Tick....tock....tick....tock

I feel like time has slowed down and.................is......................going...................really....................slowly. All I can do right now is hope that our documents are either on their way or will be soon on their way to Russia for translation and to be filed with the judge. I hope to learn more this week about all of that. In the meantime, we just kind of ..... wait!

Here are a few pics of the room with the artwork on the walls. It's freakin' adorable, in our opinions.

Our own personal connection to the Health Bill

I'm not going to share any political bents on the blog (I've seen plenty of really "passionate" discussions via social media outlets on this topic), but I will report that one thing is VERY worth singing from on high about. The bill includes an extension of a VERY important tax credit for adoptive families. Because the process is so expensive, the tax credit allows a little relief post-adoption to be able to swing it.

Not only was the credit extended - but it was also increased! Because we will finalize in 2010, we'll be able to take advantage of this brilliant, shining gem! Hooray!

FB-Ironic

Those of you who have been following along know at least somewhat about our FBI background check trauma. In the long run, it really turned out not to be a problem, but there was definitely trauma along the way. Long story short, we sent our requests for FBI background checks (well, technically, my mother did for us) the Monday we were in Russia in mid-December. When no news came, I called the FBI and was led to believe that our requests had been lost in the mail and had not been received. The real answer was that the FBI was (and is) very, very backlogged in entering requests and ours wasn't lost - it just hadn't even been logged yet for processing.

But, because we didn't know that and had been led to believe our requests were lost, we each sent in another request for background checks - which required another fee, new fingerprints (which in our city also have a fee), etc.

When we initially thought there was a chance for us to return to Russia in February for court, we begged and pleaded for our FBI background checks to be completed. Our senator's office made a request on our behalf, and we eventually received our clearances (about a week earlier than the stated 8-10 week processing time). Those clearances have since been filed with the judge in Tver.

Guess what arrived today? That second set of clearances. So, once we were dismayed we didn't have one set...and now we have two. Ah, the irony.

I nearly had a meltdown in the candy aisle at WalMart today. I volunteered to help stuff Easter eggs for our church (because I know I cannot handle actually helping at the Easter egg hunt, but figured I could at least stuff eggs) and also decided to donate some candy to put in the eggs. I thought it would be no big deal to quickly step into the aisle and get the candy. Um, not so much. It's yet another holiday without our girls. Each holiday that passes, people say, "Oh, that will be the last one without them," and it's not. The holidays just keep passing without them and our hearts break a little more. Then I heard "You are My Sunshine" on a TV show and did lose it, because that's "our song" for my sweet Mama and me. Then I thought of our girls, who I sometimes think of in terms of flowers - the younger seems to be a bright sunflower and the older a sweet daisy - and how they need sunshine, and, well...

So...we'll see how much candy gets stuffed in the eggs versus how much gets stuffed in my mouth! :)

So far so good

Things seem to be OK so far with our latest round of documents. I sent them to our agency in St. Louis and the electronic scans have been sent to our agency staff in Tver. Even though our agency staff has seen my scans of these documents, it's always good when they see the "official" scans and report that they see no problems. Our agency has had to ask a department in the state of Kansas for a couple of letters to verify the authenticity of all of our apostilles (yeah, like I could forge those!) and then they will be on their way to Russia. I've heard a rumor that the judge is on vacation, returning the first week of April, though this is unconformed. We really hope that immediately upon her return we hear about a court date. And, her being gone right now really doesn't slow us down any, since our documents need to get sent to Russia and then be translated before they can be filed with court.

Please, God, let that be the final apostille trip!

Gentle readers, the latest batch of apostilled documents is on the way to our agency and will arrive in St. Louis by noon tomorrow for our agency processing. I got our US medicals back this a.m. (love, love, love the doctor's office!!) and ran to Topeka for my friendly state employee, Georgia, to apostille them all. I used the trip to eat (again!) at a Topeka drive-in that I remember fondly from my childhood and then headed back to our KC 'burb to overnight the documents.

Please join me in praying that these pass the judge's muster and that she gives us a court date. Seriously. Pray. I mean it.

After our huge snowfall on Saturday, weather has returned to more reasonable conditions. It's funny to see the springy-green grass under the melting snow; usually when the snow melts the revealling grass is all grey and brown! This has me laughing - there is snow on the ground and the ice cream truck just rolled through the neighborhood. Ha!

