Wanna know something funny -- and irritating at the same time? Last night, we were all excited about having our homestudy paperwork completed, and then I went to clean up my paper mess I made last night when Amy was here (it appeared that our adoption box had exploded all over the livingroom! ha ha!). I noticed that it appeared that she had left the picture of us sitting on the couch, and then I noticed some other stuff she should've carried with her. Yeah...I had forgotten to send the entire stack of paperwork WITH her!!! Thankfully, my friend Ginger is going in the B'ham direction today, and she will safely deliver it to Lifeline for Amy to pickup. How crazy was that?!? We had gone through the checklist, making sure we had everything to give to her, and then just forgot to actually put it in her hands! Oh well...it will be in her possession late today or first thing in the morning, and she assures us that it will not slow her down in the writing of our homestudy report. So that's that. :)

Wow, I've spent a bit of time on hold this morning...we will have to have a copy of our doctor's license for our dossier, and that's not just something that most doctors will give to just anybody. So I called to give them a heads' up about what we might need at our appointment this afternoon. At first, the nurse I spoke with said she didn't think that we'd be able to get a copy... but I guess sitting patiently on hold paid off, because she finally came back & said that she got approval. I'm glad I called ahead, because otherwise, they might've been blindsided by the request -- so there' s a hurdle that we prepared ourselves to take smoothly (hopefully!!)

One question some of you have asked is how old our baby will be when we finalize the adoption. It's pretty interesting, because in the past few years, people have gotten the babies as young as 8 or 10 months old. I put in a call to Natalia (our Russian adoption consultant in TN) this morning about our medicals, and went on to ask her if our baby will be that young...because I've recently heard that the babies from Russia are a bit older these days. Obviously, there is no way of knowing, but a quick rundown of how it works in a "perfect" adoption (if there is such a thing!!:) Here is what she told me & as I understand it at this point:

Once it is decided by a parent in Russia (or by the gov't, should the parent's rights be taken away) for a baby to be adopted, he/she will be put on 3 different databases within Russia...a local database, a regional database, and a country database. The baby must remain on these 3 databases for 6 months (I think to be available for Russian domestic adoption). In an ideal situation, the baby will be put in the 3 databases at the same time (although this is not necessarily what happens -- they could be put in the databases at differing times, but have to remain on each database for 6 months). SO...let's assume that the baby is put on 3 databases at the same time when he/she is 3 months old. That will mean that the baby will not be available for referral until he/she is 9 months old. Ideally, we'd be able to have our referral around that time, but it can still take upwards of a few months for our final court date, etc. So our baby will probably be a little older than we originally thought when we actually bring him/her home.

Now, if the baby goes on one database at 3 months, another at 4 months, and another at 5 months, then he/she won't go off of the last database until 11 months, when he/she would be available for referral -- which would make him/her that much older when we brought him/her home. Some children don't go on the database till they're even over a year old. So...the youngest we can actually request is 18 months or younger -- because of the time it often takes for processing and paperwork, etc.

Clear as mud?!? :) ha ha! Really, if anything is not clear, or if I haven't done a good job in my explanation, please tell me & I'll clear it up as best I can! :)

This may be an odd thing to pray for, but I really would appreciate prayers that our baby is put on all three databases at the same time, very early, because the younger our baby is when we bring him/her home, the more capable I will feel in facilitating a healthy secure attachment with him or her. Of course, God knows what He's doing, and what is best for us, so our ideas may not match His plan...that is okay -- I figure it doesn't hurt to put in humanly requests, though, based on our knowledge of child development and attachment. He will provide and will not give us a situation that we cannot handle, and I feel very confident of that!!!

Another question about this that I had is how have others been able to bring home their babies before 12 months old? The answer to this lies in the Russian gov't. Up until January of this year (2006), the time to remain on each database was 3 months -- they changed it to 6 months in January. Hence the reason why our baby may be a bit older than we originally thought when we bring him or her home.

Why do we call our baby a "him OR her" or "him/her"? The reason for this is because we have mentioned that we "prefer" a boy, but would be equally excited about a girl. We are leaving the gender of our baby up to God & the Russian government. The way we see it, we wouldn't be able to pick the gender of our child if we were pregnant -- it's natural for expecting parents to say they hope their baby is one gender or the other. So naturally, we may have a preference, but we are not going to be so choosy as to say that we will not accept one gender over the other. We will be thrilled just having a baby home with us!

Okay -- I think that's enough for now. If you have a particular question you would like answered, please email me or leave a comment (at the bottom of this post, you will be able to click on "Comments" where you can leave a comment for us). Things may be slow on the blog, in terms of me having concrete updates from now on, so a good way to keep you from becoming bored with our blog entries is to ask any questions you may have! So fire away! If I don't know the answer, it will give me an opportunity to think about things I've not thought of!

Sorry for the long post -- I just couldn't stop myself! ha ha - nothing you didn't already know, right?? ;)

Love you all!

Labels: FAQs, International Adoption, Paperwork