Adoption Redo Papers

Here's what our Russian Coordinator said the judge is going to ask for...

*New Employment Verifications--apparently all the news of the US Economy and Job layoffs, has the judge asking for current employment verifications...

*Redo of the Criminal Background Checks, ours expired it's been a year already...

*Redo of the Syphillis blood test. It must be within 1 month old prior to court...?? (Note this was the only blood test we have to redo). I think we have to redo the Russian medicals too, as they expire within 3 months, but I'm not positive on this yet...

So this all means a trip to Anchorage to get the Background checks done and turn the rest into Olga along with our last payment to her...

Another interesting tidbit...the current exchange rate is 36 rubles to dollars! Looks like the Russian Economy is following the US Downturns... (It was 26 rubles in 2005, when we were there)...

Hurry Up Mode

Adoption is a strange world of waiting, waiting, waiting and then hurry up and get all the documents done. We've entered the hurry up mode again today with a lengthy e-mail from our agency listing what we need to do and redo before we travel. We may have an expired document to update, redo our bloodwork for another Russian 8 doctor medical checkup, select hotels, order money, US Embassy stuff, etc. No we don't have a date, but Olga wants us to be ready to go by the day of our pretrial court hearing (Feb 26), just in case there is a fast court date turnaround*.

So tomorrow I will begin again the paperwork hussle hopefully for the last time in order to bring Katie home and make our family complete.

*Will we have a fast court date turnaround? Your guess is as good as mine. There are a lot of American Adoption cases in pretrial mode right now in Khabarovsk court, so the schedule is probably filling up fast... Fingers crossed that all works out best for everyone!

Good News from Russia!!

The judge has accepted our documents. The pretrial court hearing is scheduled for Feb 26th. This is when she meets with our agency rep and goes over the paperwork and when she will decide on a court date. We are being told to be prepared to travel in March!

GOOD NEWS!!!!

Random Thoughts

In no particular order. Random thoughts that I would have blogged about this week had we not had such a busy, sick one...

* The mama moose has abandoned her twin babies (normal) and now they are confused as to what to do. Each day this week we saw them crossing or by the main road. They spook very easily now and for some reason keep hanging around our house. Thankfully they don't charge right now just run away... I believe they have eaten all the raspberry bushes and lilacs down to the ground. Hopefully the plants will come back.

*OCD Bathroom Behavior. When we adopted the boys, they had never used a toilet before. They use bowls in the orphanages. I will always remember their first screaming in terror bathroom experience. S. is still fascinated by bathrooms, every where we go he has to see them. He's also obsessive about them being clean. He won't use them if they aren't clean. (Note: the boys are so obsessive about this, I just let them clean their bathroom whenever they want, good problem to have huh?)... Anyway, the OCD has led him to have some major stomach problems. There is only 1 toilet and 2 urinals in the boy's Kindergarten bathroom for about 75 kinder boys. Problem: It's never clean... So poor guy is having some serious issues that we're trying to work with the school on solving the bathroom problems.

*No the volcano has not erupted. It's still shaking the ground though and it's getting stronger. Each day we have ashfall predictions on the weather, so if it goes off, folks know how bad they might be affected. PS we're talking millimeters of ash here, just health risks not major danger. It will impact international flights though, so it will probably wait to go off until we have to travel...

*Past AIA Khabarovsk Clients. If you haven't heard I'm working on a scrapbook to take to Irina and Olga showing pics of the kids before/after. Love to have your pics, if you haven't sent them already. They've had a rough year and deserve a little bit of smiles to help show them that all their hard work is worth it...

*Finally I'm happy to hear that things are moving regarding international adoptions in several different regions of Russia. Congrats to all of you who have received referrals, pre-court hearings, and even those lucky with COURT DATES!! It's good to hear about kids coming home... Best wishes to you all...

Step 1 complete

WHEW!

2/3/2009 2:09 pm Shipment delivered.

Next step will the judge accept or reject. It may be a few days before we hear this answer...