Tails of Destruction

It is Friday, is it not? Because I’ve been walking around all day thinking it was. In fact, I even made the executive decision to close our office early and let our paralegals and attorneys get a jump start on what I thought was going to be their weekend. It’d be a real shame if we all have to go in tomorrow considering we’re under the impression that tomorrow is Saturday. Hmmm…

Oh wait, maybe Friday isn’t considered the end of the week anymore. Is that it? No? Hmmm…

Well, the only other thing I can surmise is that FPL (fingerprint lady) has a different calendar than the rest of us. You see, she never called our SW about Judy’s fingerprints. It seems her voicemail doesn’t actually record messages because she didn’t return any calls either. If by now you have guessed that Judy’s fingerprints remain MIA, sadly you are correct.

Our dogs overheard us talking about all of this tonight and they’re pretty upset about it as well, which is quite evident in the Tails of Destruction below:

"Oh well," Bailey says, "maybe Monday??"

Despite this continued setback and my post from a few days ago, I am content!

I am content because I have an amazing husband who loves me unconditionally. Who understands I have my "freak out" moments from time to time, and who knows exactly how to make me laugh and forget all about the freaking out stuff.

I am content because I know the finances will, somehow, someway, workout.

I am content because through God's grace I was adopted into His family, even though more often than not I don't deserve that honor.

I am content because I know that God's hand is holding my own and is guiding us through our adoption - even when our timelines don't come close to matching!

Yes, I am content...

HS/Fingerprint Update

We didn’t hear from our SW yesterday as to whether or not her committee was able to review the HS pending Judy’s fingerprints. I sent her an email early this morning and then Norm followed up with her this afternoon.

Good News – the committee did approve our HS pending receipt of Judy’s fingerprints.

Semi Good News – the fingerprint lady (“FPL”) lives despite the fact that she hasn’t returned any of the phone calls from our SW. Unfortunately FPL doesn’t know where Judy’s fingerprints are, and told our SW she would get back to her by the end of the week to let her know (a) if FPL was able to find the fingerprints and (b) what the processing time will be if they are found. If they aren’t found, I have no idea what we’re going to do. Judy’s travel schedule is unpredictable right now & I don’t know when she’ll be in town to redo them, if that ends up being our only option. They say IA is not for the faint of heart…I am beginning to understand what this means. Right now so much is dependent on the fingerprints and it’s not like we can just “forego” this step.

On a slightly different note, we received not-so-good news this evening regarding the HELOC we applied for. Our house was appraised for far, far, FAR less than we know it is worth. We were not only offended by the appraisal, we almost had to laugh at it because it was completely ridiculous. Obtaining a HELOC from this particular lender is now out of the question and this evening I applied to another lender.

I’m sure I sound pretty discouraged right now. Yeah, I guess I am but I think I’m more confused than discouraged. A little while ago I was hiding in my office while Norm watched a show about “exotic foods” (read as DISGUSTING - as in still beating frog hearts… blech!!) when I stumbled upon, and found comfort in, these verses and Bible study notes:

Gen. 30:22 (NLT): Then God remembered Rachel’s plight and answered her prayers by giving her a child.

Life Application Study Bible Explanatory Note re Exodus 2:9 : "God doesn’t need much from us to accomplish his plan for our lives. Focusing on our human predicament may paralyze us because the situation may appear humanly impossible. But concentrating on God and his power will help us see the way out. Right now you may feel unable to see through your troubles. Focus instead on God, and trust him for the way out. That is all he needs to begin his work in you."

Life Application Study Bible Explanatory Note re 1 Samuel 13:11-13: "It is difficult to trust God when you feel your resources slipping away… When you know what God wants, follow his plan regardless of the consequences. God often uses delays to test our obedience and patience."

So for this evening, I leave you all with the following prayer requests: Please join us in prayer for the financial provision we need to make this adoption possible. Without the HELOC we are missing at least ½ of the funds we need to bring our child home. If God has other plans for financing our adoption, GREAT! But we need the wisdom to figure out what that plan is, and the resources to follow the plan. Also, I think we could both use a good dose of patience and peace knowing that this is all in God’s hands and WILL work out! And, of course, please pray that Judy’s fingerprints are found and returned to our SW as quickly as possible.

Until tomorrow,Kar & Tiger

S.T.A.L.L.E.D. / Learning Russian Culture

First off - THANK YOU and WELCOME to our family & friends who have logged into our blog for the first time within the past few days. I'm shocked at how quickly some of you received your Christmas cards & announcements. We're so happy to have you with us on this journey. Please keep the encouraging/supportive emails and comments coming!

In my last post I mentioned that our SW emailed a draft of our HS to our agency for their review & approval. They didn't have a chance to do anything with it on Friday but yesterday they had 3 minor questions for us, which we replied to today. (We didn't have internet AGAIN last night or else we would have answered sooner.) I'm hoping that those questions were they only thing they needed to clear up and that today they told our SW to carry on.

I also mentioned in the last post that our HS agency has committee meetings on Tuesday's. As of yesterday, our HS was on their agenda for today - with the committee approval pending Judy's fingerprints finally getting here. Uh, yeah, still waiting on those. Grrrrr...

