Such a slacker...

I can't believe its been a week since I last posted - as you may have guessed, things have been pretty busy these past few days. My parents are moving out of their house and in with me for a few days (yay - company in the abode - woo-hoo!) while they are waiting on getting their occupancy permits for their new (and ginormous!) house. My oldest nephew turned 7 so we were in Wisconsin to celebrate, and work has been drama-filled as usual. Ugh - I hate drama. None of these are very good excuses for neglecting my blogging duties, but they are all that I've got... :)

No news on the adoption front, but I'm hoping that by now my home study has been received in Ohio and is now going through final processing before being sent off to Russia. I'm hopeful that once it is received that things will move pretty quickly from there, although I'm trying to temper that with keeping things in perspective and not getting my hopes up for a quick turnaround. It'll happen when it happens, and I'm trying to keep myself busy with everything and anything to keep my mind off the wait. As I expected, it was frustrating, but a little easier, when I was chasing down paperwork and filling out forms because at least I felt like I was doing something.... although hopefully someone will remind me of this when I complain about the next round of paper chasing, which is almost guaranteed to happen!

If the waiting doesn't kill me...

So, I'm sitting here on my lunch today and decided to check out my agency's website, hoping for good news on quick referrals and adoption completions. While I was surprised that they did indeed have a recent update, this is what I found:

Friday, June 12, 2009
In May, 21 children returned from Russia with their new families!!
We experienced many changes throughout Russia. Additional documents have been required in many regions. The good news is this has not caused any delays.
In many regions, paperwork and procedures required for issuing the child's documents may require longer stays or additional trips. On a positive note, EAC families are maneuvering the system fairly quickly.

So exciting for those 21 children and their families - I am in complete and utter amazement (okay, maybe combined with a bit of jealousy) at the fact that these families have completed their journey. I am also pretty excited to hear that families that have signed with my agency are maneuvering the system pretty quickly. It's one of the reasons I chose this agency - they are well-connected, have contacts in several regions in Russia, and most of the feedback I heard about them was positive and that adoptions are completed well under the specified time lines, which is almost unheard of these days. What I didn't like reading (yeah, the truth hurts sometimes) is that additional paperwork is almost certainly going to be necessary and that procedures are calling for possible additional trips. I am already fairly certain that I will be making 3 trips to Russia of about a week each. I want to be able to use my available vacation and FMLA time to bond with my child, not see the airports around the world. I'm really trying to look at this as positive - heck, I wouldn't be seeing this part of the world if it weren't for my circumstances so its truly quite an opportunity, a gift really, but the gift of time is something I can't hang onto and deliver to my child later. At least I can honestly say it will all be worth it in the end...

It's been almost a week now since I found out that my home study was completed and sent off for apostilling. My coordinator is supposed to call me when she receives it, and then and only then can my documents be sent off to Russia, where I will officially be placed on the waiting list. Yep, more waiting - this time waiting on people who don't know me and most likely will never meet me, to determine my fate and match me with my child-to-be. I've still got my fingers crossed for a quick turnaround, as it truly wrenches my heart to think of my child in an orphanage without me. So while I am selfishly looking for a quick response, trips, and completion of the adoption, it's more than just what I want. I want my child to know that his (or her!) Mommy is out there, she loves him (or her!) already, and is anxiously awaiting the day she can bring him home. That's truly what this process is all about.....

Lazy weekends...

Yes, its way early on a Saturday morning but the fur-babies insisted on getting up and going out (and knowing that the alternative to that involved some heavy-duty interior cleanup that would NOT make me happy, I readily complied!), but somehow its strangely peaceful to be up this early on the weekend. I am LOVING the fact that I have relatively little to do this weekend - headed to the vet this morning with Buddy and hopefully getting together with Kelly this evening, and a new addition to the schedule tomorrow morning in the way of a hair appointment that was JUST scheduled. Ahhh.... me time! Now if only the weather would cooperate as it looks as if the heavens are going to downpour on us any minute now. I'm not sure when Chicago weather became synonymous with Seattle, but the west coast can certainly have this cold, rainy June weather back any time they'd like! However, in the spirit of making the most of these two little days known as "the weekend" I am planning on taking full advantage of this crappy weather by planning a nap this afternoon - ahhh...

