The Dossier is on its way!

Here is Tyler...just waiting for the notary to finish our paperwork. Adoptions involve lots of paperwork. Oh, and waiting, too.

Update on Ukraine: the home study is in the final editing process and we have already started on the dossier for Ukraine.

If you have any questions about this process, feel free to ask! Hopefully I can answer them. 

I

Iryna and Keith accompanied me to get some documents apostilled for the Bulgarian dossier.

Here I am mailing our precious Bulgarian dossier! Once it arrives, it will be translated into Bulgarian and then we should receive our travel dates for our first trip to Bulgaria. We are hoping the dates will be in October.

Change of plan

Yesterday as Tyler and I were going about on adoption errands, we received a phone call from Victoria stating that on Thursday (just the day before) the US made a law requiring another form to be in the dossier. So when Sveta showed up at court yesterday, the judge asked for this form (only one day after this was passed, people). Of course Sveta didn't have the form. We don't know what the form is, actually, but we were told to get the form, fill it out, notarize/apostille it and if Sveta receives it by next Friday then we could be guaranteed the court date of January 23rd. That's right - JANUARY.

The issue is that we can't get it there by Friday, as it takes almost a week for FedEx to get it to Russia from here and we don't even have the form yet, not to mention notarizing it and apostilling it (that takes a day in and of itself). So, most likely we won't be able to count on the January 23rd court date and we have to change our flights ($250 per flight change) before Tuesday (our original date to fly to Russia) but we don't know when to schedule them in January - if it will be January at all. And we don't want to have to pay $250 per ticket AGAIN. Frustrating. Plus this may affect our visas, as they are single entry and expire on March 10th - more on why that may be a problem further in this post.

I do not doubt our decision to buy the visas and plane tickets. We were asked to do so by God and we did it. I do not know the reason, but I can think of many examples in the scriptures of people asked by God to do things that didn't make sense to them. We do not always understand things, but I want to be faithful in all things. A favorite quote that I came up with is this: "A test of faith requires a test." And this is a test, but my faith is strong. We will make it through this.

Today I was shown this link which talks about the 10 day waiting period becoming a 30 day waiting period. If we go mid February and have to wait for 30 days, we will be in country longer than March 10th, hence messing up our visas and requiring new ones (more $). So we would most likely go to the court date, fly home and then fly back - but our visas are single entry, so we would have to get another one. Ugh.

Since we were planning to leave on Tuesday, we had called Santa Claus and asked him to come last night. We decided to keep our appointment with him so last night was technically Christmas Eve for our little family and this morning we opened presents and have had such a great day. I think we needed a little Christmas to raise our spirits. So, Merry Christmas from Tyler, Jill, Anna, Keith, & Iryna!

One more form

So last Friday I got the following email from Victoria:

Dear Jill,

Just wanted to let you know I got an e-mail from Sveta today that she has received both packages, from you and from Olga.  She will be reviewing the documents over the weekend and hopes to let me by Monday.

Woo-hoo! I was so excited that the dossier and the Ukrainian birth certificates had arrived on Friday instead of the following Monday. Then I received this email:

Dear Jill,

Sveta just got back to me that unfortunately judge has visitation hours only on Friday’s now L  And there is also a new procedure that Sveta can only start getting all the documents for court for the kids – birth certificate copies, copies of parental relinquishments, etc., once the judge approves your dossier, so it will be another 3-4 weeks if everything goes well next Friday L

Sorry for the bad news…

Yeah...so, we won't be leaving for Russia this month and maybe not next month, either. I am hoping and praying that we will be able to leave for Russia AND bring home the boys before Christmas. I would appreciate your prayers, as well, for this to come to pass.

Yesterday morning we got a surprise call from Sveta - our facilitator in Russia. She said that one of the forms was missing a line stating Tyler's monthly wage. Even though this is in another form in the dossier, it has to be on this second form as well. So, Tyler put together the form today and had it notarized and tomorrow...you guessed it...I will be driving BACK to Tallahassee to apostille one document and then I will mail it to Sveta from there. I went to the library and checked out HARRY POTTER (first book) on tape and plan to listen to it it on the drive. I enjoyed THE HOBBIT last time I made this trek and I am hopeful that Harry will keep me going tomorrow. Although I don't like the idea of spending the whole day in the car, I am grateful for something that I can do to help bring my boys home.

Good news all around!

First good news: The auction was a huge success! My goal was to reach $1,000 and the final amount was $1,013! Thank you all so much for your help! This will definitely aid us in bringing home Calvin & Silas! So from us and soon them - THANK YOU!

Second good news: I now have the medical forms for Tyler & myself. I contacted the Dept of Health in Tallahassee and told them that we haven't received the licensure verification of our MD and they said that they have a second original that has been notarized that I can pick up on Friday when I go up to apostille the dossier! It's all coming together! Hooray! So I will mail the dossier on Friday to Russia! Woo-hoo! SO EXCITING! Boys, we're on our way! :D

Delays

I have held off writing a post because I wanted to be able to write something positive, yet I cannot keep waiting for that. Do not worry, nothing is wrong with the actual adoption of our boys - it's just that things keep delaying our mailing the dossier to Russia. At one point we thought we had everything and were preparing to notarize/apostille/mail to Russia. Then we found out (the day before!) that our medical forms had expired and we needed to redo them. So we found another MD for Tyler & I (ours moved to England - Air Force) and started that process. She had us do (yet another) TB test and did a blood draw to test for infectious diseases. We had the same MD do the medical forms for the kids. I have those completed forms now.

