this is a ton of info we have to gather. Well, once i actually sat down and read through it, I noticed that a lot of the things we had to do, the agency was actually going to do. Yah for me! Needless to say, I got the packet of info on Tuesday afternoon, got to work on Wednesday and worked on it all day. Steve asked me if I gave the school district any time that day, like he's one to talk, and I said a little. I finished the paperwork on Friday afternoon and we drove to San Diego on Monday. I guess to let you know about the paperwork that was included in that packet...a little bit of everything. There were 39 things listed out that I had to compile. Luckily, once I stopped panicing, I only had to do 1-26 and the agency had to do the rest since they also did our home study. I had to copy our passport pages 1 & 2 onto a specific page they included and I had to make 7 copies of each passport. I also had to make copies of the deed to the house on their document, fill out other odd and end stuff pertaining to power of attorney, placement stuff, russian registration, etc. All of these documents had to be notarized, then taken to the county and then sent off to the state. I took a total of 44 documents to San Diego to be notarized. Most notaries charge $10/document. Heloo! Luckily, I called the agency and was sort of complaining that the county of San Bernardino charges $10/document to authenticate the notary. This was adding up rather quickly. Michelle, our coordinator told me that if I came to San Diego, she could do them for us for FREE! Needless to say, we were in the car driving down there. The second reason we went down there is because the county of San Diego only charges $2/document to then authenticate the notary. So basically by driving down there, we saved over $700. Michelle has an assistant who then took the documents (for the bargain price of $75) to be authenticated and then on to the state level where all of those documents will then get apostilled. The state will put their stamp of approval on it and Russian will recognize it. If anyone has heard of the Hague convention, that is when this seal came about. I guess now that you are reading this, you know all of the flaming hoops of fire we are jumping through to get these kids home to us and why we don't want to go through this again, hence adopting TWO children at once.
OK, I'm sure the last paragraph was sort of all jumbled up. Sorry. I am at work and trying to multi-task. So basically, I still have some other things to finish up with the dossier. They are time sensitive though and some are only good for 3 months. We do however have the necessary documents in to recieve a referral, 2 in our case. The other documents we have to get are, good conduct letters from the police department, a letter from a psychologist, a letter from our doctor, medical certificates and letters from our employers. All of these are time sensitive documents that are only good from 3-6 months. We'll get them a bit later. Again, we will have to have all of these documents notarized, authenticated and then apostilled. In some of the cases, we will have to bring a notary with us so they can watch the doctors sign their name. More flaming hoops of fire!
You may be asking where we are at right now. I asked the director and he said that we are number 5 in line. This means that in just our agency, we are 5th in line for a referral. Our coordinator told me that she thinks I set a record in getting all of those documents back to her so quickly. She said some people take 3-4 months to get them back. With that being said, if the people who are number 3 or 4 don't have the necessary documents back to the agency, they will have to get passed up and they will come to us with the referral. So we're just in the waiting game right now. I told the director that I have a couple of books to read and also 2 rooms to decorate. I think the referrals will be here before we know it and I won't be ready. Needless to say, whatever happens, I know I will be running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Most of you reading this know me and you already know this!
Well, I guess I will get back to work. I will have to post some pictures of the cute rocking chairs that Steve and I bought for the kids. I have been trying to be really good but it is hard. I just want to shop like crazy! Especially the very cute VRROOW coat that mom and I both saw at Costco. Too cute! For now, I will remain calm. I am trying to only buy things that will go in their rooms to decorate. Once we know the ages though, look out! Janet and Leslie keep telling me to quit shopping because there won't be anything left for a shower! Oh please ladies! There will be TONS!
Best wishes to all reading this!
