Back From Trip One Whirl Wind

We just got back home last night at around 11pm. Glad to be home and done with the travel.

It was a successful trip and we have decided to move forward with the adoption. We saw her for about an hour on Thursday afternoon - the day we arrived - and twice on Friday and once on Saturday before we left. On the first day she knew we were strangers but warmed up to me pretty fast - letting me hold her and walk around with her. She was checking out Darren and wasn't too sure about him. The children in the orphanage aren't exposed to men since all their caretakers are women.

We saw her twice on Friday. She did let Darren hold her and was grabbing onto his nose. We were playing a game (saying beep when touching the nose). She was still not quite sure about us but was warming up slowly. Saturday she felt comfortable enough to crawl around the room and play with toys and interact with us. She was smiling and laughing. We brought her a soft doll and she just loves it. She would not let go of it.

Friday she let the caretaker know that she wanted to hold onto the doll so we let her keep it (as we intended to). Saturday, the caretaker pulled out the doll and she giggled and was happy. So hopefully they are letting her play with it. We also left a soft blanket and a disposable camera. Hopefully they will take some pictures while we are gone.

Now, we are ready to get her home. I wish we could have just brought her with us on this trip.

I will post a few picture tomorrow.

Getting Ready to Leave

It has been a hectic preparing for the trip. We have been working on getting all of our paperwork done that is needed for court. We are hoping this may speed up the process a little.

Court is held on the second trip. The second trip is usually around 8 weeks after the first trip. Our particular region (Magadan) waives the 10 day wait period after court. So our second trip will be longer than our first but we won't be gone too long.

So, this weekend will be spent packing and shopping for the trip. We really don't need much but you want to be prepared and have all the OTC medicine available just in case (like pepto, imodium etc...).

Our referral had her 1st birthday on Thursday. It would have been nice to be there. We tried but flights were impossible to get. We were on waiting lists but we finally had to get the tickets.

The countdown has started - 4 days until we hop on an airplane!!

Yes - I am still here - Good News -finally.

I have not posted in sooooo long. I felt like there was nothing positive to post about. I just didn't feel like posting more of the same.

Well...... We have our referral for a 12 month old girl and leave July 21st to meet her! We are really excited and feel there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

We will only be in (or above) Russia for 5 days. It will be a marathon of travel. Magadan is basically like another trans-atlantic flight from Moscow. We leave about 2:00pm on Tuesday and arrive in Moscow about noon on Wednesday. We then have about an 8 hour layover until we hop on the plane to Magadan at around 8:00pm. We arrive in Magadan Thursday around noon. We stay 2 nights in Magadan and leave Saturday at about 4:00 pm and get to Moscow 5:00 pm. We stay over-night in Moscow and leave Sunday to arrive back in St. Louis at 7:00pm. Whew! We are trying to get psyched (mentally prepared) for the long travel. I have a feeling adrenaline will keep us going at least until we meet our referral.

Connor will be staying with the Grandparents and is looking forward to it.

Long Time No Post

It has been a while. I think mainly because there hasn't been any news related to our adoption. We are feeling optimistic that we will be getting a referral soon. We are still registered in Magadan. Our agency has told us that we should have a referral the end of April if all goes well.

Time has really been moving slow. I have been researching Magadan. It has a very interesting history. Below is a link.
http://www.myrussland.ru/regions.php?ocd=view&id=48

I also found out that there is a priest from St. Louis at their Catholic Church. Small world! There is a lot of interesting information about the people of Magadan on the site also.

http://www.magadancatholic.org/Main%20pages/English.html

One more tidbit- In June Magadan experiences white nights - the sun doesn't set. It is really on top of the world!

The Only Thing Certain is Uncertainty

I think this title probably sums up a lot of adoptive parents' journey. Magadan is a small region and very few children become available for adoption. Right not we are very uncertain on what timing we are talking about for a referral.

The path to adopt in Moscow may open up again soon for our agency. This would be great news. We are requesting prayers that this happens and a referral comes our way soon.

I guess for now we are keeping our options open and staying positive. Our daughter is out there somewhere. We just need to get to her and bring her home.

In the meantime we are staying busy with house projects. We are finishing up a bathroom in our basement and I plan on stripping wallpaper in another. Connor is also keeping us busy as always. He is playing indoor soccer which is a lot of fun for him. Before long it will be spring!

New Region

It looks like we are going to try a new region. The region is Magadan and it is in Far East Siberia. Let's make this more of an adventure shall we? We will fly across the Pacific Ocean - maybe up to Alaska and over. I'm not sure. Magadan is a port city along the Sea of Okhotsk.

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/magadan_siberia.htm

No International Travel any time soon

Wow, it has been a while since I have blogged. I was hoping I would have some good news to post but there really isn't any GOOD news regarding the adoption.

We waited through the holidays and were told that our dossier was going to be submitted (again) on January 20th - last Tuesday. Well, instead we got some bad news from our agency. They told us that the Moscow City Department of Adoption (DOE) received a letter from the office of the prime minister asking them to drastically limit Amercan Adoption agencies working in their region. So essentially, our agency has been banned/kicked out of Moscow City.

This is all due to a tragic ending of a recently adopted boy's life. The little boy had been home for around 3 months when the father forgot to drop him off at day care and left him for 9 hours in his SUV in the sweltering heat. He recently went to trial and the Judge aquitted him. Russia saw this as a slap in the face and felt the father should have been punished. There were a lot of opinions expressed on the subject in the chat rooms. Some of those opinions were frowned upon by the Russian authorities.

http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2008/dec/17/father-acquitted-manslaughter-sons-death-car/?local

The past week has been trying. We are trying to decide our next steps. Waiting it out is very hard. We also can clearly know now that our first referral is gone. We hope that she is adopted by a loving family. I took her picture off of our refrigerator this week as it is a constant reminder of our situation.

Please pray that adoptions in Russia continue- for the children and their forever families.