Today Maeven sent us the guide to help us assemble dossier #2. It's the package of papers we will have to get ready to take to court with us. It does not look too difficult, but they are just so fussy about how everything needs to be organized. The good part is that we have more time to get these documents together.
The bad part...medical exams. I'm fine with the doctor. I'll go there for a yearly physical or if I'm really sick and that's that. Well our dossier has to have a letter written by our doctor about how wonderfully healthy we are. This needs to include a number of tests. TB, Hepatitis A B C, Syphilis, and HIV. That sounds like too much needle sticks for me, as one needle stick is a too much for me to handle. Ugh.
However, that is not the worst part. The worst is.... When in Moscow right before court we have to see a doctor. Not just one doctor, but eight!! Eight doctors. What they heck are they going to do to me? Eight Russian doctor and 2.5 hours on my way to court. Sounds horrid.

Our caseworker got our dossier this morning. She said everything looked good. Now we work on dossier #2 while we wait to hear about our first trip to Siberia.

Now, as you know, no day is complete without a trip to see my girl Jan at Fedex. Today I went to see her to mail our I-600a off to the Department of Homeland Security. The I-600a is basically a form asking our government here in the U.S. to check and make sure we are okay to adopt a child. See the state of Nebraska says we are okay, but that's not good enough. Now we wait for them to set us up with an appointment to get fingerprinted, again, and wait for them to send us I-171H...approval form. Rumor has it this should take 6-8 weeks, key word...should. I hear they are working quite behind. I'm going to pray hard for April 1st. I would highly encourage you to do the same.

I am punctual. Unless there is some extreme problem I will always be on time, or early...usually too early. That's just how I roll. However, when it comes to paperwork I am quite the opposite. I never hand in anything at the time it's due, with college work being the only exception. Going into this adoption I knew there was lots of paperwork involved, but Kazakhstan moved slowly. We prepped documents nightly while waiting for the home study to finish, but really there was no hurry. Well Russia is all about rushing, heck it's in their name.

When we switched over we were told to have this dossier finished, notarized and apostilled by the end of February. Okay. That's not too hard. The list of documents was nothing too difficult and we could have it ready by the 24th, which in my mind is the end of the month. My caseworker says she wants it on the 18th. February is a short month but not that short!

We stayed up a little late last night, went to the bank early this morning, and got to Fedex right before today's pickup. Our dossier is on the way to the state house. Fedex says it will get their Monday. That does not matter since it's closed but if all goes well we will get the documents back by Wednesday and be able to send them out Wednesday afternoon. I'm sure glad that Fedex has a passion for getting documents were they need to go on time, because I would never make it without them.

I received an e-mail from Michelle today. Our home study is complete and in the mail. Last week Michelle sent us an e-mail saying it was complete and we told her to hold off on mailing it because we were considering Russia. We told her of our official change just a few days ago, and she already has it changed and completed. Wonderful. Now we wait to receive our apostilled marriage certificates from Massachusetts...the request arrived at their office today and they say it take 2-3 weeks. This gives us a bit of time to get the rest of the documents together and notarized.

Guess of the Russian time line ish, it's always ish
-February, finish dossier #1
-March/April, travel to Siberia (I think it's fun to say Siberia) and meet our referral/child. About a week long trip.
-March - June, complete dossier #2
-June-September, travel back to Siberia for three weeks to pick up our child and go to court.

bye bye Kazakhstan hello Russia, particularly Kemerovo

We were thrilled to adopt from Kazakhstan. I love so much about the program and the country. However, after receiving a letter saying there were a bunch of boys in Russia waiting. Waiting because the girls of their country are more popular. It was a pretty easy choice. We don't have to have anything re-done accept some wording in the home study. So instead of an under two year old in 12 -18 months it's more like and under two year old by September ish. It's always ish with this adoption thing.

Things are rolling along. Our home study is almost finished. Our psych tests are tomorrow. We have begun to prep our dossier and are getting ready to file our I-600a.

Then we get an e-mail from our caseworker. It's not a personal e-mail, but rather an e-mail to a bunch of perspective parents....

We have recently received many referrals from Kemerovo region in Russia for boys under 2 years of age and some in the 2-4 age range. At this time we do not have many families with dossiers completed for Russia that are looking to adopt young boys. We are asking if there are any families that would be willing to switch programs and adopt from Russia if they wanted to adopt one of these boys.

There are lots of things that we love about the perspective of adopting from Kazakhstan, but who are we to turn down a little Russian. Man decisions stink...thoughts?