This will be a very short post, but I feel like I owe everyone an update. There are a tremendous amount of thoughts and opinions swirling through my brain, but mostly I’m just feeling heartbroken.

Our home study agency emailed us about two weeks ago to let us know that our international agency had approved the final draft of our home study. We were ecstatic….finally – progress! The home study was on their desk ready to be picked up and shipped out.  Then, we received news from our international agency of some (more) changes from Russia regarding the adoption process. These changes would add several months to our time frame before we would be able to send our paperwork to Russia. We were fairly bummed, but sort of used to the delays by now.

Then, the very, very bad news.  I’m sure many of you may have read about it online.  In retaliation to a bill that President Obama signed regarding Russian human rights violators, Russia added an amendment to an existing piece of legislation.  This amendment would ban American parents from adopting Russian orphans.  There are many politics, reasons, thoughts, strategies, etc. behind all of this.  But, ya know what, I’m just gonna come right out and say it: It SUCKS that these poor children are stuck in the middle of this political BS. I’m not going to get all political, if you’re interested in hearing and reading all about it, Google is your friend. I’ve been following This Blog, which has a lot of good information.  She explains Russia’s side of things very well.  Sadly, I can see Russia’s point in all of this, even if it feels like they’re going about it the wrong way.  There are changes that need to be made on Russia’s side of the adoption fence, but there are also many changes that need to be made on the US’s side as well.  Until both countries are ready to put the interest of the children first and work together, no progress is going to be made.  Sadly, the children are the ones who will be suffering in the meantime.

I guess this is my opinion in a nutshell:  Yes, I believe the Russian-American adoption system needs a big overhaul.  Changes need to be made on both sides.  From what I’m hearing, Russia may just shut down adoptions for a year or two until they can get a new system in place.  While that may be a good thing overall, it is absolutely heartbreaking for my family.  Mason has asked me several times lately when we get to bring Baby Sister home.  I’m hoping that we don’t have to sit down and explain to this precious 4 year old that we won’t be able to bring Baby Sister home, at least not the Baby Sister that we have fallen in love with.  Even though she never was ours, I was really hoping that someday she would be.

So, here’s where things stand: This bill has passed all three readings in the Russian Duma (parliament).  Today, it went in front of the Russian Federation Council who passed it by a unanimous vote.  The bill’s next step is to go in front of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.  He can decide whether to sign the bill or veto it.  From what I’m hearing, things don’t sound very good, so I don’t have much hope.

In the meantime, Chris and I are holding off on any decision making until we hear the outcome of this bill.  Either way things go, we have some big decisions ahead of us.  Eventually, we may be at a point where we’re open for suggestions and/or ideas. For now, we’re just not there yet, and I’m asking our family and friends to please respect our feelings on this.

Thanks for all your understanding. Please keep praying over us and the whole situation, including orphans across the globe in need of a family.  I truly believe God has one of them in mind for my family…someday.  All I can do is trust in the knowledge that He will bring us together in His own time.

Love to all,
Brandi

Well, here’s what we were up to this week!

Signing and Notarizing....

Chris is having way too much fun with this!

Thanks to our awesome friend (and notary!), Courtney, for helping us with our dossier paperwork! We’re working on getting everything ready while we’re waiting for the home study revisions.  That way, as soon as our home study is ready, we can send our registration dossier off to Russia ASAP! We’ve notarized everything that can be notarized so far. We’ll have one final piece to notarize after our home study is complete.  Then, it has to be apostilled! (Don’t worry, I’d never heard of that before this adoption process either)! What’s an apostille, you ask?  “An “apostille” is a form of authentication issued to documents for use in countries that participate in the Hague Convention of 1961.”  Basically, the apostille affirms to Russia that the document is legit.  Here’s the kicker: In Idaho, each apostille costs $10.  That doesn’t sound too bad…except for the fact that once you take into account each document that we have to apostille, it totals up to over 90 documents!!!! Over $900 just to certify that all of our documents are legit.  Yikes! Anyone wanna buy a  puzzle piece? If you think about it, each puzzle piece represents just one apostille! :)

So….notarizing was sooooo three days ago…..Here’s what I’m up to today!

Ohhhhh, Mater!

That’s right….Mater…..the dog…. Russia needs to know that my tiny, 10-lb little Rat Terrier is current on his vaccinations. Kinda ironic if you know much about our family :) Our home study worker just received our home study back from our international agency with the additions and revisions that it needs.  One of them: We need your dog’s vaccination records. I immediately picture the little tan folded medical record that we keep for Mater.  The only problem is I have combed the ENTIRE HOUSE and can’t find the stupid thing! Really? I can picture it in my head, I swear we kept it in the file cabinet, but it is nowhere to be found! So now I’m going to spend the next little while calling the various veterinarians that Mater’s been to so I can recreate his vaccination records.  Then, tonight will probably involve a trip to D&B to purchase the shots that he needs boosters for. Oh, joy!

