While we're waiting...

we will be growing a new addition to our family! Yes, we are expecting a "home grown" little one! In the midst of all the craziness and changes happening with our adoption, we got a positive pregnancy test! We had even started exploring other adoption options, and had tentatively settled on venturing to China. Now, we will be putting our globetrotting plans on hold (unless something changes in Rus*ia), until a later date.

The new Baby S is already showing signs that he or she will be very much like our dear daughter Abby. During the last 2 ultrasounds, Baby S was flipping and turning so much that it was hard for the nurse and ultrasound techs to get good measurements. Most of you don't know that Abby was born breech. I had a scheduled C-section which turned out to be a very good decision. Abby had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck 5 times! So, she physically couldn't turn herself, and she must have been doing all sorts of crazy moves to do that to herself. I hope to not have a repeat of that situation this time!

Here's Baby S's first picture on our blog! This was from an ultrasound on March 7th. This Baby truly feels like a blessing and a gift...more than I can explain with words!

The past 2 months...

I wasn't sure what I should title this post. Maybe "when bad politics affects you personally". Or "when you are waiting for news that never really comes". Or "Rus*ian politicians who make you want to tear your hair out" and "Could they be any crazier? Yes, they can!" But, I think the title I chose is a little more diplomatic. Even though I am pretty much over being diplomatic. Rus*ian politicians are enjoying making the U.S. their chosen enemy at this point and we don't see that changing any time soon. I won't go into all the political wranglings because the details aren't really that important. The bottom line is not much has changed since this country signed their law at the end of December banning adoptions by U.S. citizens. But, the political climate seems to be getting worse by the week.

So, what have we been doing for the past two months? Communicating with our placing agency, who happens to be one of the few that is continuing to attempt to work in Rus*ia. They have asked us to send them documents here and here and we have dutifully done it. Will it make a difference? Realistically no. We've been on numerous conference calls with the U.S State Dept. as they try to do what they can to advocate for the many families who are caught up in this mess. And we've read hundreds of news articles from various U.S. and international news sources so we can stay current on the situation.

So, what is the result of all of this? Well, it remains very unlikely at this point that we will be able to adopt Hadley. The political situation between the U.S. and Rus*ia remains volatile. And it seems to be continuing down that road. The Rus*ian politicians are now twisting the purpose of this ban from a retaliation for the Magnitsky Act to "we are trying to protect our children", which we all of know is a lie. They are using the 20 children that unfortunately have died since being adopted by U.S. families to perpetrate this lie. Even if the U.S. repealed the Magnitsky Act (which they aren't planning on doing), I don't think that Rus*ia would repeal this ban. Justin and I are getting tired of Rus*ia's twisted politics and so we are choosing to begin to tune out a lot of it. When and if things change in Rus*ia, we will move heaven and earth to get on a plane to Rus*ia to complete our adoption, but at this time, it's just not going to happen.

Everyday, we think about our girls. Abby is in a safe place, but Hadley isn't. Right now, Hadley's future seems grim. I hate even thinking about it because it sends me to a dark place where I imagine the worst for her. And it makes me desperately sad think of how she has a family that loves her and is waiting for her, yet instead she will spend her childhood growing up in an orphanage with other orphans who have been forgotten and hidden away. We are definitely not giving up on Hadley or any of Rus*ia's orphans. We will continue to fight for their freedom and their right to a family. But, we will likely be taking a different direction while we wait for something to change in Rus*ia. Rus*ia has closed their doors (for now), but there are hundreds of thousands of other orphans in the world that need a family. We plan to be the family for a least one of these children.

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes. And a picture of our sweet Hadley.


“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty." ~Mother Teresa

Hadley, you will always be wanted and loved!

We are not giving up!

I do realize that it has been over a month since I've written anything. First, that was due to no news on the adoption front. Then the holidays came and life seemed to speed up a little. And then 2 weeks ago we heard some political rumblings from Hadley's home country. The rumblings quickly moved on to the reality that something big might happen and our adoption, and the chance for Hadley to have a family would be over.

Well, we got the see the worst of politics happen when two of the largest and most powerful countries in the world went at it. Unfortunately, the leaders of Hadley's country decided to use the weakest members of their society as their weapon, their 600,000-700,000 orphans. I don't even know if you could call these children members of society anyway since they are hidden away in orphanages  And many of the orphanages are tucked away, and outside of town. Some of these orphanages are okay places, and some are absolutely awful. These children are usually forgotten. Until they are used as political pawns.

So, is our adoption over? Not yet...Our adoption agency, the US State Dept. and others are working to see how this is all going to play out. As soon as the law was signed, amendments to the law were presented. This is not over. How long will it take? So much longer than we originally thought. We really don't know at this point. But, we are committed to Hadley. If there is a chance we can bring her home, we will. We are likely to be the only family she will ever have.

