The eleventh hour... er, week...

Yes, you read that correctly - this is now week eleven of the wait for the first trip. It feels like forever has gone by and I still have not heard anything about when I will possibly be traveling. My agency has put me in contact with another single mom in the area (area being Illinois - I have no idea where in Illinois she actually lives!) who adopted from St. Petersburg through EAC and she waited FOUR MONTHS for her first trip. The way I understand her timeline, it looked as such:

Last week of February, 2009: Accepted referral
Week of July 4, 2009: Traveled for trip 1 (18 weeks - yikes!)
First week of September, 2009: Traveled for trip 2 (which is court)
Third week of September, 2009: Traveled for trip 3 and brought her little girl home!

Using that as a baseline, my timeline would look as such:
August 17, 2009: Accepted referral!
Week of December 22, 2009: Travel for trip 1 (yes, the week of Christmas)
Week of February 22, 2010: Travel for trip 2/court
Week of March 8, 2010: Travel for trip 3 - come home with RP

Now, I certainly hope that this entire timeline is shorter, and I'm hoping that this would be a "worst case scenario" timeline. I started this process by signing with my agency last February, so bringing her home in February/March would only be 12-13 months for the entire process, which is remarkable considering I am adopting a little girl and the process for girls is estimated around 18 months. My original goal was to be home with my child by Christmas, but that clearly is not going to happen. Now the goal is ultimately to be home by Easter, or her second birthday at the very latest - I cannot imagine celebrating any more holidays or birthdays without my little RP.

I'll keep you posted - please continue to keep RP in your prayers as we wait for time lines and dates to bring her home... :) Until then, the clock keeps ticking, and each minute that goes by is a minute closer to meeting her and bringing her home to her family, where she belongs....

Nine weeks... and counting

So here we are, working on week ten of the dreaded wait! Nine weeks have come and gone with still no travel dates in sight. I talked to my coordinator last night and she told me, again, that this is typical for St. Petersburg but if I don't hear anything in the next week or two she'll start to stalk the people in the referral department for me to see if we can get a better idea of when I'll travel. Twelve weeks is officially up on November 9 and it would be super-nifty-great to travel before Thanksgiving although I have this gnawing gut feeling that I'll be spending Thanksgiving in Russia with my mom.

On the home front, I heard from the FoF today about the possible domestic adoption situation which I blogged about a long time ago, and there was a truly sad end to that. The girl who was pregnant had her baby a few weeks ago, three full months early, and the baby only survived for two days. I broke down when I read that because the mother was a victim of domestic violence which is why the baby arrived so early. These types of stories make me so MAD because there are a ton of great families out there who would do anything to provide these babies with a loving, nurturing family environment and she didn't deserve to have this happen. I am so thankful that RP's birth mother cared enough about her to place her with the orphanage to try to find a loving home, and this makes me more anxious than ever to bring her home and shower her with the love and affection that she so desperately needs and deserves.

Sorry for such a downer post today - hopefully there will be good news to write about sometime soon. Until then, please keep RP in your prayers and hopefully, before we know it, she'll be home and getting to know each and every one of you!