However, I called to find out if our records were done for Tyler & I today and the nurse responded that it takes 7-10 DAYS to get the results. The blood was drawn on Tuesday of this week. So, the earliest we could have our forms is Tuesday, September 27th, but it could be as late as Friday, September 30th...we were planning to get our forms notarized today so I could make the drive to Tallahassee on Monday, but now that option is out the door. And even if the forms are done by Tuesday, Tyler will be out of town until Thursday, so the EARLIEST I could go up is a week from today, because he has to be with me when we notarize the documents. This may seem silly and I am probably just overemotional, but I am frustrated that things are taking so long. I am so ready to have our dossier on its merry way to Russia. Why all the holdups?!?!?

I am ready to hold my boys again. I wonder if they feel abandoned by us. Do they look out the window every day to see us coming to get them? Do they feel alone? Scared? Worried? I am not there to make things right. I want to be there to reassure them that I love them and then bring. them. home.

On the bright side, I received the following message from Victoria (our placement agency):

Dear Jill,

I got an e-mail from Sveta, she called both orphanages and was told the boys are doing well and they look forward to your coming to pick them up.

I am grateful for those small blessings that keep me motivated, like this email about Calvin & Silas. I guess I just need to keep myself busy until I'm back with my boys. Until then, I just look at these pictures to keep me going.

A week or so

Okay, so I talked with a nurse on base and there is a doctor there who is registered in the state of FL. Tyler & I both have appointments with her early next week. Today we will call and get the state registration verification process going, which usually takes about a week to finish, and then we'll meet with the doctor next week and I am hoping that we will notarize/apostille next week! I pray that this will happen! And I am hoping that our judge in Nizhny Novgorod will have our paperwork by Oct 1st!

Texas is too far...

So we found out that the doctor here on base that we met with is registered in TX and not FL. This means that we will have to get a referral off-base to a doctor who IS registered in FL, so we can fill out the medical forms for Tyler & me. So many hoops to jump through...

Victoria said that Sveta called Calvin's orphanage last week and they said that Calvin is doing well with his recovery from heart surgery. I am eager to see him in person, but it's nice to hear something about him!

The CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER silent auction is still going on. You can check it out here.

I600A

The I600A form came in the mail on Saturday. Now we are waiting for the certified copies of the twins' Ukrainian birth certificates to arrive from Ukraine. Once they arrive, we will notarize all the dossier documents, apostille them, mail them to Sveta and she will translate them and present them to the judge in Nizhny Novgorod. Then the judge will give us a court date. Progress!

Fedex to Ukraine

Yesterday, we mailed off the documents to Olga in Ukraine. She will receive them by next week. I am hopeful that it won't take long for her to acquire both birth certificates for the twins and for them to return to us here. It looks as though our dossier will be completely ready sometime in July and we will submit it then. I anticipate that we will have our court date in September and it can't come soon enough! :)

Paperwork, Paperwork

And so the paper chase begins! I am mailing off my USCIS today and will begin collecting other various documents that we need for our dossier. I am eager to get it all done as soon as possible, as I would prefer a July court date for trip #2!

We haven't heard anything about how Calvin's surgery went...still waiting for details. I hope he's recovering well.

I miss my boys! I wish they were here with me now. As we are back in the US doing dossier stuff, the posts on this blog will be less often as most of what is going on adoption-related is behind-the-scenes-paperwork-stuff. I will post when I have news and updates! Until then, if you want to follow my day-to-day-non-adoption-world, click here.

Paperwork, Packing, Play!

And so, tomorrow I will drive 12 hours to get the adoption paperwork apostilled. That will take the whole day, yes it will. Other than preparing myself for that, I have been busy trying to get the packing organized. I went and bought snacks for the plane ride and some food items to pack in our suitcases which will help us have something to eat upon arrival in Russia. I have also made a packing list and am adding to that almost daily. I can't believe we're leaving on Saturday - so much to do! I looked on the airline website and realized that the carry on luggage has to be 22" x 14" x 9" or smaller to fit in the overhead bins. Of all the nice luggage that Tyler & I own, only ONE of them fits in the category. Each of the kids have a rolling suitcase that looks like this:

It's cute and even has rolling wheels. However, it's really small and doesn't hold very much. Considering the fact that we'll be in Russia for FOUR weeks, I'd like to have something bigger for each child. The issue here is that I don't really want to buy 4 carry on size suitcases for this trip, but it looks as though we will. I am sure you are wondering why we don't just check all of our luggage. While I would do that in a heartbeat, there are many stories of items missing upon arrival in Russia. Plus, it doesn't cost to carry on the luggage, but to check the luggage, it's $25 per suitcase. And my plan was to have each person have one carry on suitcase, one backpack (to take on the plane) and then to check maybe ONE bag with all of the orphanage donations in it. I'm guessing that it would be more cost effective to check the luggage than to buy 4 new suitcases...but I don't know. And top that off with the fact that Tyler is TDY (military term for out of town for the Air Force) and won't be back until Friday. Oh, and we leave on Saturday. !!! As for me, I feel like just playing with my kids instead of cleaning and packing and fretting. :)