Still Waiting

Well, we finally got all our documents back and mailed to the agency last week. We spoke to the agency today and the documents were sent with another family that was traveling to Russia yesterday. We were told that it normally takes about a week to hear back from the Russia office to know if anything else is requested or if we will get a court date soon. As of now it looks like we will probably be traveling back to Russia in late January after all of the Russian holidays. Their holidays don't end until January 19th, so it would be after that. We were really hoping to have him home before Christmas, but at least we will have him home before his next birthday. We're still praying for a Christmas miracle though!

Baby Shower

We had our first baby shower last Sunday and it was great! My sisters have been planning a surprise shower for a while now and they did a really good job keeping it a secret as long as they did! I finally caught on to what was going on by Wednesday and that was only because everyone was trying to figure out a way to get me there without me knowing, which is ultimately impossible! We got a lot of great stuff and had a wonderful time! I just 'happened' to have my camera with me, so here are a few pictures!

Are these not the cutest things you've ever seen!!!!

I just love this picture! I don't know if anyone else could see me opening up the presents for all my little monkeys gathered around! Aren't they cute! Well, if you could see their faces you would agree!

The clean-up crew! Notice I'm not in these pictures!

The BEST sister in laws in the world!!!

Notice I changed the ticker at the top of the page to countdown to Christmas. I couldn't take looking at the other one any longer, it just kept reminding me that it's been a long time since I've seen my little man. We've got all our paperwork that the judge requested sent in except the FBI fingerprint clearances. We are hoping to get those back tomorrow. We probably won't get back to get him until January, but we are still praying that a miracle happens and we get to bring him home before Christmas.

Finally Home

Life has been a whirlwind since day 2. After day 3 we were whisked away to Moscow and between all the flying, the time differences, and no internet access we've not been able to update the blog. Our final visit went well and he was feeling much better. It was VERY hard to leave that day and I pray that we get to go back soon. At this point we don't know when that is going to be.

We got brave and decided to venture out while we were in Moscow. We went to Red Square which was simply breathtaking! We got lost trying to get back to the train to go back to the hotel which was really scary. We couldn't find anyone who could speak English. We finally found one bus driver who understood Alan's hand motion for "airport" and I knew the name of the hotel so the driver made a motion for "sleep" and we knew we understood each other. You can imagine how funny this was for onlookers! We are so happy to be back in the US where we can understand everybody, but sad that little man isn't with us.

Day 2 from Siberia

Day 2 was much better. A little sunshine, not as much wind, and some good food can make a big difference in your attitude. Our bodies are adjusting to the time difference now, so we don't feel quite as bad as yesterday. Little man was much better this morning and was in a mood to really play and display his personality. We left to go to lunch feeling so much better. The other family traveling with us drug us away from the room and insisted we go out on the town for lunch and eat with them which really helped. The evening visit with him was also good, but his fever had come back so we felt bad for him about that. We spoke to the doctor and she thinks he is experiencing a food allergy along with a bad cold. They assured us they are treating him and he will be fine. With a high fever we are amazed at how well he handles it as he has not even wimpered once. He is a fighter and a trooper for sure. We took him some Gerber graduates sweet corn puffs and thought he would consider it a treat, but instead Alan said he made the same face that I make when I don't like something! He does love the toys that we brought him and the photo album that has his new family in it. Our last day to visit with him on this trip is tomorrow and then we will start the journey back on Thursday. Keep us in your prayers.

First day in Tomsk

I am too tired, so here is a word from Alan about our day......

It was nice to finally change clothes this morning after we had travelled for two days. The trip was even more physically and mentally taxing than we expected. We were able to rest a few hours this morning before Leo our driver picked us up and took us to the orphanage. We met with the head doctor who was a very nice woman and then they took us upstairs to the play room to meet our child. We had a great time meeting him and he looked only a little different than his referral picture. We played with him as much as we could but the little guy had a cold and had just woke up so he didn't feel very good. The weather here is frightful, very cold, windy, dark, and depressing. No one here other than our adoption team speaks English so it is very hard to communicate and we are basically too intimatated to venture much outside our room. We asked Leo to take us to a supermarket so we could get a few things since we were starving. We got some crackers, pepsi, bottled water, chips, and bread. We were so happy when we got to the room until we realized we didn't get any paper plates, plastic knives, napkins or anything like that. We had already packed potted meat, chicken, and things like that. We had to be creative in ways to get the meat on crackers and bread, so Michelle suggested tomorrow morning we would make some oatmeal and eat it with our hooves! Anyway we hope that our little man feels better tomorrow and we hope to get a good nights rest tonight. We'll check back with you later.

Greetings from Moscow

We made it here! I am currently in the airport in Moscow about to pass out from exhaustion. We have 6 hours until the coordinator gets here, so I am going to try to get a little sleep. My 15 minutes Wi-fi time for 60 rubles is about to run out so I will talk to you when we get to Tomsk!