... and here's hoping that everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend!!! :)

Nothing new... and it's driving me nuts already!

So, thanks to the beauty of FedEx.com tracking I was able to confirm this morning that my apostilled passport pictures were received by my agency - yippee!!! Now all I'm waiting on is for all my home study documents to be apostilled and sent off, which I'm hoping will take no longer than a week. After that, it's sit and wait... and wait... and wait... *sigh* It's one thing when I'm the one doing the procrastinating but highly another when I am waiting on someone else.

I'm looking forward to doing a lot of nothing this weekend. Buddy has a vet appointment tomorrow morning to get his yearly vaccinations just in time to be pampered at the PuppyHotel in a few weeks (yes, I reserve the fur-babies a suite and yes, their hotel bill typically costs than mine, but they are pampered, spoiled rotten, and worth every penny!) then I'm left to my own devices for another day and a half before returning to the grind of work. As y'all know, I love my job but the grind of the office drama going on, and the fact that I have to possibly lay off two of my employees by the end of the month, has me less than thrilled these days and in desperate need of a vacation.

I have not told anyone (and I mean anyone) at the office about the adoption and I'm finding it harder and harder to find excuses as to why I keep whining about needing to take a vacation, but I don't actually plan one. My vacation this year (hopefully anyway!) will be three weeks (thereabouts!) in Russia, one week at a time. Not necessarily the island getaway I would normally plan, but it is THE most anticipated trip(s) I have ever taken, and I look forward to planning those island getaways with my new son/daughter in the upcoming years. This is so much better than last year's vacation time which was consumed by in-vitro procedures and 9-weeks of recovery from the hysterectomy! In the interim I am planning on taking a day here very soon and splurging at the spa - massage, facial, mani/pedi - the works! Ahhh.......

... and so the wait continues....

What the...

heck? So, just hours after my post about how I am going to go crazy waiting with nothing to do I get an e-mail from my agency with a bunch of attachments that tells me to hurry up and fill out the attached forms for a region in Russia so they can get going and hopefully get a referral for me more quickly. Now, perhaps I should have called them to find out where this was coming from since they don't even have all my documents in yet AND I have sent two sets of wait list documents already, but I figured that they were aware of a region that had referrals available and they were working proactively to get me on the list ASAP so as soon as all my documents were in I would be ready to go. Oh, AND these wait list documents were similar, yet different, from the ones I already submitted, so I figured "yippee for me!" SOOOO.... I rushed home from work and spent an hour filling out the new paperwork, making copies, and getting everything ready to FedEx out tomorrow for delivery by Friday.

Now... somewhere in this process I missed the phone call to my home phone (which I vaguely remember hearing ring, but ignored because I thought it was the TV and heck - I was focused and on a mission!). That phone call happened to be my coordinator telling me that there was a mix-up and to disregard the message from the wait list person - I don't need to do the new documents after all. While it makes complete sense, that message made me feel like a balloon that suddenly sprung a leak and immediately deflated. I'm going to chalk this up to a very valuable lesson in "be careful what you wish for" and keep hoping that things continue to move along.

Oh, and I'm saving all those documents and hoping that I can use them in a few weeks - keep those fingers crossed!!! :)

... and now we wait...

So, in my excitement yesterday to finally hear that things were moving along I e-mailed my coordinator with the good news and asked what the next steps were. Her response to me was along the lines of, "Fantastic! You're really moving along! Woo hoo! And now.... you wait."

Seriously? Talk about a let down! I knew this was coming, but I guess I expected something along the lines of time lines for the dossier to go to Russia, get translated, and then search for my referral. What I did NOT expect was my oh-so-wonderful coordinator tell me that now I get to start the exciting period of time called "The Wait." I've read about it in blogs and on message boards and I haven't been looking forward to it. Y'all know me, and patience is NOT one of my strengths. Never has been, never will be. I'm more along the lines of "I want what I want when I want it."

