Another Step

We received word that our agency has sent our Dossier via DHL to Moscow to be translated (OK, I called them ten times). Hip Hip hooray!!!!

While it is one small step in this process it is a necessary step in the right direction. The typical processing time is three to four weeks to be translated and then it is registered with the Ministry of Education and Science in the Moscow Region. So, we are playing the waiting game patiently (HA!). I have a feeling that you will see my patience get a little thin but right now it is OK. Our dossier was over fifty pages and contains our homestudy, marriage license, deed to our house, official registry paperwork, passport photos, picture of our house and families, criminal records checks, bank statements, etc.. It takes between two and three months to put all this together, so I can imagine it does take four weeks to translate everything into Russian.

Jeff and I have been thinking about the babies room and have started to move things out (desk, futon, book shelf, etc.). We were thinking we may need a bigger house, but since no one is allow to move out of our two court community it looks like a trip to the goodwill is in order. The interesting thing about the nursery, at first we were going to do everything in blue with a sports theme and then jokingly I said we would probably get twin girls. We looked at each other and thought what if we get a girl? She could hold it against her Mother and Father for the rest of her life that she was forced into a boy’s blue sports room. As you see, we are well on our way to being psychotic parents thinking too much about how we can prevent psychological issues.

Guess what colors we are doing – not red, white and blue – yellow and green – gender neutral colors. I apologize to all my girlfriends who I yelled at for picking these colors, but I have joined the club. I will update everyone next week on any news.

Thanks for all the well wishes and support. It really helps us on those frustrating days.

Maria & Jeff

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to our blog and guess where we are going? We are starting this blog (thanks to my friend Lauren’s help) to let all of our family and friends follow along on our journey as we start our family. We finished all of our paperwork (dossier) and sent it to our adoption agency last week. They are reviewing it and hopefully sending it to Moscow next week (September 22) to be translated. Translation usually takes four weeks. Once translated, it will be submitted to the MOE (Ministry of Education) who will assign us a child or sibling group (Yep, maybe more than one) and invite us to travel to the Moscow region. This may take another 2 –3 months. We will only have a week or two notice before heading to the Moscow region for one week to meet our child or children. We have no gender preference and hoping for children between ten month (youngest available) and four year old. We will NOT receive any information about our child prior to landing in Russia. This is commonly referred to as traveling blind. Adopting in Russia has been very challenging as the laws are forever changing (NGO and reaccrediation are two current issues that we have been struggling with but so far so good).
Life is full of surprise and this will be the adventure of a lifetime.
Prior to this, we had been busy running around get paperwork, fingerprints, a home health inspection, criminal records checks our homestudy, and passports (ask Jeff about that fiasco). So, now that our paperwork is in, we wait. There will not be a lot of news in the next two months, but we will try to update you every couple of weeks on our progress. In fact, we may even take some time to do fun things like work on the baby’s room.

One statement that we read and feels so true:
"Adoption is having your child born to another and your journey of faith to bring them home"

We welcome you to participate in our journey, hold on tight, we are heading for the ride of a lifetime.

Maria and Jeff