Queen of Procrastination

Less than 2 days to go! One would think that by now I would have our bags packed and sitting at the door, we'll not quite! I am the worlds worst at waiting till the last minute to get everything ready and then running around like a crazy person trying to remember what I've forgotten. I've never forgotten anything important yet, but I'm normally very sleep deprived the day we leave for any trip. I can't get to sleep the night before because I'm checking off the list in my head.
Our travel plans were confirmed by the Ministry of Education today and our passports should be safely back in our hands tomorrow.
I'm going to get packing now! Next time you hear from us we should be in Moscow!
Paka (bye)

Let's try this again

Now that I have calmed down a little bit I guess I need to update the blog. We got our new travel dates and now we are supposed to be leaving on the 8th and returning on the 14th. At least it's not that much longer. I'm trying to get our plane tickets changed now which is a big joke. The airline that we booked our flights with has nothing available for the dates that we need. The travel agency suggested getting a refund on those tickets and booking with another airline that has tickets available for those dates. We would lose part of the money we've already paid for those tickets and the new tickets would not be as cheap to change if something else were to come up. We may end up sticking with the old airline and leaving earlier or coming back later. We have some tickets reserved, but as of now they don't have any seats available for the flight from Germany to the US. I guess there are worse places to be stuck! Alan has always wanted to visit his birthplace so this would be the perfect opportunity!
We did finally find out that the Ministry of Education in Russia are the ones who changed our dates. The agency thinks that it probably has something to do with the fact that Russia has their elections the same time we do and all of their government offices are closed on the 3rd and 4th.
Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out!

Crying Never Helps...

I'm not usually a crier, but when the agency called today to say that our dates had been pushed back I couldn't help it. Knowing that I'm going to have to wait even longer to see my little man is really hard. We didn't get any explanation as to why our dates changed all they said was that it's very common. They think that we may leave on the 8th, but they won't be able to confirm this until tomorrow. As I've said before,I really lack in the patience department. Alan has enough for the both of us though!
I will let you know when we find out our new travel dates. Please keep us and our little man in your prayers.

We have travel dates!

We got our travel dates yesterday! Here's our tentative schedule:
Leave the US on November 3rd.
Arrive in Moscow November 4th
November 5th we will go to the Ministry of Education & receive the "official assignment" of our child and then we will be given permission to visit with him that day. We will also visit with him on the 6th and 7th.
We will fly back from Moscow on the 9th. Then it's back to work on the 10th! (if we are still functioning!)
I made our travel arrangements today, which I never thought would be so difficult. I checked with several different airlines and several travel agencies. Some of the airlines say they offer special pricing for international adoptions, but they only fly in to one airport in Moscow and they give you the discount off their highest fare. I ended up going with a great agency called Golden Rule Travel. They are a humanitarian agency that specialize in international adoption travel & missionary trips. They were super nice & they were half the price of the other agencies for the exact same flights.
Now all we have to do is wait and pack and I've been told I have to pack light. I've never been able to do that before, so that will be a big challenge for me!
I will let you know if anything changes. By the way, our passports made it safely to Maryland! Whew!

Waiting for dates

Sorry I haven't updated the blog lately, but we've been really busy. Here's what's going on.
We talked to the doctor at the IAC last Tuesday night for almost an hour. We were told she would call us after 6:00 pm and after pacing the floors for 2 1/2 hours she finally called at 8:30! Alan was very calm, but I can't say that I was. Alan was doing his best trying to keep me from going insane! The doctor apologized for keeping us waiting and told us she just wanted to have enough time to go over everything with us and make sure we got a chance to ask all the questions that we wanted to. She was very thorough and it was well worth the money.
We called the agency and accepted the referral on Wednesday and they said that they thought that we would be traveling in about 2 weeks-around October 23rd. They said they would let us know in a few days when we would be traveling. I called them back today and they still don't have any travel dates for us yet. Be praying it is soon, because I am sooo ready to go see my little man!
I mailed in our applications for or Visas on Thursday. You have to send your passports in with the application which scares me a little bit. They assured me that it would be OK and that they have never lost one yet (mine will probably be the first)!
Hopefully they will call us with some dates this week. We will let everyone know when we find out!

REFERRAL!!!!!!

We got a call from our agency on Friday wanting to know if we would be interested in a little boy! They sent us his medical information (and the cutest picture ever!)and we have been looking it over this weekend. We sent it to a doctor at the International Adoption Center to check out and we should hear back from them on Tuesday. After we speak to them and find out all the information on his health we will call the agency back and let them know what we decide. We will tell you more about him once we make our decision. At this point I don't think there is anything that they could tell us that would make us not accept the referral. Our agency told us we would be traveling in 2 weeks if we accept!!
We'll update you on Tuesday after we make our decision. Please keep us in your prayers!

Our First Post

After A LOT of searching and trying to find the best way to keep our families and friends up to date on how our adoption process was going, we finally decided to do our own blog. We wanted to keep things private, but then decided that if everyone on the world wide web did that, then we wouldn't have as much information about what to really expect in the months to come. We have been following several other blogs from other families who have adopted a child from Russia and they were very helpful to us.
Here is the very short version of where we are at:
We are in the process of doing an international adoption thru Russia. We made our first phone call to the adoption agency in February & started filling out a mound of paperwork in March. We got our last document apostilled on May 15, 2008 & we are on the waiting list as of that date. We will have to travel to Russia twice, the first time we will get to meet our child & the second time we will get to bring him/her home. While we are in Russia we plan to keep everyone updated on what is going on thru this blog and let you see a little bit of Russia!
Now for the latest news…..We talked to the agency on September 16th and found out that we are now 4th on the list!!!! They still don’t really have a time frame of when we may get our referral though; all they said was that it could be 1 week to several months. The last time we had talked to them they said that they normally start getting more referrals in September, so we are praying that it happens very soon!