Here's the truth of the situation for the orphans in her home country. Out of the total number, about 100,000 are available for adoption. And an even smaller number are available for international adoption from that large number. Most of the children available for international parents are not wanted by their own citizens, so they are unlikely to ever be adopted. This is for any number of reasons, including their medical history, family history, the way they look, the color of their skin, etc. And Americans are more open to adopting children with medical needs and disabilities because we have the resources in our country to care for these kids, and our country welcomes them. So, for many of them, an American family is their only chance of being adopted. This is why this new law and ban is so tragic for these children. For many, it's a death sentence.

We believe that Hadley fits in this "unwanted" category. And the older she gets, the more "unwanted" she will become, in her home country. But, she will never be an unwanted child to us. Unless she is adopted by another family, she will always be our daughter, no matter what. She will never be an unwanted child. She is deeply wanted by her loving family in the United States, and that is why we won't give up. If there ever is even a crack of an open door to adopt her, we will be there with open and loving arms, ready to take her home.

And so we continue to wait...

Visas and USCIS approval

I just read my last post and it sounds like I promised more interesting posts but never delivered. Well, this one might not be super interesting either!

In the past 2 weeks we are still making slow progress. We are truly now at a point of waiting because it was finally confirmed by our agency that we will not be traveling until mid-January at the earliest. We are now hoping that they will be able to give us our exact dates of travel before the end of the year, but we will have to wait on that because we found out that the Ministry of Education is on vacation. Yes, a 3 week vacation. Only a few weeks before they will then have a 2 week vacation. Now we don't know, but the MOE could consist of just 1 person. And in this country, if the person who does a particular job is on vacation or out on sick leave, well nobody else does their job. Everything just stops. Yes, very different than the good ole USA where the idea of the country shutting down for even a week for a vacation would bring shock and horror to everyone.

But, anyway we think that is really why we're not traveling. We were told something about quotas and what not but I'm starting to think otherwise. It doesn't really matter, the end result is the same. I'm trying to keep some perspective about this whole situation. Even with delays here and there, this adoption from start to finish will likely take no longer than 12 months. That's really not that long. We have dear friends adopting from a particular Asian country and they've been waiting for over 4 years now. They finally have a referral for a child, but they're now waiting to pick up their son, and they've been waiting for that since May.

Being the independent person and traveler than I am, I starting looking into getting our visas for our eventual travel to Eastern Europe. Recently the US and this country signed an agreement (they've been doing a lot of that lately) to make it easier for Americans to visit their country. It was like a gesture of good will or something. Well, I suppose it's easier once you get the visa, but getting the visa isn't much easier. With the new agreement, Americans are now allowed to get a 3 year tourist visa. These will be the one's we are going to attempt to get. It will save us a good amount of money if we have to make 3 trips and it will probably still save us money and hassle if we only have to make 2. Though we could make the trip to the consulate in S.F. ourselves, we're going to pay a little extra to have a visa company do it for us. We would have to make at least 2 trips to the consulate and you can only go at certain times and well I don't want to deal with all that. I was thinking of posting a picture of a visa from that country to make this post more interesting, but then I realized that I would be revealing the country, so no picture!

And we finally finished our online education. I'm actually really glad we had to take it. I feel much better prepared for the potential challenges of parenting an adopted child. There truly are differences that need to be taken into consideration that are different than parenting a biological child. I might write a post about that and include the link to a great book I read on the topic. We are now taking some free foster parenting classes through a local community college. Hopefully, we can use these hours for our required 30 hours of face-to-face training. These classes are making me think that if we choose to adopt again, it will likely be through our foster care system. You just never know where life will take you, and what will lead you there!

And one last thing, we have USCIS approval! So, we are approved to bring an orphan into the US. When we got the notice from USCIS, I realized that my middle name was spelled wrong. It sort of took some of the excitement away because I knew that it needed to be fixed. But, I sent an email to them, and they replied on a Saturday to tell me they would fix it. I was very impressed with the USCIS's prompt service!

Making sloooow progress

I had been waiting to update the blog hoping for some exciting news like our paperwork has been registered and we should be getting a travel date soon. Well, our paperwork is registered! We think... Our agency didn't really tell us that we're registered but they did tell us that our facilitator was going to talk to the Ministry of Education about when we could travel! Yes, we were very excited and yes that should mean we are registered! Of course this process is more of a roller coaster than one of those smooth, boring, and predictable rides. After we were all excited and stuff and we found out we might not be traveling until next year!! Okay, I know next year is only 8 weeks away, but it sounds like a very long wait. Really we could be traveling at any time. So, it could be in a few weeks (doubtful) or it could be 8 weeks from now or even longer. The country we are adopting from celebrates their Christmas holidays in January. So, we know we won't be traveling the first week or two of January. So, now we're hoping for a second half of January travel date.

