Russian Holidays!

Freaking out!  Ok, just a little bit, I sent our visas off for 3 business day service, sent it Thursday, they received it Friday. Should be done by Tuesday right? Nope, Nov. 1st is a Russian holiday so they don't work that day, so they won't have it done until Wednesday, so I won't get it back until Thursday.  Cutting it close in my opinion.  Next time I think I will find a place that does two day service, or I will make sure that there are no Russian holidays hindering my visa application!

Our Trip

This is what our trip is going to look like..

Nov. 6th Leave KC and fly to Cinci. OH, then Cinci. to JFK, JFK to Moscow arriving on Nov. 7th.
(side note, we could of flew straight to New York, but then would of had to change airports, Newark to JFK, not interested in that,  the tickets we got were a $1.50 more than straight to New York.)
Then overnight train to Kirov arriving on the 8th. 

Hopefully a shower before we go to the orphanage!

Two visits each day on the 8th and the 9th, sign papers, and overnight train back to Moscow arriving on the 10th.

Flight from Moscow to JFK, then JFK to Cinci, and an overnight in Cinci.

Leave bright and early on the 11th and fly home to KC, and to our little man. 

Not a lot of time with our princess, but my view is, the faster we get home, the faster we get to go back and bring her home for good!

We are gone for 6 days, but only staying 2 nights in a hotel!  We are going to be EXHAUSTED!  Randy is going to have two recovery days before he has to go back to work, hope that is enough.

Ready! I think...

Well I got the visas in the mail today, good thing I called the company last minute, because she told to me to include our ID numbers and passwords for the online application, probably to fix any mistakes we made.  This information was not on their websites on what to include so I am so thankful I called.  The only problem is everyone at that office is Russian and their accents are so hard to understand over the phone! 

Our bank got the money thing taken care of, I called a bigger "branch" and spoke to someone who had done this before and she said she would have our money for us by Tuesday.  Wahoo!  Now all I have to do is pack, and go buy her two outfits, one in 18 months and one 24 months to see what size she is!  Any suggestions on snacks?  I am taking puffs and yogurt melts.  Any other good suggestions?

Visa Application-OH MY HEAVENS!

That thing is INSANE!  I am surprised they don't ask for a blood sample.  I am just floored at how long it took me to fill it out.  For those of you who finished before July 2011 they changed the application system, to where it has to be filled out online, don't know what it was like before, but WOW!  The thing I am worried about is it asked for my current employer, well I am a stay at home mom, I don't have one, but it would not let me move to the next page without a position and an address of my current employer.  So I just put stay-at-home mom and my home address.  Any other SAHM's have this same problem?  Did I do it right?  Also, the question on how many countries have I been in during the past 10 years!  I had to call my mom to help me out, to see if certain trips happened in the past 10 years.  Randy is going to be miserable on his, he took a 5 week backpacking trip across Europe and Israel back in 2004, so he will have fun filling in all those countries!

I have almost everything squared away except for the Visa and our crisp new bills.  Our bank was like WHAT?!?  They will try, but no guarantees.  Yeah!  Flights are booked, and I didn't sleep a wink last night, I think drugs are going to be in my immediate future.

WE GOT THE CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you heard me correctly, Camden is going to be a big brother FINALLY!

I got the call on Oct. 12th, but there were some questions about her medicals so I decided to keep mum.  After waiting 20 months with Agency A, and then switching to Agency B we got the call less than 2 weeks after our application was accepted!  She is a beautiful little girl who was born on our anniversary, even better!  We leave on Nov. 6th to go and meet her!  I am SOOOO excited I can hardly stand it.  Right now we are researching flights to see what our options are.

We will fly to Moscow and then take an overnight train to her region, Kirov about 500 miles away.  Spend 2-3 days with her and then fly home!  The best news ever!  I will post more when I get more info!

Off it goes!

Finally, our dossier is on it's way to California!  Today I finally got to go pick up our home study documents from the agency to a nice tune of $275.  Don't even get me started on this.  They have a policy that if they have to do any additional documents after the update they charge $25 a page.  I should of asked for a discount since they made me wait over a week for them, but oh well. 

Off to Topeka then, where I then spent another $435 on apostilles.  Yikes!  That one hurt.  Not to mention the 8 that I had from Missouri.  64 documents in all.  So then off to FedEx I go.  Now I I don't hardly EVER ship anything, and usually if I do I use snail mail.  So when he asked me if I wanted Morning overnight delivery or afternoon overnight delivery I figured there couldn't be THAT big of a price difference.  Needless to say when he told me my total, I about had a cow, $75 to ship.  My bad, next time I will choose afternoon delivery!  I am just glad it is finally out of our hands and in the hands of our agency now.  My stack of documents were so thick I couldn't use an envelope, I had to use a box, which upped the price a little there also!

Have a great day everyone.

