Prayers for our Children

Friday, February 22, 2008

Priceless!

  • 2 round trip, nonstop tickets to Moscow: approx. $1530
  • 6 nights lodging in the most expensive city in the world: approx. $1547 (if we get the apartment we want. Otherwise, $4500 or more!)
  • Meeting our child on MY Birthday, Monday, March 17: PRICELESS!!

Yep - we’re Moscow bound! C from our agency called to confirm our dossier had been registered today and that we are officially invited to visit Moscow March 15 – March 22. We will meet, hold, play, love, hug and cuddle with our child for the very first time on Monday, March 17 which is my birthday! How wonderful is that?

We haven’t confirmed all of our travel (airfare & lodging) but will by Monday. Unfortunately there is some type of expo or conference in Moscow from 3/19 – 3/21 which is making lodging not only scarce, but EXPENSIVE as well. We’ll work it out though. I have lined up Dr. T to meet us at the orphanage on Monday the 17th to examine Baby C and give us an expert opinion as to Baby C's health, development, etc.

When we made our trip to Asheville back in January to meet C in person, I felt in the week leading up to that trip that we would be able to hand deliver our dossier to her despite the hurdles in our way. As it turns out, God provided the means for us to do that and I was absolutely thrilled! I have felt all along that we would travel on my birthday and today God answered that prayer as well!

Let the packing begin!

Prayer Request: Please pray with us for speedy return of our 171H, immigration approval. We can make our first trip without it, but we absolutely need it for our court date. The current processing timeline puts us as receiving the 171H around 3/14/08, but it may also take as long as 4/11/08. By traveling without the 171H, we are putting our trust in God that our paperwork will be processed without interrupting our potential court date in April/May. Also, please keep Baby C, the orphange director and caregivers, and our agency staff in NC and Moscow in your prayers as well. Finally, please pray this weekend that we will be able to find reasonable accomodations in Moscow. Thank you everyone, for joining us thus far on our journey!

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Tips for Baby Registration

We’ve already registered at Babies R Us, and I’m considering registering at Target. I’ll probably do that this weekend. Did I leave anything out? Did you guys register anywhere besides these places? I feel like I’m forgetting something…

Oh yes - MOSCOW!!

Thankfully that will be taken care of on Friday the 22nd! Woo-hoo!!!

We spoke w/ C at our agency twice today and found out that our dossier is finished being translated. We have tentative travel dates but I’m afraid to post them until they’re confirmed. We should know in about 48-72 hours. Woo-hoo again!

Yeah, I’m freaking out a little but it’s all good. Very, very good.
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Begging for Mercy @ 3am

That was me...from 3am-5:20am when I finally gave in & got out of bed, wanting so badly to scream "STOP!!" Why you ask?

Of all songs to wake up & have stuck in your head for nearly 2 1/2 hours, WHY did it have to be "La Cucaracha?" I mean, come one! How random is that? And it wasn't even the whole song; just "la cucaracha, la cucaracha" followed by 8 notes on the trumpet(?)...over and over and over and over again. Grrr.... Hopefully this isn't how the rest of my day is going to be!

On the adoption front, I found out yesterday that USCIS received clearance for our fingerprints sometime last week. Yay! This officially means our fingerprint drama is over. Thank goodness! I am so, so happy we have confirmation that we do not need to repeat these. (Beth & Becky, remember the email I sent you asking about the I797 Notice of Action thing? They claim they never sent it to me! Um, okay, I guess I'm imagining the whole thing! The envelope & piece of paper right in front of me aren't really there at all.)

Oh, and I recently joined the International Adoption Virginia Yahoo group and have been trading I171H timelines with other members. I received 2 emails this morning letting me know that members and friends of members have received their 171 4-5 weeks after their fingerprint appointments. If we get lucky & receive ours in 5 weeks, that means we'll have it by March 14...just a few days before my B-day! Hoping I can call Ms. B at the USCIS FFX office & thank her for the birthday card disguised as our 171H.
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Monday, February 18, 2008

Retail Therapy!!

This is my new favorite phrase. Norm, on the other hand, hides my wallet & keys anytime it's mentioned! I'm finally getting around to posting photos of some things we've bought and/or received for Baby C. We haven't bought much since we don't know Baby C's age, gender or size but there were some things we just couldn't pass up.

Russian Adoption Children's Books & Other Books

Closet/Clothing/Organization - I'm not so sure I like these particular organizer things, but we'll work it out. I know the clothing is blue, and we don't know if Baby C is a girl or boy...but we couldn't beat the price! We've had the chaning table for a while but the baskets are new.

Wooden Blocks - 3 sets of nursery ryhme blocks. Why 3 sets? Each set contains 3 different nursery rhymes. We also purchased a set of Russian alphabet blocks (thanks for the info Ana!).


Bath Toys

Stuffed Animals & Toys

Umbrella Stroller for use in Moscow


There's more but Blogger is taking forever to upload so I'll save them for another post. I will leave you with this last one even though it's not exactly adoption related. Poor Bandit got his feet all tangled up this afternoon! (You may have to enlarge it)

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Season Neutral & Gender Neutral

Okay, okay - I changed it!