Once we got the home study back, we also got some contracts to sign. Well, we signed those and had them back in the mail in no time flat. We then got a HUGE packet of paperwork called our Dossier. The gal we are working with now told me not to panic. I got the packet in the mail, of course after stalking the mailman, and what did i do....PANIC. I was quickly going through all the paperwork thinking, oh my god, oh my god, this is a ton of info we have to gather. Well, once i actually sat down and read through it, I noticed that a lot of the things we had to do, the agency was actually going to do. Yah for me! Needless to say, I got the packet of info on Tuesday afternoon, got to work on Wednesday and worked on it all day. Steve asked me if I gave the school district any time that day, like he's one to talk, and I said a little. I finished the paperwork on Friday afternoon and we drove to San Diego on Monday. I guess to let you know about the paperwork that was included in that packet...a little bit of everything. There were 39 things listed out that I had to compile. Luckily, once I stopped panicing, I only had to do 1-26 and the agency had to do the rest since they also did our home study. I had to copy our passport pages 1 & 2 onto a specific page they included and I had to make 7 copies of each passport. I also had to make copies of the deed to the house on their document, fill out other odd and end stuff pertaining to power of attorney, placement stuff, russian registration, etc. All of these documents had to be notarized, then taken to the county and then sent off to the state. I took a total of 44 documents to San Diego to be notarized. Most notaries charge $10/document. Heloo! Luckily, I called the agency and was sort of complaining that the county of San Bernardino charges $10/document to authenticate the notary. This was adding up rather quickly. Michelle, our coordinator told me that if I came to San Diego, she could do them for us for FREE! Needless to say, we were in the car driving down there. The second reason we went down there is because the county of San Diego only charges $2/document to then authenticate the notary. So basically by driving down there, we saved over $700. Michelle has an assistant who then took the documents (for the bargain price of $75) to be authenticated and then on to the state level where all of those documents will then get apostilled. The state will put their stamp of approval on it and Russian will recognize it. If anyone has heard of the Hague convention, that is when this seal came about. I guess now that you are reading this, you know all of the flaming hoops of fire we are jumping through to get these kids home to us and why we don't want to go through this again, hence adopting TWO children at once.
OK, I'm sure the last paragraph was sort of all jumbled up. Sorry. I am at work and trying to multi-task. So basically, I still have some other things to finish up with the dossier. They are time sensitive though and some are only good for 3 months. We do however have the necessary documents in to recieve a referral, 2 in our case. The other documents we have to get are, good conduct letters from the police department, a letter from a psychologist, a letter from our doctor, medical certificates and letters from our employers. All of these are time sensitive documents that are only good from 3-6 months. We'll get them a bit later. Again, we will have to have all of these documents notarized, authenticated and then apostilled. In some of the cases, we will have to bring a notary with us so they can watch the doctors sign their name. More flaming hoops of fire!
You may be asking where we are at right now. I asked the director and he said that we are number 5 in line. This means that in just our agency, we are 5th in line for a referral. Our coordinator told me that she thinks I set a record in getting all of those documents back to her so quickly. She said some people take 3-4 months to get them back. With that being said, if the people who are number 3 or 4 don't have the necessary documents back to the agency, they will have to get passed up and they will come to us with the referral. So we're just in the waiting game right now. I told the director that I have a couple of books to read and also 2 rooms to decorate. I think the referrals will be here before we know it and I won't be ready. Needless to say, whatever happens, I know I will be running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Most of you reading this know me and you already know this!
Well, I guess I will get back to work. I will have to post some pictures of the cute rocking chairs that Steve and I bought for the kids. I have been trying to be really good but it is hard. I just want to shop like crazy! Especially the very cute VRROOW coat that mom and I both saw at Costco. Too cute! For now, I will remain calm. I am trying to only buy things that will go in their rooms to decorate. Once we know the ages though, look out! Janet and Leslie keep telling me to quit shopping because there won't be anything left for a shower! Oh please ladies! There will be TONS!
Best wishes to all reading this!
Completed Home Study...In the Mail!!!
