I didn't hear the fat lady sing

Oh what a week. Suspended? Closed? Cautions? Open? Giant Volcano Cloud? I'm the opposite of a journalist. I think journalists like to report the news as soon as they hear it. They all want to be the first to break the story with little care of its validity. It has taken me all week to process these events and all I could come up with is that I didn't hear the fat lady sing.
American's are still in Russia adopting children. American's are still being granted court dates. Things are still moving. Next week there is a meeting between the two countries to figure out a way to better protect the welfare of the children. I'm pretty sure that sounds like they are willing to work something out.
Personally, I would hate to see a suspension. It would slow things down and that's not convenient for us or Vlad But you know what? It's not about us. Vlad is going to be fine. He has an okay home now and when he finally gets here he'll have a great home. If a suspension is needed to figure out a way to weed out the bad apples then go ahead take your time and figure it out. Because no child deserves to live with angry people who will hurt them or ship them off.

Blurb from our agency's Friday newsletter

April 16, 2010

The Department of State has received no information to confirm a suspension of adoptions from Russia to the United States. Our Embassy in Moscow and other Department of State officials are talking with Russian officials to clarify this issue.

The Department of State is sending a high-level inter-agency team to Russia this weekend to meet with senior Russian officials, including officials from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Justice. The U.S. delegation will emphasize the importance of this issue to the United States, and will discuss our mutual concerns about how to better protect the welfare and rights of children and all parties involved in intercountry adoptions.

Many thousands of Russian children have found loving, safe and permanent homes in the United States through intercountry adoption. Families in the United States have adopted more than 50,000 children from Russia.
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My request is that you pray for the meetings that will happen next week.

it's a good time to be a pollyanna

Back in February Jim and I had psych tests done as a requirement for our adoption. Mine said "has a Pollyannaish attitude" Meaning I'm overly optimistic. Since receiving this label I have been looking for this behavior in myself. Well, it's been located. I booked flights to Russia on the day all kinds of crazy news hit the fan about the future of Russian adoptions. Jim says "Trisha, if this doesn't work...what are we going to do" My brain can't even imagine thinking about that.

Lucky for us another couple is traveling at the same time to the same place as us and our agency put us in touch with them. I sent them and email and mentioned my
frustration with the current events, it looks like I found another Pollyanna.

They wrote...

"Yes, we are concerned about the recent events......quite unbelievable really!! But overall, I am refusing to believe that those events will have a negative impact on the rest of us.....staying focused and trying to keep positive!"

Keep praying.

is it may yet?

Russia says they would like us to come from May 3 - May 8

Depart May 3rd
Arrive Moscow May 4th
Fly Moscow to Kemerovo May 4th
Arrive Kemerovo May 5th
Visit DOE (dept. of edu.) on May 5th, then drive to Novokuznetsk
Visit Orphanage May 6th and 7th
Depart Novokuznetsk May 8th
Arrive Moscow May 8th and depart to US


I'm mailing out our visa applications this morning. Then calling my friends to get information about airline tickets. This travel agency was recommended by our adoption agency. I called and asked for Nataha, as instructed, and she had vast knowledge of what we needed for our visas. At the end of the conversation she says "When you want airline tickets, call back, ask for Victor...of course.

In not so bright news you have GOT to watch this video or read the story. My question..How is that even possible?

More bad apples

april fools..let's hope not

This afternoon, as usual, I checked my email hoping to see something from our caseworker. When we were in the process of paperwork she was emailing me all the time. However, since the papers have been all sent in we only hear updates on Fridays and last Friday's email was not very uplifting. But today was different. We got a long detailed voice mail and an email. Trip one is going to be around the beginning of may! May, that's like tomorrow! She was unsure about the exact dates because there are some holidays at that time, so no ticket booking yet but we are going to work on getting our visas.

group projects stink

As a student I didn't like group projects. Not in elementary school. Not in high school. Not ever. I just prefer to work alone. I don't want to have to rest on the hope that others will do their job correctly and have that reflect on me. Well adoption seems like a huge group project. All of us 'Americans' are grouped as a team together, and I don't like it. See every Friday we get an email from our agency. It's called a Happy Friday email. It keeps all of us updated on all the different countries our agency is working with.

Well it isn't Happy Friday news for Russia. See one of the members of out 'team' abused their child. My heart breaks for this boy. No child deserves to be abused. My heart also breaks for Vlad (our referral) since the Russians found out about this they are slowing down the process and becoming more cautious, which is good. But it makes me want to yell..."I didn't do that part of the project. I worked hard and will continue to. I won't hurt anyone" But Russia is far away and they can't hear me. The teacher can only see us as a group, and I don't like it.

The bad apple

You can pray that things will move along quickly.

we call him vlad

I love to be surprised. I've always thought that the ultimate surprise would be having a baby. I can't read those ultrasounds, I always think...hmm alien? If I were pregnant I surely would not find out the sex of the child. However, we have decided to start our family through adoption. When you adopt it's not really that surprising. Pick a girl get a girl. Pick a boy get a boy. Pick either get a boy..most of the time.

So, we can't be surprised. We know it's a boy. Sure things could change, this could fall through, but for now...

However, if I can't be surprised you will have to be. Lots of friends have asked us his name. We won't tell you and we won't tell you the new name we picked out. You should be surprised! When we talk about him in public we call him Vlad, short for Vladimir, which is not his actual name or the name we are going to give him. Just a fun Russian name that we use to save a surprise for you.

All this to say, nothing new over the past weeks. Just waiting for hear from our agency when we should go meet him. We hope to hear soon so we can travel sometime in April. The sooner the better! While we wait we have been purchasing some donations for the orphanage. Mostly clothes for Vlad and his friends.

nothing new

Last week was uneventful. Nothing happened. Better to have nothing happen than something bad...right? We continue to collect documents necessary for our second dossier, we continue to wait to be told of our fist travel date, we continue to admire our potential son's photo, and we just keep praying. Praying he is safe, warm, full and having fun with his friends.