Finally - an update!

Woo-hoo - finally news to report! I received a call tonight from my coordinator that they have FINALLY received all of my paperwork and my file is going to Russia on Friday!!! There's still a ton of waiting ahead (like I posted earlier they are reporting an average of a 4 month wait for referrals, and possibly longer for singles... lucky me!) but finally, at long last, there is progress.

What next you ask? Yep - you guessed it - more waiting.... :)

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.

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!!!

Adoption paperwork...

So I officially started the adoption process in January by selecting my agency and paying my deposit. The home study agency was hired in February, and I started the paperwork chase in March. I thought that nothing could be harder than stabbing myself in the belly three times a night, undergo surgical procedures, then wait... and wait... and wait... for the results while I was undergoing fertility treatments. I was wrong.

In March I met with the director of my home study agency and a couple of weeks later the social worker came to my house for my official "home visit." After answering tons of questions about my childhood, my family, my thoughts on discipline, and my plans for the future, I took the social worker on a tour of my home so that she could inspect it and make sure there was enough room for a child and that it was safe for a child to reside here. The whole process took about 90 minutes, but it was truly the longest 90 minutes of my life. Now, at the end of May, I still don't have my official home study documents in hand although I have been assured that I "passed with flying colors." Heck, I have even read the home study report, but there is something still disconcerting about not having it in hand, knowing that it's official. And so I wait... and wait... and wait...

Tonight my coordinator called to let me know that all my dossier paperwork had been received in the home office and had been reviewed and that everything looked good, except.... Yep - that little word indicates a problem. *sigh* I failed to have two of the documents apostilled as I apparently misunderstood what to do with them, so now she is FedExing them back to me, along with one of about a hundred addendum that they need which I apparently forgot to sign. I am normally pretty organized and this failure on my part is so frustrating, and will now cause further delays in getting everything sent off to Russia to really get this process rolling. So, you guessed it, I wait... and wait... and wait...

I keep trying to focus on the goal at the end of this process and am doing my best to keep my chin up. We'll see how long that lasts.