Well, just got news that the home study was put in the mail today so we should have it pretty quickly. What does this mean you may ask? Well, it means that we have now moved on to our dossier preparation and gathering MORE info from different people and probably more doctor visits. It also means that we are on the referral list. As soon as we get the home study, fill out some contract papers and of course mail them more money, we will officially be on the list! Yeah for us. From there it becomes a waiting game for the referrals. In the meantime, the bureau of citizenship immigration services (BCIS) has sent us our fingerprint appointment so we'll have those done. They gave us between 8/25 - 9/9. How nice that we got the letter on the 29th! We're going in on Saturday the 9th. This will be our 2nd set of fingerprints. Basically, things are coming together and we are hoping to have our children home by summer. If you ask Steve, he'll tell you now that we hope to have them home by spring time. That would be nice but I'm not going to hold my breath. If that ends up being the case, we'll have to buy some serious winter clothes for visiting Russia in the middle of winter! How do you spell BUUURRR! These 2 SoCal parents are going to freeze their butts off! Well worth it though.
I have started shopping for "stuff" and have become an Ebay addict. I bought a carseat and just called the company today and they are going to ship me out, FOR FREE, the shoulder straps that are the leopard print! Good God! Our little girl will learn how to say VRROOW before anything else! I also bought a glider rocker for the room. I'll have to take pictures and post them. I have other little things as well. I bought the cutest little pink blanket that says, "little princess" on the corner. I also have a 12 month old outfit that has a little fire truck on the bottom. It is so cute. I found some matching bibs as well. I just like to walk into the room and look at the stuff and imagine little kids in those clothes or just playing. Makes me feel good!
Alrighty, I hope everyone has a fantastic Labor Day Weekend!!
I have started shopping for "stuff" and have become an Ebay addict. I bought a carseat and just called the company today and they are going to ship me out, FOR FREE, the shoulder straps that are the leopard print! Good God! Our little girl will learn how to say VRROOW before anything else! I also bought a glider rocker for the room. I'll have to take pictures and post them. I have other little things as well. I bought the cutest little pink blanket that says, "little princess" on the corner. I also have a 12 month old outfit that has a little fire truck on the bottom. It is so cute. I found some matching bibs as well. I just like to walk into the room and look at the stuff and imagine little kids in those clothes or just playing. Makes me feel good!
Alrighty, I hope everyone has a fantastic Labor Day Weekend!!
Whew! We made it!
Well, the home study is over and we made it through. I tried to kill myself before hand though. In all my smartness, I decided 48 hours before hand to frame numerous different family pixs and hang them. I also decided to hang other decorative items that I have been putting off for more than 3 years. Nothing like a good home study to get your ass in gear! Then while I was walking through Target, I found 2 huge prints that would go above our bed. Decided to throw those in the card. It wasn't until I got out to the car that I was in a bit of a predicament. I was driving Steve's Nissan Z. Have you seen the truck in these cars? It's basically NON existent. I had 2 huge framed prints and a few other bags. After a bit, everything was in the car and I was on my way home to try and hang everything on the wall. While in the middle of hanging everything, my housekeeper called to say she would be able to come by and help clean. THANK GOD! That way I was only up until 11pm instead of 1am getting the house together. On top of everything else, work was crazy off the hook too. I came in to my "old" school taking over the master schedule with a brand new principal. Yikes! I had major changes to make the same day I had to leave work at 2pm to make it home in time. Luckily I got out of there on time and still had a complete head of hair.
I opened my email about 5 minutes before the social worker got there. I had asked a quesiton on the Russian Adoption board for some advice. One of the gals replied back that her social worker didn't like an immaculate home. Wholy shit! I'd just spent the past 48 hours picking up things that had been laying around for MONTHS and cleaned off 1 year of crap that had accumulated in the "scrap room." I was a little nervous. I told Steve to throw some dirty laundry on the floor. I decided it was too late and was just going to go with it.
The home study really wasn't that big of a deal. The social worker interviewed the 2 of us together and then by ourselves. While Steve was doing his interview, I went upstairs and laid on the sofa and took a little cat nap. It felt good after trying to burn the candle at both ends. Total time for the home study was about 3.5 hours. She sent us an email today telling us she had a nice time meeting us. That was very nice. She also sent us some websites and books to buy.
