Nyet to Russia

Well, with a heavy heart our Russian adoption has been closed. Our case worker emailed us to tell us that the agency will no longer be sending families over to Russia due to several factors. So, this leaves us back to square one. We went to the agency this past Friday and met with them to see what the next steps were and what they could offer us. The only options were India and Domestic. So we listened to both programs and came away with two options. We have been talking it over and have decided to go the Domestic route...much less paperwork and we'll be getting an infant.
With the crib due to arrive in a few weeks, we'll be able to be ready whenever a birthfamily chooses us. So, keep your fingers crossed that this is a quick and smooth process. We will need to get our homestudy amended and we'll have to create a profile in order to  "sell" ourselves.

So, we're off on a new path and hopefully we'll get a call soon!

D&D

Roller Coaster

Well, where to begin...well since I last posted, there has been some slow down to Russian adoptions due to an unfortunate event. I'm sure you've all read the story of the Tennessee mother who "sent back" her 7 year old adoptive son back to Russian, by himself with a note attached to his jacket. Needless to say the Russian government did not look to kindly on this act, which is understandable. So, in a knee jerk reaction, reported that they were shutting down all Russian adoptions. Well, as it turns out, this was just talk and as it turns out, they are just slowing things down a bit until the governments, both Russian and US come to some sort of agreement on how to prevent things like this from happening and how to protect the children leaving Russia.
So, this has slowed us down on our front, so we wait....again... This time waiting has been used to spruce up the nursery, the mural is complete, the trim has been painted, the crib has been ordered and should be arriving at the beginning of July. Now, we wait for another referral and work on paperwork for our dossiers.

The slow up has not deterred me from buying every bulldog themed article of clothing I can find at Gymboree, Carter's or any other children's clothing store...it's a sickness...too many cute kids clothes!

So, we wait, and wait...who knows how long we will wait, there are several families in front of us waiting as well. But our patience will be rewarded, hopefully sometime soon!

I will post pictures of the nursery once we get the furniture in place and set up! I have the bedding and the valances are already up...I love it!

-Deb & Dave

Referral part 1

Hello,
It's been a few months and I should really get better at blogging, but there has not been much to report...until a few weeks ago. We received an email from our coordinator asking us to set up a phone conference to check in, we thought, no problem...

We chatted the next day and told her that we had sent out a bunch of paperwork to be apostilled at the state house and it should be sent to the agency soon.

Then she mentioned that they had a referral for us........oh boy.

We learned that it was a little boy 6 1/2 months old (very young for a Russian referral, 1st red flag) and that he had a very visible cleft lip/palate. Ok, we thought, not such a big deal, very easy to correct. Then she mentions that he is on the growth charts and he has a good head size. Ok, we thought, sounded like he's growing well...
Then she runs through the list of things on his medical, it was quite an extensive list of issues...we thought, ok, we'll send this info to the IA doctors here in Boston and have them evaluate it.

So, we were excited and nervous and completely overwhelmed.

More to come...

Happy New Year!

Well, it's 2010 and we hope this year brings you lots of new adventures! We are hoping that we will have our little one by years end. The holidays were nice and quiet and we celebrated the new year with some old college friends of mine, and celebrated our new years hostess' acquisition of a new house! One of the nice things about my job is a vacation week between Christmas and new years. I really needed the down time to mentally gear up for the waiting. The little one got a bunch of books from Nana and Grandpa and a few from us as well, Dave can't wait to read the red sox book to him/her. The little one also got a Sox baseball hat too...they will definitely be growing up as a Sox fan! I also finished the big mural in the nursery and plotting the opposite wall. We are going with a Classic Pooh theme, it is my favorite and gender neutral.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and hope your 2010 will be filled with lots of great memories!