Hopefully I live through this period to tell about it later. Hopefully.

Finally!!!

So, I normally wouldn't post during work hours, but I just received an e-mail back from my home study agency (whom, mind you, I have been stalking for the last 72 hours) that my DCFS endorsement letter has been received, and my home study documents are completed and on their way to be apostilled, then on to Ohio!! Finally! These are the last documents I needed to complete my dossier and receive my final I171h approvals from the Department of Homeland Security! I feel like a giant weight has been lifted and that finally I am seeing some movement here. I wasn't necessarily worried about getting the approvals - my social worker (whom I have to say has been an absolute angel!) assured me everything was in order and that I received two thumbs-up, hands down, no questions remaining, but as we all know, government agencies never work lightening-fast... on anything. Let's just hope that everything continues to move along as I'm still hoping for my "Christmas Miracle" to be home before Christmas this year!

Ahhhh... now that I've shared that news, I guess it's back to work. Ugh.

GRRR!!!

So, its another week and still the home study has not been completed - talk about frustrating. As of the third week of May I was told that my home study was done, notarized, and ready to go except (ugh - I HATE that word!) that the DCFS endorsement letter had not yet been received. Mind you, I completed the DCFS paperwork in March or April and sent it off ASAP in order to NOT have any holdups. I was told I should have everything in hand by the end of May, and here we are at the first week of June and still no home study.

I'm getting anxious to get everything moving - my wait list paperwork is now in hand at my agency's office, and the dossier is 2 pages short, and those two pages are at the Secretary of State's office being apostilled as I type. I have a closet full of stuff for baby, and am ready to move forward. I've been picking up stuff every now and then, if for no other reason than to feel a part of the process - like I'm doing something to prepare and move this process along. While I am a procrastinator by nature, my alter-ego is extremely organized and hates being late and not being ready for change. I don't know why I'm a study in opposites - just always have been! I'm making some assumptions along the way though - I am assuming that my child is going to be a boy and is going to fit in the 18 and 24-month size clothes I bought. I am assuming that I will be traveling during the winter months (I bought the cutest blue snowsuit when the seasons changed and got it for next to nothing!). I am also assuming that this process is eventually going to move along, and when I look back on all this years from now it will seem like the process moved quickly, and I'll forget ever NOT having my child in my life.

I'm hoping for better news this week. I've pressed my home study agency to follow up with DCFS and get that letter in hand... soon. Once that's in, along with my other two documents, my dossier can be translated and sent to Russian, which is when the true waiting begins. While I fully admit to my procrastinating tendencies, I am NOT patient when waiting on others. This will be when the true fun begins!!!

Musings... on nothing!

So its been a few days and I've already been a slacker about posting - go figure! (toldja I was a procrastinator! I guess its because I've been busy (par for the course these days), but no real news... on anything.

I'm still waiting to get some of my paperwork back in order to ship it off to the Secretary of State for more pretty seals to the cost of $2 per document plus FedExing fees. Still haven't gotten back the ones I sent before Memorial Day which is making me nervous but I'm trying to keep it all in stride and not dwell on it. After months of fertility treatment, recovery from a complete hysterectomy, and the paper blitz involved in making the decision to adopt, I am SO ready to actually see some results come from all the heartache. Is that too much to ask?

For now I'm busy trying to prepare for what's to come and enjoy the time with my family and friends before my life changes forever (for the best for sure!). I have the nursery bedding and wall decals in an adorable baby zoo animal theme, and my brother and sister-in-law have offered to buy the crib and mattress, While I am anxious to start putting it altogether, I have promised myself that I won't start decorating and assembling until my dossier is submitted and I'm assigned to a region. Wish me luck on keeping that promise!!! :)

My hope it to have the adoption completed by Christmas - what a Christmas miracle that would be! Keep your fingers crossed, and I'll keep you posted!