So from here, the social worker is going to type up a report. She's going to send it to us for review and then we'll send it back to her so she can formally type it up. After that, it'll go to the BCIS (Immigaration) for approval. Of course before all of this can happen, we have to send them a check. Once the home study report is done, we go on the referral list. I didn't think it would happen that fast. I thought we'd have to wait for approval from the BCIS. Yeah, we could be parent by this summer!
We were watching an Adoption show on Discovery Health this evening. For some reason, it made me cry. I wonder if AF is on her way again. Just watching that show makes me excited for our time to come. Guess just having the home study makes me feel like we're one step closer. We have a lot of hurdles to jump over and we just made it over one of them.
Well, tomorrow is Saturday and I am going to sleep in. All this running around like a chicken with it's head cut off is catching up to me. The house is sooooo clean it actually scares me so I dont' have to worry about cleaning. Not like I worried much about it before.
It's late and I think I'm gonna hit the hay! Hope all is well with everyone.
I opened my email about 5 minutes before the social worker got there. I had asked a quesiton on the Russian Adoption board for some advice. One of the gals replied back that her social worker didn't like an immaculate home. Wholy shit! I'd just spent the past 48 hours picking up things that had been laying around for MONTHS and cleaned off 1 year of crap that had accumulated in the "scrap room." I was a little nervous. I told Steve to throw some dirty laundry on the floor. I decided it was too late and was just going to go with it.
The home study really wasn't that big of a deal. The social worker interviewed the 2 of us together and then by ourselves. While Steve was doing his interview, I went upstairs and laid on the sofa and took a little cat nap. It felt good after trying to burn the candle at both ends. Total time for the home study was about 3.5 hours. She sent us an email today telling us she had a nice time meeting us. That was very nice. She also sent us some websites and books to buy.
So from here, the social worker is going to type up a report. She's going to send it to us for review and then we'll send it back to her so she can formally type it up. After that, it'll go to the BCIS (Immigaration) for approval. Of course before all of this can happen, we have to send them a check. Once the home study report is done, we go on the referral list. I didn't think it would happen that fast. I thought we'd have to wait for approval from the BCIS. Yeah, we could be parent by this summer!
We were watching an Adoption show on Discovery Health this evening. For some reason, it made me cry. I wonder if AF is on her way again. Just watching that show makes me excited for our time to come. Guess just having the home study makes me feel like we're one step closer. We have a lot of hurdles to jump over and we just made it over one of them.
Well, tomorrow is Saturday and I am going to sleep in. All this running around like a chicken with it's head cut off is catching up to me. The house is sooooo clean it actually scares me so I dont' have to worry about cleaning. Not like I worried much about it before.
It's late and I think I'm gonna hit the hay! Hope all is well with everyone.
Homestudy is here!!!
Geez, finally an update. Folks have really been after me to update this thing. This is sort of like have a diary. Well, our summer vacation road trip is over and we're back home and back to work. This week has been a bit crazy. I have been coming home at around 7pm every night, eating dinner, getting things together for the next day and falling into bed. Doesn't leave a lot of room to get on the internet. Sooo, enough with the excuses....
Dear Diary...just kidding...Our home study is scheduled for this coming Tuesday the 15th. Yikes! She's coming at 3pm and told us that it would last for about 3 hours. Whatever will we talk about for that amount of time. Knowing me, I could talk her ear off til midnight! Those of you who know me know that's true. The house is pretty clean, but then again, have any of you ever know us to have a dirty house? Hopefully the housekeeper will come on Tuesday to help out so it's freshly clean smelling. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do.
I'm not really all that nervous about this. Should I be? Anyhow, I'm going to go get ready and go to work. YES! If figured it's Saturday and saying, she's going to work. YUP. Things are a bit behind and who can pass up a comp day. I need all of them that I can take with having to travel to Russia twice.
Hopefully everyone is enjoying the last bit of summer. Take care.
