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!!
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!
Our First Step is completed!
Well, as of Friday June 16th, our application was mailed off to Adoption Options in San Diego. I reminded Steve that they have to accept us FIRST! We can get all excited about this, but what if they turn us down? He says he's not worried. Just gives me one more thing to worry about.
I have been head long into this Russian Adoption Handbook. There are some things in there that really worry me. I was sort of being "polyannaish" about the whole thing I guess. I just thought, I would go over there, pick up my children, love them to pieces and everything would be OK. That isn't always the case. HELLO! Like to gauge their weight by their months ie. a 16 month old weighs 16 lbs or that they shower them with cold water which gives them issues with bathing(well, Steve thinks I have issues with bathing so maybe me and the kids will get along :-)). YIKES! I guess I can read about being "institutionalized" but can't really understand that and what those children go through. I'll keep reading though just to be prepared.
Many of you already know that tomorrow we'll be off in the motorhome for 2 weeks in Idaho in our sandbuggie. I'm hoping the agency will call us while we're up there so we can really get this process going.
Our next BIG step is the homestudy. Guess if I thought writing the one page paper for the application was stressful, this homestudy outta take the cake!
Hugs to all!
Received our agency application
I got this idea from a website and thought this would be a good way to keep everyone updated on our process and journey to becoming parents.
We received our agency application the other day. I felt like I was stalkling the mailman. I felt like I was back in grade school and loved when I got mail! We have been busy filling out the information and gathering things together. We have to write a 1 page summary. Talk about being back in school. I'm not worried about getting an "A", now I'm worried that I'll be good enough to be accepted into motherhood!
We are off on our motorhome trip this Sunday. We are trying to get our application done in time to mail it in before we leave. We are diving in to this with both feet and plenty of heart! We're very excited to know that we are now on a path that will lead us to becoming parents instead of the unknown! We are very excited about this and hope that you will share in this happiness with us!
We received our agency application the other day. I felt like I was stalkling the mailman. I felt like I was back in grade school and loved when I got mail! We have been busy filling out the information and gathering things together. We have to write a 1 page summary. Talk about being back in school. I'm not worried about getting an "A", now I'm worried that I'll be good enough to be accepted into motherhood!
We are off on our motorhome trip this Sunday. We are trying to get our application done in time to mail it in before we leave. We are diving in to this with both feet and plenty of heart! We're very excited to know that we are now on a path that will lead us to becoming parents instead of the unknown! We are very excited about this and hope that you will share in this happiness with us!
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