Waiting...

It has been so long since I gave an adoption update. I thought I would use some downtime during my call day to do it.

The reason I haven't said much is there isn't much to say.  Let's see.  Everyone asks when we will get our daughter.  We still don't know. Basically, when we sent in our dossier (which is basically the docs that register us with Russia) they said that for a young, healthy, girl, we should expect to wait 6-9 months for the first trip.  They told us at the time that this was usually a longer time period than what normally happened. In fact, when I was talking with the international coordinator at our agency (Building Blocks) she said that the longest they have had a family wait recently for a young girl was 7 months.  BUT...this was all before things in Russia slowed down due to political hesitancy with international adoptions. The crazy woman who adopted a boy without fully understanding the consequences of him having grown up in an orphanage and sent him back to Russia alone, with a note, has royally screwed up everything for the hundreds, if not thousands, of willing, excited, and realistic families who are trying to bring him a child to love.  Meanwhile there are thousands of kids in horrible orphanages who stays there are being needlessly prolonged. But, unfortunately, my opinion doesn't matter. Since then, things have slowed down.  Andrea, the international coordinator at Building Blocks said that things are moving, by more slowly.  However, she also said she expected our referral to still be in the 6-9 month time frame.  I don't know how she could possibly know that.  Maybe she does or maybe she is just trying to make me feel better.  I am more inclined to believe the latter, but I am hopeful that she is right.

We are coming up on 5 months of waiting. So we will see.  Tim and I are both hopeful we will get a call in August or September, but again, we just have no idea.  My life is definitely crazy enough now and I am enjoying having 2 kids, so I am not necessarily sitting around every moment in agony waiting to add another child to my family.  However, I have begun to anticipate our daughter and I do hope they call in the next few months. I cannot imagine the torture that this waiting period must be for families who have no children and are waiting for an adopted child.

The other news is that Russia recently changed their laws (who said they could do that?) and they now require 3, one week trips to Russia instead of 2 trips, one longer and one shorter.  We are less than thrilled with this change because we are going to have to spend thousands and thousands (and thousands?) of dollars more to buy plane tickets for a third trip not to mention all those painful hours sitting on planes.  We are still trying to figure out what to do with the kids during these trips.  We are not allowed to bring the kids into the orphanage, so if we bring them (or even just Samuel) we require very generous babysitters to join us on our international excursion.  I am definitely planning on bringing the whole family for the last trip, when we pick her up, and I'd like to bring Samuel for the first trip, also, since I will most definitely still be nursing him.  But a billion hours on a plane is a lot for me, let alone my infant or my (very) active 2 1/2 year old or 3 year old.

So that's all for now. We are planning on going to a picnic in the northern part of Ohio that our adoption agency holds in a few weeks.  We are hoping to meet a lot of families who have adopted from Russia (and more importantly meet their children).  We sure could use some stories, advice, and some first hand look at the kids that have been adopted. We are excited for our mini vacation (swimming, playgrounds, and a trip to the zoo!)  We will have more to say after the trip.