Our SW didn't email or call us today so I don't know whether the HS went before the committee or not. I'm also not sure if the SW was able to get in touch with a live person at the fingerprint place. She told me yesterday that they have left multiple messages regarding the fingerprints but no one will return their call. This whole issue really gets under my skin so I'll move on to other, more positive, topics!

Two weekends ago we attended the Freddie Mac Adoption Expo in Washington, DC. There was a ton of great info for people interested in learning more about adoption. I believe there were about 30 vendors there, one of which was FRUA. Yay!! For those of you who don't know, FRUA stands for "Families for Russian and Ukranian Adoption" and is a WONDERFUL organization for anyone interested in pursuing a Russian or Ukranian adoption, as well as for families currently in the process and those who are lucky enough to have already brought their children home. I am so grateful to the ladies at the FRUA table for letting me hoard so much of their time with question after question, and to Laura for emailing me after the event and connecting me with such great resources. Laura, thank you for your kindness and guidance!

As we were driving through DC, both to and from the event, I realized how fortunate we are to live where we live. (Other than the ridiculous DC traffic we have to deal with.) We are going to be able to introduce our child to a vast amount of American history, and visit numerous American landmarks. It got me thinking about the importance of retaining their Russian heritage as well, which frankly I have very limited knowledge of. So, I've decided to learn as much about Russia as I possible can...

We went to Borders this past weekend and picked up a huge wall map of Russia, which clearly shows all 6 regions our agency works in! This is very exciting to me. We also picked up a great book, "Culture Smart: Russia A Quick Guide To Customs & Etiquette", which I recommend to anyone in the process who is waiting for their travel dates. I'm also trying to teach myself the Cryllic Alphabet - yikes!! - and am making flashcards of words and phrases. At first I was super intimidated with the alphabet but I'm s-l-o-w-l-y getting it and am now having fun with it.

What's my first Russian sentence you ask? The phonetic pronunciation is:
ETT-a NAH-SH-a sa-BAHK-a. Meaning, of course, "This is our dog!" Anyone surprised by that?? :-)

Oh, and I found out today that there is a Russian Winter Festival in DC this weekend. If our schedules allow it, we may head up again on Saturday to check it out!

Redecorating & HS update

I was bored tonight - and home study and dossier'ed out (is that a word??!!) - so I decided to play around with the blog design a bit. I created the new header using Macromedia Fireworks because I wanted something that looked a little Christmasy. Did I achieve it??

For those of you who aren't visiting for the first time & remember the old design, let me know what you think of the new one. If you're new here, WELCOME!!, and feel free to chime in anyway!

Okay, so on to where we are in the paper chase...

Our SW and I traded emails on Friday. She received our clearances from CPS, as well as Judy's criminal history that had to be resubmitted a few weeks back. The only thing she is waiting for now is Judy's fingerprints. We're not sure what the hold up with that is since hers were mailed at the same time as ours. The SW said she "placed a call about it" but didn't tell me what the result of that call was. So, I wait....

She did email a draft of the HS to our agency for their review and approval. Hopefully they had a chance to look at it on Friday, and if not then I'm REALLY hoping they will on Monday. Also, she emailed the same draft to her committee members for their review prior to their meeting on Tuesday. Once the committee approves it, it is sent to their Regional Director for his/her authorization and signature. Then, we have a completed HS!!!

I've been praying that we have our notarized copies of the HS by Friday, 12/14 so we can have our Dossier apostilled asap. I resigned myself today to the fact that my deadline may be unrealistic... I admit that I'm very disappointed but there is nothing I can do about it but pray and ask all of you to do the same.

I did have encouragement today after reading Randy & Susan's blog. Susan unfortunately ran into some unexpected snags with her HS as well (and NO that is not the encouragement I am referring to!!). A comment left on Susan's blog explained that had it not been for some of the delays that person experienced in her own adoption, she wouldn't have received the referral she did because her daughter wouldn't have been off the registry yet. So it all comes back to God's timing being better than our own. Very difficult to understand sometimes, but so very important to remember!

On a different note, I had a wonderful conversation a few days agao with "Linda" at the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office in regards to have our dossier apostilled. Since the HS is taking longer than we expected, I wanted to know if we could hand deliver our dossier and wait for it to be apostilled. "Linda" was so excited to hear about our adoption and she is so friendly! She assured me that we could bring it in person and wait for everything. So, believe you me, there's a trip to Richmond in my near future! Thankfully it's only about an hour from my house - even better!

Home Study Update - Where We Go From Here!

Last Tuesday, Nov. 27, we were able to review the first draft of our HS. Other than a few typo's it looked great. That, plus we're still waiting for 2 clearances to come back: CPS (Child Protective Services) and fingerprints. Both of these items were mailed to their respective agencies on Oct. 31 and we were told that typically it takes a month to get the reports back. Please join us in our prayer request that the SW receives these reports in the next few days, along with Judy's criminal history that we had to resubmit a few weeks ago. I don't know if the Thanksgiving holiday will cause any delays...