Certain people, who-shall-remain-nameless, have been bugging me to change the header because it looked too Christmasy. If you have been following us since the beginning of our journey, you may remember that I changed the header & color scheme of the blog at Christmas. I created the old snowflake header and the fonts were red & green. Well, after Christmas I put the font back to whatever it is now & thought it would be okay to keep the snowflake header since it is still winter. Apparently I was wrong; thanks to those who-shall-remain-nameless for continuing (daily) to bring this to my attention!

Since I've been bored, contagious, giddy & blessed the past couple days (and since being contagoius has put me in quarantine) I decided to put my time & energy to good use and create a season neutral header. It also had to be gender neutral (hence the green) since we don't know if Baby C is a girl or boy, and since another person who-shall-remain-nameless pointed out that my blog seems geared towards a boy with all the blue going on in it.

The 2 verses I placed in the header have special meaning to me right now, which I'll explain in the next post. In the meantime, let me know what you think...do you like the new header? Is it season & gender neutral??
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Quick Update

I mentioned in this post that our dossier may be registered in Moscow this Friday. K just sent me an email that our dossier translation is actually still being worked on and may be finished next week. (That is purely speculation on K's part...not set in stone and I won't hold her to it.)

So, no registering this week which is fine. Since we're still waiting on our 171 we're not in a huge rush. Well, okay we are in a rush (lol!) but we also understand the circumstances. There are families who may have turned in their dossier after us, but who already have their 171. We would rather they focus on translating those dossiers first and not hold up the families who are 100% ready to go. We'll wait patiently & see what Friday, Feb. 22 has in store for us.
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Monday, February 11, 2008

I’m bored

Norm’s at a medical conference in Vegas. He had a chance to go hiking here yesterday afternoon/evening. Right now he is going to this (blech!). When he told me he was going to this show I was actually happy I didn’t tag along with him on this trip. The hiking would have been very cool but the other thing - the show - well that is just way creepy to me. I would have funky dreams for a very, very long time. Also, my sister – Robyn aka Rob - has an out of town guest and I don’t want to bother her. Oh, and I have the flu or something equally unpleasant. Yeah, I know, poor me!! ;-) So…I’m bored and perhaps contagious.

On a more positive note, I received an email from K at our agency asking how our fingerprint appointment went on Friday. I wrote a rather lengthy, nonsensical reply to her and then apologized for being “Chatty Karyn.” You see, when I get excited about something it’s really difficult to get me to hush up. I also tend to talk louder but it’s impossible to TYPE louder so be thankful! Anyhoo, since Norm’s in Vegas, and Rob’s catching up with one of our old friends, and my dogs don’t talk back to me, and I've called my dad way too many times to talk Nascar, I have no one to share my excitement with right now. Sigh….

That leaves you, my (hopefully) captive audience - -

Right now I am super excited about our adoption timeline! I say “right now” because as we all know, the emotions of parents pursuing IA can change in less than a nanosecond. Tonight though it’s all good – here’s why:

K is pretty sure our dossier is almost, if not already, done being translated. Yippee!! She’s going to confirm with the Moscow office tomorrow and send me an update. I have a really good feeling not only about the translation but also about our 171H. Yes, I admit that I feel good about our USCIS approval timeline! There, I said it! Can you believe it? I can’t explain why I suddenly am okay with this, or why I have this sneaking suspicion that we are going to get lucky and fall into the “significantly less than 9 week” processing category. But even if there is a snag with the 171, I know we are in excellent hands with our agency. I know that they want to get us to Moscow as much as we want to be there!

More importantly I also know that God’s timeline is better than any timeline I can try to conjure up. I know that He loves my child-to-be and me equally, and that He is watching over BOTH of us right this very minute. He is entrusting the care of this very special child to Norm and me. To us! He has selected this child to be part of our family. What an amazing gift we are about to receive. We are truly blessed!

I didn’t realize one could be bored, contagious, giddy and blessed all at once - but I am!
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Saturday, February 9, 2008

Our last set of fingerprints - Really??

Those of you who have been following our journey for awhile know that fingerprints were a bit of an issue for us for what seemed an eternity, and set us back by more than 6 weeks. You’ll also remember that we needed to have fingerprints done for 3 separate agencies – first for our homestudy agency, then for our adoption agency since we registered our dossier in Moscow, and finally for USCIS in order to get our I-171H. I’m absolutely thrilled to say that it appears we are done with having to be fingerprinted! And still there are no skeletons in our closet trying to get out! WOO-HOO!!

Our appointment at USCIS yesterday went off without a hitch. We got there at 2:30 and our appointment was at 3pm. The place was PACKED – we were given #’s 149 & 150 and they were at #96 when we sat down. We thought for sure it would take forever but decided to think of it as a training session for some long, hideous wait we’ll likely have once we get to Russia (perhaps customs @ the SVO airport??). We joked around with each other, made bets on how long it would take to get through, etc., and it actually wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it might be when we first walked in. Our #'s were called at 3:30 and we were in my car at 3:36. We were pretty happy with the whole timeframe and weren’t even all that put off by the rather unpleasant security guard & receptionist!

