Update...

"The head of the American delegation Michael Kirby, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for consular affairs, said the meeting had been "fruitful". "We agree we want to do the best for the children…," he said. But the main document is still not ready. Russia’s children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said that the document will be finished and handed to the US side shortly. Russia plans to include 8 new amendments to the agreement. According to Astakhov, the US delegation will stay in Moscow for another couple of days and continue to form a working group. Both Russians and Americans are ready for this, Astakhov said: "The US party has shown their readiness to continue negotiations and sign the bilateral agreement on adoption. Now it is important to work out this document as soon as possible. The US side understands the delay and Michael Kirby said we are on one side. "

Earlier Astakhov said the Russian side presented all the document’s provisions to the US . They are based on the Hague Adoption Convention which was not ratified by Russia.The main talks on adoption are due on May 12. All the needed documents will be ready by that time.
Report from Dmitry Borisov

Fingerprint Appt!

Yeah, we got it! Less than two weeks after we sent off our application and it was received we got our notice for our fingerprint appt. with the USCIS!! The only bad thing is the date. It is May 21st. That is the first day of our garage sale. :-( But my mom is going to be here, and a babysitter for the little man, and I have some great friends who have volunteered to come over and help while Randy and I are gone. The crazy thing though, is that Randy's appt. is at 9, and mine is at 10. I definately am not going to wait an hour, so two trips here we go!! That way our help doesn't have to stay too long. The get there when I leave 9:15ish, and leave when Randy gets back hopefully no later than 10:30. Things are just moving right along, I know this is meant to be. The delagation is meeting right now, so praying for smooth talks between the two countries.

Paka,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Dossier 1....

Is in the mail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, that feels good to say. We just spent 2 hours in Kinko's making copies of our Dossier 1 and then recopying all the ones that messed up!! Good thing Kinko's has a refund policy for messed up copies. We didn't notice right off the bat so we had like 51 copies that we had to redo. Oh well, that is a load off our shoulders, along with quite a bit of money too. It is so worth it though. I can't wait until we get a referral. I know it is still many months away, but I am excited.

Paka,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Apostille's Done!

They are done. Unforunately we live in a state that does not have a cap on their Apostille's. Kansas is broke, so every penny they can get from us they do! So we have the 120 mile trip to Topeka and back round trip, the $2.50 toll each way, and $232.50 check we wrote to the wonderful Secretary of State for less than 30 minutes of work for them, and of course plugging my meter, and I guess I just stimulated Kansas' economy by almost $300. Now mind you I own a suburban and get 14 miles to the gallon.

We will be making all our copies tonight and then tomorrow we are overnighting our package to Indiana!!! BTW Camden was awesome, he is such a good little guy, he sat and colored and ate a snack while we waited and he is a great car rider. Though he is a horrible napper in the car.

Also, if you could keep in your prayers, the U.S. Delagation is meeting with Russian officials on April 29th and 30th to discuss an adoption agreement between the two countries, so praying things are going to go well.

okay here we go...

This week is going to be very busy! These are hopeful deadlines, not set in stone. Hopefully, Monday we go the bank after Randy gets done with clinicals and get everything in Dossier 1 notarized. Tuesday, Camden and I hop in the car to Topeka to get everything Apostilled. I really hope it doesn't take a long time because entertaining an almost 2 year old in a government building should be fun. Plus the $232 fee that is attached to everything will just be amazing too! No, Kansas does not have a cap on their Apostille's that I have heard Texas does at $100. Then when Randy gets home from clinicals again on Tuesday, we go over everything with a fine tooth comb make sure it is perfect, and make all of our necessary copies. Then Wednesday, Camden and I again will hop into the car to go to FedEx to have our "package" shipped overnight to our agency, hopefully they don't send it to Nebraska like they did our I-600A application. With that package, will be a nice chunk of our savings, and then Thursday, we relax.

On other news, I applied for a grant yesterday, so now I have to get all the paperwork for them within the next 30 days for the application process to continue. Luckily they don't need a blood sample, but pretty much everything else personal about us they need. I hope and pray that we get this grant, I have heard ranges of $$ that this particular organization awards, and it has ranged from $300-$3,000. Any amount will help us.

As far as our garage sale, God is good. We have so much stuff that we can not park our cars in our garage. The bad news is, it is going to take me forever to set it all up!!! That is a good thing though really. If you live in KC, stop by our house for some awesome deals on some good stuff. Also we will be having a raffle for a home made quilt made by my aunt. It is beautiful. As soon as I can, I will post a picture of it for all to see her amazing work!

Hope all are having a wonderful night!

Paka,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

The Kindness of Strangers

As all of you probably know, Randy and I are holding a garage sale May 21-22 in order to raise funds for our adoption. We sent out letters to friends and family to ask for donations of items for stuff to sell. We the response has been amazing. We have so much stuff already it is insane. To top it off we got a call from a friend who told some family friends about us and they passed on some estate items from a deceased relative. It filled a 26 ft. moving truck!!!!! We are so amazed at the kindness that these people showed us. It is going to help us out so much that I just know we are going to break garage sale records!!!

