Docs are off to the Secretary of the Commonwealth

We were able to get our documents notarized yesterday and also got copies of the marriage certificate quickly. I was able to send them off today to the Secretary of the Commonwealth for the apostille portion. Hopefully they can be done quickly, but I don't know how involved the process is.

We are going to work on taking pictures of the house and the community to send also. Once the documents come back from the gov we need to make 3 copies of each, then send off 2 sets of copies and the originals to the agency. Hopefully I didn't screw anything up in sending them off.
(fingers crossed)

Dossier Instructions have arrived.

Today we got an email with the instructions for both parts of the dossier. The dossier is just a collection of official documents that are translated and sent over to Russia. The exact contents vary by region, so we had to wait until we were assigned a region to begin. Part 1 of the dossier is done and sent to Russia to get us registered over there in order to get a referral. Part 2 is used for the process after trip 1.
Part 1 is mostly getting some forms notarized and apostilled, which is a fancy word for a process in which the Secretary of the Commonwealth authenticates the notary stamps. We will hopefully be able to send this to the agency very soon so that they can have it processed, translated and sent to Russia. Wow!


I want to take a brief moment to give a basic rundown of the process from here on out. Once part 1 of the dossier is sent and we are registered with the Ministry of Education, we wait for a referral. With Russia you have to specify that you are requesting a referral for a single child or siblings as opposed to either, so we put in a request for siblings. Once we get a referral and accept it, we will wait for a call about trip 1. This trip is primarily to meet the children and officially accept the referral and is about 1 week. After trip 1, we send in part 1 of the dossier and await the call for trip 2. Trip 2 is a little longer, a few weeks, and hopefully we will not have to wait very long between trips. It will be hard to have to leave someone you just met for a few weeks until you can go back.

Trip 2 will start off in Krasnoyarsk where we spend more time with the children each day, experience the city and culture, then finally go before a judge to officially be given custody. There is then a waiting period to make sure that there is no random family member of the children to take custody. We then travel to Moscow for a few days, mainly to get visa for the children to enter the US and finalize the adoption. Once we land back in the US they will become citizens.


So, it sounds a little simple with all the steps, but there are lots of little things to think about. We will have a tough time figuring out what to pack, but with trip 1 being shorter we can hopefully use that as a way to find out what we should bring for trip 2. We have found that in Krasnoyarsk there is a Subway, a California Pizza Kitchen and a Baskin Robbins within walking distance from the hotel that we will be very possibly staying in. Even if we stay somewhere else, it is nice to know that there are these and other places that we are used to seeing. It's kind of funny to think that we will be halfway around the world and about 12 times zones away and we can go into a subway.

Welcome to Krasnoyarsk!

We have been assigned the region of Krasnoyarsk for our adoption. We will soon get detailed information on what documents we need to provide for the dossier. Once we get the documents together, we send it off and it makes it's way to Russia.
Now for a little info about Krasnoyarsk ...
The region itself is a rather large area in Eastern Siberia, and the city of Krasnoyarsk is the third largest in Siberia.
Here is a map of both the city and the region within the country, along with the flag.

You can find out more information using Wikipedia (or other online sources) here.
For those who follow the NHL, Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals was born in Krasnoyarsk. More information to come as we research our new region.

Passports have arrived!

We sent off the paperwork today (meetings at work yesterday) but we were still waiting on the passports. We needed the passport numbers and issue date for one of the forms. We also had to say that we weren't ready to continue and get a region since we didn't have the passports. Well, imagine our surprise when Heather checked the mail and the passports were there. This was certainly unexpected as we had just gone to the post office to get them done last Tuesday. The issue date was this past Monday, so they really got them taken care of quick.

When I got home I re-did the form that needed the passport info along with changing the other form to say we were ready to continue and sent them back off. I don't expect our program specialist to get them today, but they are there for whenever she checks. It makes for a good start to the weekend to know that those items are taken care of.

A quick update

Nothing really new right now, but a few minor updates. We are still waiting on the passports, but it hasn't been that long since we sent them in. Supposedly the processing time isn't too bad, so we are hoping that it goes quickly.

We got a few paperwork things to fill out and send back. Really just information stuff and to help them pick a region for us. After the region is picked we can get started on the dossier, which will contain the information that is actually sent to Russia. This will be the next big step, as it will probably take a little bit of time based on the amount of information needed, but we won't know until we find out exactly what we need to do.

The final thing is waiting on our copy of the home study so we can file for USCIS approval. This is immigration, to get approval to bring 1 or 2 children into the country. We can do this separately from the dossier information. We should get the home study info soon, though.

Cross your fingers that things continue to go smoothly and without major delays. Thanks!

We're approved!

Today we surprisingly received our official approval for the home study. We were surprised that it happened so quickly, but we certainly aren't complaining. We are going to get our passport applications done next week, and we will hear from the Russia specialist. The next step is to fill out a form to help our agency figure out a region, and then we can get region-specific information to work on the dossier.

Announcement!

For those who don't know, Heather and I have decided to adopt from Russia. We began the process a few months ago, mostly just paperwork, but wanted to wait until now to say anything just in case something changed. We're going to try to keep this updated so you can follow along. There might not be lots of posts as right now there is more waiting than doing, but we'll keep you as up-to-date as we can.
A 'brief' summary of things up to now ...

Early into the year we made a decision to look into adopting. After doing some research into the process and agencies to work with, we attended an information meeting with the agency we ended up working with. We sent in an initial form to start the process and then got the next round of paperwork in April. It was quite a bit of paperwork, so we took our time completing it and sent the packet off on June 9. The next step was to attend a mandatory pre-adoption class, which we attended June 13. After completion of the class, we waited to have a social worker assigned to us for our home study. The social worker called relatively quickly and asked if the first of two meetings could be the following day (Thursday, June 26). We happily agreed. We certainly didn't mind doing it sooner than later. We had our second and final portion of the process, which took place at our home, this Monday.

Now we wait for home study approval. Once we receive that, we will be assigned a region and getting the paperwork for the region.
Hopefully it will all go smoothly.