Spring, my a&$

First day of spring? Ha!

A nasty little storm has dumped inches and inches of snow upon us - and yesterday it was like 65 degrees. I took a picutre but the camera battery died; I'll try to add it later if we get it working again.

And my team lost. Funny thing; I'm having trouble getting too upset. Maybe all of my upset is reserved for more immediately personal matters. (And I don't mean that in a woe-is-me kind of way, more of a realistic way).

EWWWWWW at 9:10 p.m. - Killian, one of our dogs, just killed a bunny in the yard. She can't lay down in the yard to play with it since there are inches of snow and she tried to bring it inside and play with her new toy; Brian, wisely, didn't let her.

Ready for it to all come together

I'm so ready for this to all start to come together. While it wasn't the end of the world, we did have some back-and-forth issues related to our visas - processing times vs. money vs. a potential unknown court date at a potential unknown point in the future; I just wanted to take care of something and have it done. We made a decision and moved on, but who knows if it was the right one. If we could just get one known thing at this point I'd feel better. I'm not handling this be-patient and be-bop along time well. I'm just ready to move on.

Didn't get the paperwork apostilled; still waiting on documents.

The weather's starting to change and the cold air is headed in; we could get a dusting to a number of inches of snow this weekend. Guess we'll hunker down and watch basketball and scare the dogs while we (OK, I) yell things like, "REBOUND THE BALL! BOARD!" and "COLE! JUST SLAM IT IN THE BASKET!" and "DON'T TURN THE BALL OVER!" and then shout gleefully when Sherron or Tyrel or Brady hit a 3 or Xavier dunks or something. Good stuff, as long as the Jayhawks keep winning.

Visas away

To avoid ridiculously high expedited fees for our visas for Trips 2 and 3, I went ahead today and applied for our travel visas (and believe you me, the fee was plenty high for what we needed. Yes, indeed, plenty high). This time we need double entry business visas good for 90 days. Best-case scenario is that we get a court date of early April and we didn't want to be freaking out about our visas. You have to send your passports to the visa processing company, which freaks me out, because you don't have your visa or your passport in your possession; yet another one of the leaps of faith and trust you have to take. The trick was not applying for them too early and having issued visas that just sit because you're not travelling, but at the same time you want to have them so you don't have to deal with that when it comes time to deal with all the travel planning and logistics.

We're still waiting on our US medical clearance (a busy, busy doctor today!); as soon as I get those I can head west for our apostilles.

Basketball tournament has started. Hooray! the sun is shining for the first time in days. Hooray! But...we're supposed to get SNOW this weekend.

We have a greyhound guest right now, the big and beautiful brindle Montana, or Monte. He will head home tomorrow and we'll miss him!

I suppose that's all for now. Now wasn't THAT worth a read? Hardly. :)

Our stack's getting bigger

The latest stack of this round of paperwork, that is. Right now, all we're waiting on is (are?) our US medical reports from our doctor's office. As soon as I receive those I can go to Topeka for apostilles of the documents and get them to our agency. Tonight we're going to run to the drugstore on the corner and get visa photos (which I don't understand, because there aren't photos on the visas, but you have to submit the photos with your visas/passports. Maybe to verify identity of the passport sender?). Tomorrow I plan to go ahead and submit our requests for our visas, which are good for 3 months this time around.

Games start tomorrow. Rock Chalk and go KU! And go, KSU, too. See that wasn't even hard. Or really hard.

New papercuts every day

I honestly don't think that a day goes by that I don't get a papercut from an adoption document! This weekend Brian and I went and had bloodwork drawn (again); we'll need to take the original results back with us to Russia and our US doctor needs them to help us redo our US medicals. I hope, hope, hope those results come back quickly so we can get with our doctor for him to update our medicals.

Today found me FedExing documents to the accountant who has been helping us. Though we have original letters from our mortgage company saying we're in good standing, as well as our bank saying our accounts are also in good standing, the judge wants the accountant to verify that this is true. And, while we were previously told to send copies of our 2006, 2007 and 2008 taxes, now the judge wants only the 2008 copies, meaning we need to strip the other ones away and ask the accountant to do new cover letters verifiying only this year. (And, forgive me if I've written this all already. This never-ending ride has me getting a bit confused about what's been done when and how, which is SO not like me.)