I am having a very impatient week!!! Just when I think we’ve covered everything for the home study, something else pops up! *However*, I’ve been assured that this last task is The. Final. Task.! Please cross your fingers for us!  I think I might implode if I hear, “Oh, oops! There’s one more piece of information I need from you…” one more time…

Here’s where we’re at: I’m awaiting a phone call from our doctor to get some medical questions answered.  Once I get this information, I can email our home study worker just to let her know that we had the conversation…and THEN, she can email the home study draft to our international agency for their review. Phew! It’s possible that I will receive the phone call today, but it might not be until Monday.  It’s not really that big of a deal, but it feels like this has been the story of our home study…waiting just one, two, three more days here and there and it all adds up so fast!

Once our international agency reviews the home study, they’ll have their coordinator in Russia review it.  Once they’ve both reviewed it, I”m sure it’ll have to go back and forth between them and our home study worker once or twice for revisions.  That, I am totally prepared for…that is part of the deal.  But this teasing business about having everything she needs and then needing more information three times over is soooo frustrating!

Well, thanks for the vent! Send positive thoughts our way! At least it’s Friday…that always makes me smile! :) AND I get to spend the afternoon with my niece and nephew! They’re so much fun, and I love watching these four cousins play together. They always have a blast together and it fills my heart with love and joy to have them over!

Have a good weekend everybody!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are *this close* to having our home study done! D. O. N. E. … DONE!  I am torn between jumping for joy and feeling so guilty about taking so long to get it done. Between Chris working full-time, me being a stay at home mom and full-time home maker, two busy toddlers and just trying to keep up with life in general, sometimes it seems that there’s no time left over for anything else!

Anyway! We received the first draft of our home study to review about 6 weeks ago. We returned it with some minor corrections to our case worker, but she had left out a crucial piece of the home study.  After that, life happened! Our whole family came down with strep throat…what a fun weekend that was – NOT! We had a family reunion to attend, and then Chris had to go out of town for work. By then, three weeks had gone by before we finally were able to nail down what exactly our adoption specialist needed to complete our home study.  We turned in the final piece of paperwork yesterday!!!!! So, now we wait….again…..

In the meantime, we’ve been slapped with more requirements from the Russian government.  With the new legislation that recently passed in Russia regarding adoptions, they are requiring MORE training for adoptive parents. Originally, we were required to complete 10 hours of training, which we have completed.  Now, we are hearing that we need to complete anywhere from 35-80 hours of training before we can be approved to adopt by a Russian judge.  We’re still waiting to hear the final word regarding exactly how many hours of training and also what kind of training will be accepted.  The majority of our training has been online training, but agencies have been hearing rumors that judges may not accept online training anymore; they may require “face to face” training.  The real bummer about all of this is the not knowing.  Every day that passes without knowing what is required is just another day that we could have spent doing some online training!  The good news about all this is that the training doesn’t have to be completed before our first trip.  We are required to have the training completed before they will issue us a court date, which is our second trip.  The bad news is that if “face to face” training is required, we will be shelling out a lot more money than if our training could be completed online.

The good news is that once our international agency approves our home study, we’ll be able to send our registration dossier to them within the week! Our dossier is ready to go, but it needs to have the home study date on it before we can sign it.  Then we just have to notarize it, have it apostilled, and send it to the agency. They’ll take about two weeks to check over it and make sure everything is done right and it has all the requirements.  Then they’ll send it to their people in Russia who will work on translating it, and THEN it can be submitted to the Ministry of Education in Russia, who will then invite us to travel to Russia for the first time to meet Baby Sister.

Boy, adoption is a lot of work….but it will be so worth it in the end when I can hold my baby girl in my arms and kiss her and hug her and love her for the rest of her life……she’ll have her daddy who will adore her and probably be wrapped around her finger….and two big brothers to watch out for her. :0)

Friends and family, please keep my family and our Baby Sister in your prayers. God has been so good to us!

Love,

Brandi

PS…. *Warning: Shameless Birthday Plug Ahead*: Tomorrow is my birthday, and will mark the first day of my final year of being in my twenties! *GASP* What a wonderful gift it would be if everyone who was able would purchase a puzzle piece! Don’t forget to spread the word so you can be a piece of her story! :)