Short update

Well, a brief adoption update that will have an effect on things going forward.

We have been thinking about whether we should change to a referral for a single child or stay with siblings. When we started the process there were more siblings groups available and if we were able to adopt siblings then that would be a good thing. Not everyone is able to or willing to adopt siblings. We didn't have a compelling reason to switch to a single child.

Earlier in the week we got a monthly country newsletter from the agency. This is different than the weekly updates we get. It is more about the country as a whole and what is going on outside of mainly referral activity. The newsletter talked about the trend of fewer sibling groups being available and more families requesting only siblings. It also said that the ages for siblings were increasing (we are on the younger age range for siblings).

All of this would mean increased wait times for families waiting for only siblings, while there are still single children available for adoption. Since we were thinking about switching, we felt that this was something that would have us switch to a single child. So, we have sent in the paperwork to officially make the change to a single child.

Overall it is good if there are more families looking for siblings than there are siblings available, but it might mean fewer single children are finding their families. We also asked the agency about changing the age range, which we had as 0-36 months for siblings. They told us that changing it to 0-24 months for a single child wouldn't affect the timeframe of things.

Although we don't know anything specific about timing of referrals, this change should mean that we get a referral sooner. A little crazy to think as we were expecting a longer wait since we were waiting for siblings, but this doesn't mean we are going to get a call in 2 weeks about a referral. There is still a long way to go.

Welcome to 2009 (and then some)!

Well, I want to first apologize for the long delay in posting. I'm not very good at this blog thing as you have seen. When things slowed down I had meant to write about other things but kind of failed at that. I'll try to get back to that, but here is some new somewhat random info.

On the adoption front ...
The end of the year was slow in Russia for a few main reasons. The first is due to the holidays at the end of the year. They take off extra time for it and actually didn't end their holiday time until just last week. This was for pretty much every region over there. The second reason was that they wanted to somewhat promote domestic adoption and fewer international adoptions makes the numbers 'look better'. The problem is that many parts of Russia are pretty poor compared to over here, so it's not easy to spend extra money on adopting a child.

We are getting back into things, working on finishing up the paperwork that we can do ahead of time. We have to go over an online training thing to familiarize us with the various steps in the process and how the travel goes. It gets you familiar with the culture differences and what to expect during the trip. We have even been looking at a minivan of all things. I'll post the picture if we buy it and I get some rims on it and fuzzy dice.


On the non-adoption front ...

George went to the vet last week for a follow-up blood test. His 'numbers' had increased, but the vet was more worried about his weight loss. He was down to 6.8 pounds which is a few less than his last trip in November. It seems like it is a cycle with not doing well then not eating then it making him worse, etc. The vet wants us to change to other foods to get him to eat more, including things like canned tuna. He certainly likes that and has been eating it more so we'll see how his weight goes.

I just got back from a hockey weekend in Georgia. I'm playing on a sort of travel elite inline hockey team. There are two teams, the 'major' team of older more experienced players, and a 'minor' team of younger players who can then move up to the other team. I had played on the major team last year and we did pretty good, but the way the did the schedule has us playing a single team during each weekend. This year they have a 'festival' where 4 or 5 teams show up to play each other. We were in Georgia so took a bus down there Saturday morning and got back Sunday night. We won our 4 games and now lead our division with 12 wins and 4 losses. I feel tired and sore but it was fun. I'm the oldest which is funny. I think that the next youngest player is 24, with most on the major team being about 19. The minor team is 16-17, so I'm the old man on the team.

That's about all for now, although probably not much that is very interesting. Post comments if you don't like to hear this random stuff I might post and I'll try to adjust the content.