Adoption news...

Well, essentially there is none! I received a referral for a special needs child in December that I couldn't accept and was told that I would get my next one in January. So, I used that time to complete the second phase of my paperwork. I got it all apostilled and sent in to my agency the Friday before Christmas. So I am just waiting for the holidays to be over and hoping that things will happen in the next couple of weeks.

On the good front, I spoke with a woman from my agency who went to Rostov over the week of Christmas on her first trip. She and I had spoken a couple of months ago when she was trying to decide on a region and the Cradle staff were trying to get her to go to Rostov and she wanted to know some about the city. Yesterday I opened my email to see a beautiful picture of her and her 15 month old daughter to be. We spent about an hour on the phone with her telling me her story. Sounds like things went pretty well.

She told me that she was told by the Rostov people and by the Cradle Chicago staff that I was the next in line to Rostov and that they don't have anyone in line for the region so she expects that I truly will get a referral shortly!

The bad news is that it looks like they are not waiving the 10 days much and so, for me, it will be 3 trips.

So, at least the paperwork is completed until after the first trip and then I just have to do all of the physical stuff.

Also on the adoption front...

I spent a good amount of time during the Christmas holiday organizing my paperwork from the three kids. Got everything together and separated to put back into my bank vault and got everything together to renew the two boys US and Russian passports. Now all I have to do is make an appointment at the post office and get passport pictures.

And since I am so organized, I am considering sending in the paperwork for their Certificate of Citizenship. The boys were adopted before it automatically was sent to them. I have to look up how much it will cost.