Once the missing reports are received, our SW will bring the HS to her committee for review and final approval. After that approval, our HS will be DONE!!!! Normally the committee meets on Tuesdays but I'm hoping they can (and will!) call a special meeting as soon as the SW plugs the missing info in. I am really hoping we can have our copies of the HS in our hands by Friday, Dec. 14 at the latest.

As soon as the HS is complete, we can finally submit our I600A - the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition - to the US Immigration office. Unfortunately our state will not begin processing the I600A without the finalized HS attached. Some states will begin processing the I600A while waiting for the HS. We're not that lucky.

When I first heard about the delay with filing our I600A I was super discouraged. I was even more discouraged when our immigration field office told my husband that it would take them 4-5 months to process our form once it was submitted. Now, however, it appears that they have shortened that time to 3 months. Still a long time, but I can deal with 3 months better than 5 months!

I didn't realize that we could travel on our first trip without having submitted our I600A but we can!! After my agency explained this to us, they also told us that our current timeline could mean that we make our first trip as early as February. Woo-Hoo!! I never imagined traveling to Russia, much less smack in the middle of winter. So my CHRISTmas list this year definitely includes hand warmers!

Before we get our travel dates, though, we need to complete our Dossier...

Okay, take a deep breath with me & we'll continue on -

I've mentioned the Dossier briefly in another post but I don't believe I went into much detail. I know you're all sitting on pins & needles to see (1) what the heck a dossier is if you don't know already and (2) where we are in THAT process! I'll leave the specifics of our Dossier for tomorrow. Just know for now that at this point, we are responsible for cutting down a small rain forest... Bad as a closet tree hugger but VERY GOOD as a mom to be!

I Should’ve had a V-8 before starting the IA process!!

I just crack up at the new V-8 commercials where someone is bopped in the forehead for not having their vegetable servings for the day. I especially love the one where a man is feeding his veggies to a Golden Retriever under the table. After the secret hand off, a paw reaches up & taps the guy on his arm. He looks under the table and one would expect to see a drooling mess of a dog begging for more. Instead, the dog bops him on the forehead as if to say “Duh!” instead of “Gimme more!!”. I laugh at this particular V-8 commercial the most because in our house, it would just NEVER happen. Never! There would be no pleasantries from our dogs, no thank you, no subtle reminder that we should have eaten our veggies. Just that drooling mess of a dog that I mentioned above.

So anyway - - over the past few days I’ve been consumed with thoughts on how exactly we can finance our adoption journey. Initially we had two main courses of action, neither of which is working out quite like we had hoped.

I’ve been focusing on the negative side of this whole thing, and wondering if somehow I’ve gotten this all wrong. It sounds silly now, but admittedly I did start to question whether God intends for us to adopt, or maybe we aren’t supposed to adopt internationally. All kinds of irrational, negative things have been running through my mind over the past few days. At one point I thought that perhaps we needed to pull out of this before we ended up getting our hearts broken yet again on our path to parenthood.

Then, one morning this week after taking a shower, God placed me in my very own V-8 commercial. It wasn’t one of my dogs bopping me in the head for giving them veggies. No, instead it was Him walloping me in the head telling me to relax and let Him handle things. I realized that perhaps, just maybe, He has a better plan for financing our adoption if I would only let go and trust Him completely.

Even as Christians we shouldn’t expect things to just be handed to us. It’s never that simple! There is a certain amount of work that we need to do on our end in order to get the results we want. I think this is one of the most difficult things that new Believers and non-Believers have a hard time understanding. I also think it is one of the most difficult things that seasoned-Believers have a hard time explaining and sometimes dealing with themselves. Just because God has called us down this path doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen. We have work to do – lots of it! – from completing paperwork, to getting fingerprinted numerous times, to seeing different doctors, to writing checks, to preparing and educating ourselves and our pets for the arrival of a little one, to now trying to find creative ways to finance our child’s future. Is it difficult? You bet! Is it worth it? Absolutely!

This journey while at times frustrating and nerve wracking, has already allowed me to grow in so many ways as a Christian, a wife, and a mom-to-be. I can only hope that by reading this blog and watching this miracle unfold, there are others who will also grow to know God and the awesome, amazing things that can (and will!) happen in your life as you learn to place your trust in Him.

So now I invite you to go grab a few V-8’s of your own – literally or figuratively - and continue traveling with us to our little one(s) waiting in Russia!

In Him,
Kar

Thanksgiving Update

WOW - it seems like I have been waiting forever to be able to post anything! For some reason, we have had very limited internet access this week. This post isn't necessarily adoption related but I did want to share a few photos from our Thanksgiving week.

Great Room & Foyer Christmas decorations. (Note: The door on the right of the catwalk leads to the nursery.)





Very tired pups after company left (sorry for the spooky eyes!) Our friend's 12 year old son wore them out!!

Visiting the Fredericksburg Battlefield with out of town guests

Attack of the Paparazzi!! (Judy hates having her picture taken so paparazzi hid behind bushes to get this shot!)