Broken Record spinning round and round

OK, so you probably guessed from the title that we have no news on a new appointment date. It was the same reaction from the DOE in Russia - "come back next Tuesday". No info period. I wonder how long they can/will keep this up? I can think of a million catch phrases: Stuck in the middle; Falling into the abyss; Our hands are tied; Going around in circles; Now all the sudden I have that Howard Jones song in my head "no one is to blame". I really like that song but I don't want it to pertain to my life :) lol

We really hope to travel before Christmas to meet our daughter. For that to happen, we really need some positive news next week. We were joking that they will probably give us an appointment the week of Christmas just to spite us. It definitely wouldn't be ideal but we would work around it. We would have to call the north pole and ask Santa to come early to our house. :)

DAY 50 - we still haven't met her....

I wish I wouldn't have just counted the days but it has been 50 days since we received our referral. Another week has past with no good news. We are beginning to have our doubts that we will ever meet this referral. At this point we aren't even certain that we still have a referral.

This Tuesday our rep in Moscow provided, in writing, information on how our agency prepares adoptive families for Russian adoption. This was done per their request. They took the information and would not discuss anything else. They stated that next week they will talk about referrals and dossiers.

So, next Tuesday we are hoping to get some positive news. It is a helpless feeling not having any control over what happens. At this point we can only take things one day at a time.

Another Week

There isn't any news on the adoption this week. We hope we hear something positive on Tuesday. It is a helpless feeling when you have no control over what happens. So, we pray and we keep hoping.

One good thing that came out of our cancelled trip is that we were here for Halloween. Connor had a ball this year. He was Dash from the incredibles. We had almost 200 trick or treaters. It was a record. We love to count the kids each year.

So, as we wait, I am trying to keep occupied. This weekend I am going to move some stuff out of A's room. No, we don't have a name picked out for her yet. A is the beginning initial of her Russian first name. The closet in her room is a decent size walk-in. I have been using it to store all of the holiday decorations along with other stuff. For now, I will clear out a section. I wonder how long it will be before she claims the whole closet? Tween or before??

Two other things I want to do-- Learn the cyrillic alphabet and get a Russian phrase CD. I was thinking if she is almost 3 she should have more language development than Connor (Connor was 26 months when he came home). Kids pick up language so quickly. The sad thing is that they lose their first language more quickly than they learn their new language. So, a few phrases in Russian will be good to use especially in transition.

Well, I hope the next post will bring some good news....

No Good News. Just More Waiting...

Well,
The MOE has not changed their mind on waiting to issue our appointment until the other family was taken care of. Unfortunately, the other family declined to visit the referral they were issued on Tuesday. Next Tuesday is a holiday in Russia so the next opportunity to have an appointment scheduled would be on the 11th of November. It is looking like our 30 day visas will expire before we get the chance to travel.

More news from the agency. It looks like Russia will be doing away with blind referrals soon. That means that more medical information will be available upfront before visiting your referral.

Travel Dates Unknown

We hit a roadblock yesterday when we heard back from our agency that our apointment scheduled for October 28th had been cancelled. So I had to get all our reservations cancelled for now. We were all set to leave on Saturday. We are obviously upset over this development.

Why did this happen... Well, from what we understand another one of our agencies families declined a referral two weeks ago and did not get another one. The MOE (Russian Dept. of Adoption) expected to see this family yesterday for another referral. The family was already back in the US. The MOE was not happy that this family declined the first referral because they believed it was a good referral. In fact, the same referral was taken immediately by a Spanish family. I don't have any more details but it is like the MOE is mad at or punishing our agency and all of their families. We just hope that sitting on it a week will calm everyone's demeanor and we will get another travel date on Tuesday (they only issue appointments on Tuesdays).

So, as we wait--our referral sits in an orphanage deprived of love. Who really suffers? I know a lot of adoptive families feel the same way. It seems to always take more time than we think it should.

Someone had asked the age of our referral. She is 2 1/2.

Getting Ready to Travel....
It is amazing how much one can get done when there is an approaching deadline. I had posted a list a post or two back and I am happy to report that I have cleaned out some closets and sorted through a lot of things. I am having garage sale next weekend. It is pretty late in the season but I don't want to have all the stuff around the house all winter (especially since our family is going to grow before then).

I have to say, packing for a week travel to Russia is much different than packing for a month or longer travel to Ukraine. I think we can make due without things for a week.

For those of you who don't know, with Russia you go over and meet/accept your referral formally. Then you come back home, prepare more paperwork and wait to hear when your court date is scheduled. Then, you travel back to Russia (in our case Moscow City) and hold court. There is a 10 day mandatory wait after court (just like Ukraine). After that you get passports and visas for the child and come home.

Another interesting fact is that Connor is from Kharkiv Ukraine which is 25 miles from Russia's border. I haven't been able to find out exact mileage to Moscow but it looks to be about 500 miles on the map.

MAJOR UPDATE!

We can't believe it but we already have a referral!! We got the call on Wednesday September 24th. We were in total disbelief and have been walking around with our heads in the clouds. We have come down to reality but it is hard to focus on much of anything else.

We will be going to Moscow City the last week of October to meet a little girl who we hope will be our child.

We feel blessed because we just got our documents complete on September 14th. Wow! 10 days!!

Even if we would have stuck with Ukraine our timing wouldn't have been much better than this.
We started the process the last week of June 2007. So, it will be about 1.5 years. We officially switched to Russia in May 2008.

So now there is a lot to do to plan and orchestrate our trip. I'm currently working on a to do list and hope to have several items checked off by next week.