Many of you are probably wondering about the possible suspension in Russia. Right now adoptions are still happening and the U.S. delegation is suppose to be on their way over there right now, but a crazy volcano in Iceland decided to erupt which has canceled over 16,000 flights to Europe. So the talks are on hold, and unfortunately for those who were suppose to have court dates this week are also on hold because they can't get over there! Pray that the ash cloud breaks up quickly so flights can resume to Europe ASAP!!!

Paka,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Are we Suspended, or Not??

The news this morning said we were suspended, now they are saying that we aren't. Your guess is as good as ours.
Denise

This is not what I was going to write about today.

I was going to write about how so far adoption has changed our lives, even though we are still new to the process, but we woke up this morning to news that all adoptions have been suspended to U.S. citizens until an agreement is reached between the U.S. and Russia. This includes all 200 families over there who are currently picking up their children in Russia. I feel so horrible for them. I am not sure what to think right now, but I am sure we are going to stick to our guns. I have already heard of people dropping out of the program. Please pray that this is a very temporary thing and we can get back on track soon.

Paka,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Good News and Bad News

The good news is we got our completed homestudy!!!!! Less that two weeks from the visit, and we have it in our hot little hands. Now we can really get moving.

The bad news is, we got our I-600A application back rejected. They rejected us for 2 reasons. The first is our own stupidity. We forgot to sign the application!!! How crazy is that we need to really double check our stuff before we send it in. The second reason we were rejected is because of their stupidity. They said we didn't pay enough money.

Here is the break down. The filing fee is $670 for the I-600A application. Then you also have to submit $80 per person over the age of 18 living in your home to be fingerprinted. There are two of us which equals $160. Now please tell me if my math is wrong, but

670
+160
-----
$830

That is the amount that we sent them, but they say it is wrong. I have scoured the website looking for an additional fee that maybe we missed or something, because I do not want to spend another $20 sending it back again if they make the same mistake again, but I have not found some extra fee. Please tell me if I was wrong. Hopefully the person who added it up just couldn't add. That is sad though that a government worker can't do math. It is bad enough that we forgot to sign our application!!!

So long for now.

Randy, Denise, and Camden

Suspension of Adoption Agency

click here

I suggest we call the D.A. of Shelbyville, Tennessee to make sure the U.S. takes action against this mom for abdonment, so that Russia sees that the U.S. does care about the well-being of these children. All those poor people in that agency who have no control over their adoption now because of one selfish person. There is a process for returning a child that has been adopted internationally, but this woman thought it would be okay to just send him on a plane. She assumed that the Russian Government would just take care of it. Also the congressman of that district, and senator of their district. Even the Mayor of Shelbyville.

Here is their info.

Bedford County Mayor
Eugene Ray
One Public Square, Suite 101
Shelbyville, TN 37160
(931) 684-7944

Congressman Bart Gordon
Washington Office
2306 Rayburn HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4231

U.S. Senator Bob Corker
202-224-3344

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander
Washington Office
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944

District Attorney General
Shelbyville, TN (931) 684-1746

I don't understand...

What goes through people's minds.

click here

A beautiful healthy child treated that way. It saddens me greatly as we know of people over there right now getting their children. Pray that it doesn't affect them in their process.

There are ways to end an adoption, this is not one of them. So sad.....

Home Study Draft

Yeah, just a quick post to tell you all that we got our home study draft today. There were only some minor fixes that we needed to make, such as the spelling of names and such. So back to the home study agency to fix and then on to our international agency to see if they need to make any changes. We are getting closer.

On a side note, I got Camden's picture yesterday for his 21 month old pics. See below!

Musings....

They say that in adoption waiting is the worst part. Even though we are barely two months into this, I have to agree. I am not a patient person, and I hate waiting. I am the person who will change lines 3 times in Wal-Mart just to get through the line faster. I still always chose the wrong line though. :-) Since we have our homestudy done, now all we are doing is waiting for them to send us the rough draft, so that we can approve it, and then have it sent to our agency so that they can approve it. Then we can send it in to be with our I-600A application that hopefully is not lost with the USCIS. I mailed that two weeks ago and they received it 1 week ago. I do have a new task ahead of me though. A garage sale. I was researching ways to raise money for our adoption without actually asking people for money, and I came across the idea of have a large donation garage sale. Well I have sent out the letters and so far the response has been great. I believe we are going to have a wonderful turn-out. If you live in KC we will be having our garage sale May 21-22nd. Stop on by.

God is teaching me patience through this time. He always teaches me and then rewards me afterwards. I know that beautiful little girl at the end of our adoption journey is going to be my reward, just like Camden was my reward after a long frustrating pregnancy.

For now,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Home Study Done!!!!

Yeah, it was painless! We had a very easy going social worker and our house was very ready for "inspection." We were done in under an hour! All that cleaning for such a short period of time. Oh well, it needed a deep cleaning anyway. I am glad to have that hurdle done. Now on for typing and submitting to our international agency and then we are done. We can then send it in for our I-600A application and we can start applying for grants! Please pray that we receive some grants, otherwise I will never see my husband as he will be working 5 jobs in order for us to fund our adoption! Just kidding about the 5 jobs thing. On a personal note, I applied for a position at our church, we would be very blessed if I got it. Thanks for your support.

Randy, Denise, and Camden