Thankfully we took my car to the appointment instead of Norm’s SUV. I have a Civic hybrid, which in Virginia is allowed to use HOV lanes even if you don’t have the mandatory # of people in your car. There was an accident on I95 south which shut the highway down and traffic in the main lanes was an absolute nightmare. We decided that the people sitting in that mess were getting an overview in what the traffic will be like in Moscow once we get there. Truth be told though, we were glad it wasn’t us sitting there and are thankful to the drivers who “took one for our team”! (Thankfully there were no injuries in the crash either.)

We decided we would order Domino’s for dinner and they surprised us by only charging $6.19 for a large 2 topping pizza. The label on the pizza box was actually more than that, so I asked the cashier about it but he said he charged me correctly. So, I hightailed to the car, told Norm what happened when he asked why I was running, and he said “We’re outta here!!” as he slammed the car into drive! Hey, I did ask so I don’t think we needed to scurry away like we did but the dramatics were fun nonetheless!!

I guess I couldn’t ask for a better day – no more fingerprints, no sitting in infamous DC traffic & a super cheap dinner!
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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I600A fingerprint update

Our I600A fingerprint appointment has been rescheduled to THIS Friday at 3pm. Yay! I'm so grateful they were actually able to get us in before Norm leaves for Vegas on Saturday. I'm especially happy because a few days after he gets home from Vegas, he has to leave again for Oregon. Oh, and he may also be "forced" to go to Italy again sometime but we don't know yet when those travel dates will be. I'm thinking it will be over the summer sometime but who cares - it's ITALY!! (see side note below)

Since our dossier is in Moscow now being translated, I wanted C at our agency to know that we're making some progress with the I600A. The I600A is what gets us our 171H, which is what ultimately gets Baby C home! According to our USCIS office in Fairfax, the processing time for our I600A ranges from "as long as 9 weeks to something significantly less...." Worst case scenario, we may have our 171H by April 11, best case scenario remains to be seen!

Anyway, yesterday I first spoke with K and Norm later spoke with C. It turns out that our dossier may be registered as early as next Friday or February 22! WOW... For those of you who don't know, once our dossier is "registered" in Moscow, we will likely have our first travel dates within 1-2 weeks. My birthday is in March (think shamrocks & green beer), and what an amazing birthday present it would be if I could spend it in Russia! Also, my b-day happens to fall on a Monday this year so just think...it's possible I could meet my child on my birthday since in the Moscow region, you make the first trip to the orphanage on Monday!

I'm back to being my happy, positive, excited-about-adoption self again and it's a great feeling. I should have called our agency long before now so I had a better understanding of the timeline. The ladies at the agency are all experts at talking me off of my ledge and I so appreciate everything they do.

Side Note: I LOVE, love, love Italy. I made my first trip over when I was 15. My choir from school took a 2 week trip, visited many little villages and had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to sing for the Pope. I am not Catholic but it was an amazing experience nonetheless. Norm was "forced" to make a trip to Rome in June 07 and I was not about to let him go alone. Since Norm's portion of the trip was paid for, we used our airline miles for me & I was able to tag along. While we were there, I took Norm to the Trevi Fountain and made him toss in a coin. THEN I told him that by doing so, he had just guaranteed himself a return trip. Looks like the local legend holds true!
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Friday, February 1, 2008

That was easy! (Mostly)

Just had a surprise visit from the FedEx man. He dropped off the FBI fingerprint clearances that we sent on 1/23/08. We had requested they be expedited and returned to us by 2/5/08, so they're 4 days earlier than we had expected/hoped! This was the "mostly easy" part, now on to USCIS...

Yesterday we received our I600A acknowledgement package from USCIS. Unfortunately the fingerprint appointment they set up for 2/12/08 conflicts with a business trip that Norm has (and that I told them about). I immediately sent her a message begging, pleading & groveling for a new appointment prior to his leaving on 2/9 since his return date is still being discussed. I don't even want to think about waiting until after he gets back home for these prints to be taken, especially since our I600A processing time of "9 weeks" won't start until after they receive clearance from our prints. Ugh...

I haven't received a reply back to my request, but I'm stalking my email like a mad woman. I was so discouraged by this yesterday that I didn't even want to look at my computer for fear of what I might post on my blog. Instead, Judy & I went out to dinner, made a side trip to a new store that just opened and had a blast while we were there. I can't say yet what we did in the store because that would ruin a surprise I have for a few people reading this. But what I can say is that it was tremendously therapeutic and really helped me to put some things into perspective. That's not to say I'm not still very (VERY) anxious about USCIS but all I can do is wait, wait a bit longer, and then wait some more.

As they say, this too shall pass... (my version is actually "this too shall pass SOMEDAY...but when??)
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