Change of Plans!

Here we are, one week after posting about our regional assignment, and I just received word that our agency is recommending we change our region in Russia. So, when they told us international adoption was about flexibility, they were right! Our new region is Kaliningrad. Our other region was in Russia's far east... this region is the farthest region in Western Russia! In fact, it isnt even geographically attached to Russia as you can see in the map (it is situated north of Poland).  Overall, travel should be easier (and somewhat warmer) than Vladivostok, where we thought we were going.  We have prayed about this so much and trust that God knows where the child who belongs in our home is and He is working out the details for us to be together. So, we are trusting our adoption agency's recommendation and agreeing to switch regions.  We will keep you posted as things progress!

Maddie's New Favorite Bedtime Story...

I have to brag on my girl for a minute... Maddie is so excited about going to Russia and talking to her new sibling that she fell asleep last night studing this book in bed.  I'm hoping she can be my translator!

We have a region!

It has been awhile since we have posted, but we are happy to announce that we have some exciting  news regarding the adoption!  We have been given what is called a regional assignment in Russia. This means, we now know (barring unforeseen circumstances)  in what part of Russia our child is living!  Our agency thinks that we should be matched with a child and asked to travel to Russia for our 1st of 2 trips in the next 4-7 months! 

The main city in the area to which we are assigned is called Vladivostok.  If you are like us, when you think of Russia, you think primarily of eastern Europe.  However, Vladivostok is on the Pacific coast and is a major port on the Sea of Japan!  In fact, because of its location (a 6 day train ride or 8.5 hour flight from Moscow), it is much faster for us to fly over the Pacific Ocean to get there (and even that will be close to 24 hours of travel). So, right now, a child is living on the other side of the world who will be joining our family sometime in the next year.

For me (Ann-Marie), knowing where my child is makes the whole experience so much more real for me.  I have felt much more connected to who I am now calling "my third child" and have been praying for him or her a lot over the last few days.  I am specifically praying that God sends special caregivers that show extra special love and care for him or her, until we are there to bring him or her home.  We definitely appreciate your prayers too as you think about us and our child.  I discovered a website for a Catholic Charity that works in the orphanages in Vladivostok (called "baby homes").  You can see pictures of orphans and the orphanage.  This is one of 3 orphanages in the area and very well could be where our child is now living.  http://www.cjd.cc/Help_the_Orphans.htm

So, what happens from here? We are waiting to receive a list of documents that we need to complete for Vladivostok. Once these are completed, everything should be in order for us in the region and we will simply be waiting (very anxiously!!!) to receive word that we have been matched with a child (in adoption lingo, this is called receiving a referral). We will then be asked to travel to Vladivostok to meet the child and to file paperwork to officially adopt him or her.  This will take about 5-7 days.  We will then return home for what will probably feel like a very long couple of months while we wait to receive word that Russia is ready to finalize our adoption in court. At that point, we will be travelling to Russia for a month and are planning to bring Maddie and Dylan.  Here is the intimidating part to me: if the timing follows what the adoption agency is predicting, we will be travelling in the middle of winter.  In Vladivostok, the high temperature in January is 15 degrees and the low is around -15 degrees!  Yikes! Any suggestions on how to dress for this weather are much appreciated! 

We hope to have more updates soon!  Thanks so much for your support and prayers!

Happy Birthday to me!

Got a great birthday present today... received word from our adoption agency that our paperwork is officially on its way to Russia to be translated!  We are very excited!

Answered Prayer!!!

Thank you so much for your prayers about our SLOW processing of our application to adopt with the US government. After begin told on Monday that it could take 6 more weeks, the form arrived in the mail today!!  5 days is definitely better than 6 weeks. I am on my way to the post office to mail all of our documents we have gathered in the last 5 months to our adoption agency. They will prepare the documents to send to Russia! Soon, we will be assigned a region of Russia that our child will come from.  I hope to have another update really soon!

Update...

Psalm 37:7   "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him."

Molasses...southbound Tollway at 8:30...and our adoption.  Sometimes a pause can be good, like just before the punch line of a really good joke.  Sometimes a pause can be bad, like when your computer locks up.  Right now we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the U.S. government to give us the thumbs up to proceed with the adoption.  Pretty much since we started this process, we have had a long 'to do' list with lots of different things to work on.  Things were moving along nicely, with each next step following pretty much as expected.  Check marks were flowing very nicely down the list (a very satisfing experience for the type A(nn-Marie) among us).  Now it seems we are at one of those uncomfortable lulls. 

Four weeks ago, we went to get fingerprints done for an FBI background check. Uncle Sam will process these, along with our home study, and issue us a document that gives us permission to adopt internationally.  Once we have this form, all of our paperwork (which is sitting on my dresser in a very thick stack) can be sent to Russia.  So, Ann-Marie checks the mailbox everyday, anxiously waiting for the form.  Ann-Marie called this morning to check on the status and was told it is "still in queue".  She was told they "try" to process those forms within 75 days... so based on that, we still could be waiting another 6 weeks.  Yep, I'll put this in the computer lock up variety of pauses. 

While we wait, we are challenged to keep focused on where God is leading our family, the child waiting for their home here with us, and God's sovereignty and timing in everything. 

(Ann-Marie talking now)... On an exciting note, a great friend, Jolin Housewright, gave us two special books today. There is a history to these, because Jolin bought these books as a Christmas present for Maddie when we were adopting before, in 2006.  But, after I got pregnant and the adoption was stopped, she put them away, saving them for the last 4 1/2 years, in case we ever decided to adopt again. So, today she gave these two books to Maddie.  After dinner tonight, we read the books as a family and had fun talking about the child who will be joining our home, in God's perfect timing!

Patience...

Brent and I have completed everything that is necessary for us to do at this point in the adoption process. All the paperwork on our end has been complete. Right now, we are waiting for 2 important things to happen before all our paperwork can be sent to Russia: We need to hear back from the United States about an appointment to get FBI fingerprinting done and we need to receive official permission from them to adopt overseas.  We also need to mail a large stack of papers that I have (25 different documents, some multiple pages in length) to Austin to be apostilled, which basically means that the notarization of each of these forms is verified by the state of Texas.  Once all of this is done, our documents will be ready for our adoption agency to prepare to send to Russia.

Which brings me to the issue of patience.  I received a large envelope in the mail yesterday with 13 documents from the homestudy agency. I was planning to run to the post office to mail these to Austin to get apostilled only to find 3 blatant typos in the forms!  This is the 4th time something similar has happened with our homestudy agency (in particular, it is apparently very difficult to spell my name correctly...)  Basically, this is going to mean a delay of a week while we wait for new forms to be created, notarized, and mailed to us.   Amazingly enough, I am not as frustrated by this as I would expect myself to be. 

Back in school, I used to hate group projects.  I preferred to do everything myself... definitely an issue with control on my part.  Over the years, life (and God) has taught me that I can't always do it on my own.  God has been shaping, molding, and humbling me to see I need others, and sometimes the very person I need may not do things the way I want them to.  The process of adoption is requiring us to depend on a lot of other people: multiple people in government offices in both the US and Russia, multiple workers at our homestudy agency, multiple workers at our adoption agency, friend and family for support, and most of all God.  I have to remember that God's timing is perfect, and I want to allow Him to use this entire process as an opportunity to depend on Him on a deeper level as we continue to depend on others to bring our child to our home.