04/24/2004: "We have our information packet!"

music: Tomorrow (from Annie)
mood: Excited

Well, today I was very excited to open up the mail box and see a large manilla envelope! It contained the package from AIA that essentially tells us what papers and such we need next. So now we will be trying to get those together.

We are getting closer to finishing our office downstairs so we can turn this computer room into the nursery, as it was meant to be! I need to pick out a color for the wall, also.

I'm excited to register for things, because it is so much fun! But we haven't really taken the time to do much of that yet. I have added a couple things to the registries online. We have basically chosen Burlington Coat Factory (Baby Depot) because it's pretty much the only decent baby store here in Madison, and Target so people long distance can get things off the registry if they want... It's so hard for me not to just run out and buy all these fun things now! (Well, the lack of money thing is a big damper on that LOL ) But, I'm sure I'll be able to buy a few things once we have some money to work with again! The hard part is not having a date... not knowing when we need the stuff...and deciding which stuff we will need BEFORE and which can wait until after.... I just put Sept. 1 on the registries (they aren't adoption friendly and ask for dates razz ) just as a hopeful estimate... I doubt we would have a child that soon, but I sure wouldn't complain if we did....

Replies: 2 Comments

on Sunday, April 25th, Crystal said

At this point we don't really know. Our homestudy has to be completed. We're hoping that will be done by mid May (Adam has his doc appointment Wednesday which she needs to complete it, plus we need one more reference letter coming from our neighbors who are on vacation til the first)... so once she has those things, she can write it up and send it to our agency and to the BCIS (immigration office) who will then schedule us for fingerprints and give us permission to bring an orphan into the country to become a citizen.
We will have to go to Russia twice (what an adventure!!) since the law requires you meet the child before you officially adopt them, then you have to schedule a court date which may be a few months after you meet... once we get our initial paperwork sent to the agency (including homestudy, copies of passports, a bunch more forms--which need to be notorized and appistilled (complicated)) THEN we will be eligable to recieve a referal, which could take a couple months. once we get the referall we'll probably leave on our first trip within a month.....
Hopefully that all made sense! it's such a complicated matter, but I really think it will be worth all the fuss smile