Cribs, clothes, strollers, you name it!!!!

Thanks to Mitchy and Chris, we now have a fully decorated room with beautiful furniture. He has a closet full of clothes, a few books, car seat, stroller...you name it! It has been a lot of fun getting all this stuff, especially fixing up his room. We now need some developmental toys, a baby monitor, lots more books and a rocking chair. Other than that, we are more than ready in every single way to get our little guy here. We keep on praying for a quick trip, for Roma, and for all the wonderful people at the orphanage who we know are taking such good care of our precious boy and all the other children at the orphanage.

These are the latest pictures. Also, now that things seem to be happening fast, we will keep the blog updated and will for sure post every night when we are in Russia since that was the best way to keep everyone in the loop while we were away.

Long time no post...

It has been three weeks or so since we posted. No specific reason other than frustration over how complex this process can be. Shortly after I posted that Part II of my dossier was in Moscow we got a call asking for more paperwork which included some medical forms that we had to get done in the US after all.

Of course doctors here can't see you on the spot so there was a frustrating two week delay. I did go to a couple of great doctors who were very willing to help us. Once that paperwork along with a few other forms was ready we were headed downtown again to get them apostilled. The downtown experience was pretty smooth for a change. The hormone level was evidently under control and the lady who has helped and gave us grief in the past was actually pretty nice and wanted to know all about the adoption. We rushed back to the office to make copies then flew to the UPS store so we could ship everything on Wednesday. This allowed us to get our stuff to the agency last Thursday which is when they usually send a shipment to Russia. I was thrilled because missing that shipment would have entailed having to wait until today to get our boatload of paperwork sent to the Moscow Coordinator.

It has been quite hard and stressful not having a date yet but things are now looking better. We got news today that our paperwork arrived in Moscow late yesterday and was been translated between today and tomorrow. We are assuming everything will be sent to Roma by the end of this week so he should have everything by this coming friday or next Monday. He will then take it to a judge who will decide if everything looks good, or if we need to proof anything else. We are still pretty confident now that we would get a court date around mid-April. In fact, the agency must also think we are getting very close to travelling; late today we received an email with all the requirements for our second trip. Finally!!!

In anticipation for our second trip we have been putting all the stuff we need to take in one place and tonight I plan to start packing. This weekend I will be shopping for gifts to take to Russia and Chris will be checking on tickets. Sounds like Chris is going to be able to get us to Perm directly from Frankfurt which will avoid the awful wait we had to endure at the domestic airport in Moscow a couple of months ago. We are so very happy knowing it could be just a few weeks before we get to see our little man again and better yet, only a few weeks again before he is finally home with us.

Had to post this one...

Dudley sitting on the new car seat. He stayed in it for about twenty minutes!

Passing time...

Work was not easy today and I couldn't wait to get home to relax by doing some work in the baby's room. As soon as we got in Chris started cooking dinner and I finished hanging wood letters above his closet. Now the bedroom is pretty ready other than getting the furniture we ordered, hanging some shelves and pics, and getting some toys for him to have when he gets here.

Wishful Thinking...

I posted on February 23rd that I was hoping my paperwork would be translated the following week and be on its way to Roma so he could work on setting a court date for us. Well, that was wishful thinking and us being naive about this whole process. We did get word from our agency that Moscow did get our dossier on Monday - I prayed for the family going to Moscow and for our paperwork they were carrying with them and He listened again :)

Two or three days after the paperwork got there we got word that they needed three more documents. We were able to get them ready and sent via two-day mail. The agency told us they only mail paperwork to Russia on Tuesdays and Thursdays so there was no need for us to spend another $50 to have a document sit at someones desk until tomorrow. I'm sure Chris will be checking online as soon as he gets to work just to make sure it got delivered today.

We are trying to stay positive and upbeat so here is our wishful thinking now: the agency will get and send our new three new documents to Moscow on Tuesday. They should get them by Friday but Monday they are having another holiday...this time is Woman's Day, except the women only get one day...but the men got three last week. What's up with that? We assume Tuesday or Wednesday of next week is when someone will review and translate them and hopefully have them finalized by that Friday (March 14th) So, if they get them mailed to Roma around that time we could still fly out to Perm this month.

Now, realistic thinking: Docs translated by March 14th then mailed to Roma via the old Wells Fargo carriage and are received in Perm the week of the 17th. We would need the week of the 24th to get the Russian visas....Hmmm, realistically we could be leaving at the end of the month or the first week in April. Family and friends, please pray with us on this one...We haven't stopped asking Him for guidance but more important, we have asked for patience to get us through this exasperating process and intervention to help us bring our baby home real soon.