Denise

What a week

As I stated in my last post we have been waiting on our home study agency to finish up some paper work for our new agency.  I was supposed to have them by last Monday.  Then I was supposed to have them today. Now I am not going to get them until Tuesday.  All because someone didn't read the directions.  I was cc:ed in the email that went to our home study agency and I read everything that they were suppose to do, they were not difficult. Our agency sent the templates and all they had to do was to fill in their information.  There was also 1 specific instruction on EACH form, the Executive Director has to sign each form, not the social worker.  Well each form was filled out for the Social Worker to sign.  When that was brought to our home studies attention by Agency B when they checked everything a nasty email was sent back to Agency B, from the social worker, that those instructions needed to be clarified better in the instructions.  Each template for the signature portion, it said specifically Executive Director.  In the instructions, it said Executive Director.  I don't know how much more specific it could of gotten.  So each form had to be changed from her name to his.  Not too bad right, well then she let us know that the Executive Director is on vacation until next Tuesday.  So I can't have my stuff until then.  Now I have had all my stuff done for almost a week, and that's after spending HOURS on the phone trying to find a CPA, etc.  All they had to do was copy and paste and fill someones name in.  Hmmmm.....I really wish our first home study agency hadn't been put on the blacklist.  I might switch back to them for the post-placements, we will see.

So on Tuesday, I will be in their office bright and early and I will sit and wait until they hand me my papers, and after I double check each one, then I will be off to Topeka, getting them Appostiled, and then overnighting them to California.  Whew!  Hopefully I will have good news for you next week! :-)

I just don't get it!

So Randy and I have been busting out booties to get all our paperwork done for the new agency.   I finished today, minus the doctor visits, and the psychological exam.  Our home study agency has had all the paperwork from our new agency since last Monday, and she said she would have it done by Monday at the latest.  Well she emailed me yesterday, and said that she wasn't finished and there was one form that she has no idea on how to fill out.  She asked me if I knew how to fill it out!  I was like WHAT!?!  That is why you are the home study agency, you are up to date on adoption stuff, not me.  So, it doesn't look like I will get it today either, as I tried to call her and she has been out all day, and I really wanted to go get everything Appostilled tomorrow since Camden has school and I wouldn't have to drag him along with me.  I dragged him all over today and he did so good, I put the kiddo in the car for a 30 minute drive out to the CPA's office, then 20 minutes to downtown, then another 20 minutes to find a parking spot.  Note to self, never go to a government building the day after a holiday, INSANE!  Had to park 6 blocks away, ended up carrying Camden about half of that, the boy is getting BIG!  But after 50 minutes in the Missouri Secretary of State's office, he was DONE!  I think they were done with us also.  We have met our $100 limit in Missouri on Appostile's so I think she kept pushing us back and took care of all the paying people first.  There were plenty of people who came in after us, that left before us.  So now we are at the mercy of the home study agency, hopefully they finish by Friday morning at the earliest, so I can run to Topeka and get our Dossier to California to our new agency.  I wanted it there by Thursday, and we would of had a record Dossier prep, less than two weeks, but we are looking right at two weeks now.  Still pretty fast.  Now if only Kansas would put a cap on their Appostile's. I think I will be writing them probably right around a $500 check when I go!

New Family Photos!

Well I was suppose to get these done this summer close to Camden's 3rd birthday but the week we had them scheduled it was right around 109 degrees outside, needless to say I called and rescheduled.  I am really glad I did, this way we got "fallish" pictures.  Here are a few of the best ones!  Notice the new one on top!

What Randy and I did today!

Well first we dropped Camden off at school, and then we headed over to the bank to get all 34 documents of our notarized.  That took about an hour, the poor notary didn't know what she was getting herself into!  Then we went home to continue on the quest for a CPA and a psychologist.  Since we are not real estate developers, or hold large assets, we have never used an accountant, or CPA.  We do our taxes ourselves.  So this is how our conversations went with the CPA's.

Randy or Me: Hi...(explain what we need here)...Can you help us?
CPA: Are you a current customer?
Us: No
CPA: Sorry, we can't.
or
CPA: Sorry it is not legal for us to sign that without a full audit of our assets.
Us: Well how much is an audit?
CPA: You don't want to know.
Us: Why do you need to do an audit?
CPA: So we can't get sued.
Us: Really? Who's going to sue you? Russia?

End of Conversation...

FINALLY, I put out a word of help on Facebook, and a friend of mine had a friend that is a CPA, I called her, explained what we needed, she hesitated, I stated I can email you the form, she said ok she would look at it.  Finally she emailed back, and said YES!!!!!  Wahoo!!!!!!!!

Hope we don't have to redo that document again!

Now on to Psychologists:

Randy:: Hi.....(explain what we need)... Can you help us?
Psy: You mean you DON"T want a diagnosis?
Randy: Exactly, we want you to say we are NOT crazy.
Psy: Sorry, I can't bill your insurance if you don't receive a diagnosis.
Randy:WHAT??
Psy: Blah, Blah, Blah

Finally we found one who will do it!  Insurance SAYS they will cover it, supposedly with a $25 co-pay for each of us.  We will see!

All together this took right around 5 hours, and at least 30-40 phone calls.  Never have I seen more people Unwilling to help someone adopt.  The funny thing though is that almost all the calls ended with Good Luck on your adoption!

Question?

For those who had to go to a Psychiatrist, how did you phrase the initial phone call.  Or how did you even know who to call?  We have to visit one for our new agency, and I am at a loss at how to find this particular one.  I got answers for everything else, just this one is tricky!  Help please!