I will admit that I was originally very upset that we were going to have to wait. I think I had it in my mind that December would be latest that we travel, so the news was just so surprising. I'm now more at a point of acceptance. This will give us more time to plan, read about our little girl's country, and try to learn a little of the language! We're also planning on trying to get all of our court documents finished so we can take them over with us on our 1st trip. This will hopefully help us get a court date more quickly, which might make up some for our delay in traveling on our 1st trip.

In other adoption news, we had our USCIS fingerprints done on Thursday at 8:00 a.m. It went smoothly and if anyone is counting, that was our 3rd time being fingerprinted for this adoption (and not our last!). Once USCIS approves our application, we will have official approval to bring our little girl to the U.S. on an Orphan Visa. I was going to take a picture of the outside of the office to put on the blog, but let me tell you that this was the most boring government office ever! It was in an office park and all the building said was "Application Support Center" in the most boring government letters you can imagine. I guess it's good that our tax dollars aren't going to any frills, like a fancy sign.

We are also still plugging away at the required 80 hours of education. Overall, I think I've learned a lot from it, but I'm almost at the point of being "over it". I apologize that this post is basically a to-do list that we have completed! I have some ideas for more interesting posts, so I hope to become inspired enough to write them!

And thanks to everyone who is following along!

Why the waiting is so hard

I don't talk about my grief on this blog. Most of this blog has been very focused on our adoption and it probably will continue to be that way. My grief has become such a part of me that I don't feel it's something separate from any other part of my life. It's hard to explain but basically I'm always grieving for my daughter. It's something I've been doing for over a year now and will continue to do as long as I live. But, I think the grief does make the waiting in this adoption process a lot harder. Justin and I have talked about this at great length and we both feel this way.

It's so hard to be so far away from your children. We have one child in Heaven and one child who living halfway around the world. It's heart wrenching at times. Today is one of those days. The weather is changing here in CA. It's our first real rainy day of the season. I don't mind the rain but it's funny how the weather can affect your mood so much. It's easier for me to happy on sunny days and harder to feel like everything is okay when it's dark and gray.

I've never really doubted our decision to go forward with this adoption process. Both Justin and I feel very convicted that this is what we are meant to do. But, it doesn't make the waiting any easier. The adoption process requires a large amount of faith that everything will turn out the way it's meant to be. Much like the grieving process. You must have faith that will you will survive it all.

I'd like to end this post with picture of my precious Abby. She sure did love her baths! It's one of my absolute favorite pictures of her because she just radiates joy. I wish I could include a picture of my other sweet girl. It will happen, someday soon.

Our paperwork has arrived

Our paperwork arrived in Eastern Europe on Monday! It was actually a day early and arrived with another adoptive family's paperwork that was a few days late. I was shocked that it arrived early since that never seems to happen in this process! It is currently being translated which we were told would take about a week. Then our facilitator in the country will make an appointment to submit it to the Ministry of Education. We are predicting that the earliest that it will be submitted will be sometime next week. We are hoping to travel for our 1st trip sometime in November. A lot of that will depend on the schedule of our facilitator. She has quite a few other families that she is working with and she can't be in two places at once!

So we're waiting, again. But, we are keeping busy with working on the additional education that is now required. The requirement went from 10 hours to 80 hours. Yes, that is a crazy jump! Once our adoption is over I will give you my true opinion about all this but for now I will do what I'm told. We're taking an online course that is based on an international adoption book and it's actually very interesting and helpful. It's much better than the online classes we took for our home study requirements. Part of the new education requirements is that 30 hours have to be "face-to-face". Nobody is quite sure yet what that means but that will probably be the most expensive and difficult part for us to complete. It might cost us around $2,000, yikes! And another expensive requirement that we did not originally plan for is that we have to get medical exams during our court trip. This exam will be in the capital city and probably cost a total of $2,000 for both of us. The Region we are adopting from did not require this exam until recently. Possibly $4,000 added on to our costs!

We are also planning for our travel. I've started reading a guidebook about the country we are going to be traveling to. Something I would do before I traveled anywhere. The strange part is that we are traveling to this country but we don't really get to decide where we're going to go. It's like traveling for business. You are going to a particular place and so you figure you might get a do a little sightseeing while you are there. The guidebook is making me wish we were going to get to see a lot more of the country. Though I think I would choose a different time of year to visit than the middle of winter! But, it's giving me an appreciation for our little girl's country and cultural heritage which I feel is really important. By adopting a child from another country in a lot of ways her heritage becomes a part of ours.

I changed out our giveaway page to a timeline page. It was one of the features I really liked about adoption blogs when I was reading quite a few before we started this process. I feel like we've been at this process for a long time, but it's only been 3 months!