Dear Diary...just kidding...Our home study is scheduled for this coming Tuesday the 15th. Yikes! She's coming at 3pm and told us that it would last for about 3 hours. Whatever will we talk about for that amount of time. Knowing me, I could talk her ear off til midnight! Those of you who know me know that's true. The house is pretty clean, but then again, have any of you ever know us to have a dirty house? Hopefully the housekeeper will come on Tuesday to help out so it's freshly clean smelling. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do.
I'm not really all that nervous about this. Should I be? Anyhow, I'm going to go get ready and go to work. YES! If figured it's Saturday and saying, she's going to work. YUP. Things are a bit behind and who can pass up a comp day. I need all of them that I can take with having to travel to Russia twice.
Hopefully everyone is enjoying the last bit of summer. Take care.
The Paper Chase Begins!
Well, while we were in Idaho, I received a call from the agency. They told me by the time we got home, there would be an envelope with a packet of info for us. Needless to say, I was anxious to get the mail when we got home unfortunatley, we had to wait a day since it had been put on hold and Steve had to pick it up at the post office. WOW! I have been reading in the adoption handbook that there was a lot of paperwork but wholy cow! We are only home for 2.5 days and they are jammed packed. We have been running around trying to get the motorhome ready for the next big trip which is going to last 5 weeks. We have also been trying to get some of the adoption stuff done as well which makes for two very tired parents to be at the end of the day. Guess we'll just call this training!
As of right now, we have filled out the I-600A form which goes to the state of california. We had to fill out this form and provide birth certificates, marriage certificate, divorce documents and $685 for them to look at this and also take our fingerprints. Once they get our homestudy from the agency, then they will hopefully approve us and send us what is called the I-171H form which let's us know that we are good to go to adopt in Russia. From there we have to work on getting our Dossier together. I can't even look that far seeing as we have a ton of paperwork to gather together for our homestudy and yes that required another set of fingerprints and MORE money. I think I will have to find this money tree that my parents always talked about! At least I know we are working towards something instead of just wondering what might be. I know that after all of this, we will be parents. I actually bought us 2 backpacks that are perfect for our flight home with our TWO new babies! I just had to buy something. Pregnant women get to buy cute stuff for their baby to be, I buy backpacks that will double as diaper bags to fly 17 hours home on a plane. I already feel sorry for the people who have to sit near us!
Well, I hope everyone is having a great summer. I am off to bed to catch some sleep so I can get up tomorrow and run around like a chicken with my head cut off again. And this is supposed to be my time off from work. Good thing! I need to go on vacation so I can go back to taking naps while Steve drives us down the road to our next destination. I'll enjoy it while I can. I'm hoping our next big motorhome trip will have 2 new babies to ride along and that will be a whole new adventure in itself!
Hugs to all!
As of right now, we have filled out the I-600A form which goes to the state of california. We had to fill out this form and provide birth certificates, marriage certificate, divorce documents and $685 for them to look at this and also take our fingerprints. Once they get our homestudy from the agency, then they will hopefully approve us and send us what is called the I-171H form which let's us know that we are good to go to adopt in Russia. From there we have to work on getting our Dossier together. I can't even look that far seeing as we have a ton of paperwork to gather together for our homestudy and yes that required another set of fingerprints and MORE money. I think I will have to find this money tree that my parents always talked about! At least I know we are working towards something instead of just wondering what might be. I know that after all of this, we will be parents. I actually bought us 2 backpacks that are perfect for our flight home with our TWO new babies! I just had to buy something. Pregnant women get to buy cute stuff for their baby to be, I buy backpacks that will double as diaper bags to fly 17 hours home on a plane. I already feel sorry for the people who have to sit near us!
Well, I hope everyone is having a great summer. I am off to bed to catch some sleep so I can get up tomorrow and run around like a chicken with my head cut off again. And this is supposed to be my time off from work. Good thing! I need to go on vacation so I can go back to taking naps while Steve drives us down the road to our next destination. I'll enjoy it while I can. I'm hoping our next big motorhome trip will have 2 new babies to ride along and that will be a whole new adventure in itself!
Hugs to all!
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