That's one of the hardest things for me about this whole process - having to ask other people for help. Not only do people have to go out of their way they REALLY have to go out of their way to do things the way we need them, and now we're having to ask them to do documents AGAIN. I'm totally embarrassed and sheepish to ask for help from them all.

Once we get the medical tests, medical reports and accounting documents, I'll make another trip to Topeka for those documents (as well as additional proof that the psychiatrist who met with us is, indeed, a psychiatrist)  to be apostilled and return them to our agency for them to got whisked to Russia. Then we HOPE to receive a thumbs up on our documents and get a court date. I'm hope, hope, hoping to get our documents apostilled this week, but it depends on matters out of my direct control or influence, so we'll see.

And, in case any of you don't know this about me, I bleed crimson and blue, get goosebumps when I hear (or even write about, like right now) the Rock Chalk chant and will scream to the rooftops until my dying day: I AM A PROUD KANSAS JAYHAWK! Go 'Hawks! - who if you don't know, are the overall number 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament. I will root for Kansas State as long as they're not playing us. And, while I want the Big 12 to represent, I'm not sure I can ever write that I'm rooting for Mizzou. Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

Go, boys!

Blog address change

If you're reading this you know already, but I've changed the blog address. If you know of anyone who follows along or happen to have me linked from your blog, please update the links. Sorry to be a pain!

Drug tests, bloodwork and medicals, part 2

Today found me getting another drug test and contacting our doctor's office with a request for orders for bloodwork/labwork for us both. Our medicals are only good for 3 months and, sadly, have expired. Not only do we have to redo all our US medicals, we will have to redo our very expensive and very creepy in-country medicals in Russia. Very, very frustrated and dismayed as this was, well, very expensive and very creepy.

P.S. On Thursday a.m. - I agree with those who commented and now am really wondering why we had to do our medicals on trip 1. I've asked our agency what precipitated this - if it's a judge mandate that it happen on trip 1 or what. It's just not sitting well that we'd have to do them on trip 1, then have delays beyond our control and have to pay to redo them on trip 2. I probably won't get anywhere with my questions (or what I mean is I probably won't get the answer I want) but I'm asking away. My e-mails probably go into the "troublemaker" file these days.

Loopdeeloop

It is official. We're caught in a paperwork loop that shows no signs of ending. Disappointed and concerned.

Follow me!

Besides my family and friends who help support me (us!) through this process, another WONDERFUL place I go to for comfort, support, empathy and sisterhood are two message boards on iVillage. One is "generic" to adoption in general and one is specific to international adoption. To say I've made wonderful, true and supportive friends here is an understatement.

Today I became "community leader" on the international adoption board, following in the big footsteps of my friend, Nancy, who with her husband have adopted two incredible boys from Russia. The cl as I'm now called in the lingo of message boards keeps the conversation moving, greets new vistiors, etc. For a girl of gab like me, it's a good fit!

For those of you journeying on the international adoption road or for those who might be considering it, please come on by! I promise you'll find additional shoulders to add to your support list! iVillage international adoption board

We are not alone

I have to thank my fellow Russian adoptive bloggers for reminding me of something very important: we are not alone.

While I find it so sad for all of us that we're waiting for court dates, I do find a sense of comfort in knowing that we, the two of us tucked into our home, really aren't alone. Other people went to Russia in December to meet their children and are still waiting, just like us. I am such a worrier that I was beginning to think there was something scary-wrong with our specific situation. But there's not.

I will try try try to remember the advice of many, that families have walked our path and now hardly remember it. I will try to believe that this endless procession of precious days without them is a short time in two girl's lives. I will attempt to attempt.

And the whole time I'll remember that others are doing the same, and while I don't like that any of us have to do it, I will feel better that we are not alone.

I never...

1. want to write or type the word apostille again. But I'll have to.
2. like to wait. But I'll have to.
3. feel comfortable relying on other people for the truly important matters. But I'll have to.
4. thought it would be this hard. I knew it would be hard, but I'm feeling truly pushed the emotional max.

We believe that we're not going to get a court date until a few more pieces of paperwork are complete. We're doing our best to push them through but, of course, don't have the control we'd like to be able to have them complete as quickly as we'd get them complete if we didn't have to wait on other people.

I didn't want to post a negative update, which is why I haven't updated at all. But, many people are following our journey and ask what's going on, so that's the scoop. On the upside, I took a walk today (it's amazing how some sun and just a few degrees make a huge difference) and saw a fat robin.