С Рождеством

That is Merry Christmas in Russian!!!

Well... it's been awhile since we last posted but there hasn't been much on our home front with the adoption.... we are in the waiting stage.... waiting to hear what region our dossier has made it's way to ... hopefully this news will come soon and then the wait for a match begins.

How long will this take? Good question.... right now the answer we are getting from the agency is that families are waiting 6-12months for referrals for a sibling group... so we WAIT!!!

In the mean time as we prepare for our Christmas holiday I thought I'd share what Christmas in our house will "hopefully" be like for us next year!!!


December… The first thought that comes to mind is holidays! And the upcoming holidays are a big part of Russian Culture. During the Soviet era all religion and religious celebrations were banned, including Christmas. Therefore, secular holidays became more important, and New Year’s became the biggest and most festive holiday
for people in the Russia.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Christmas is now being celebrated
again. However, Russians do not celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December,but rather on January 7th. This is because the Russian Orthodox Church, like all other Orthodox Churches, still uses the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. In everyday life, however, Russians use the Gregorian calendar, and the beginning of the New Year is therefore celebrated on the same day as in the rest of the world. This means that in former Soviet countries the New Year celebration comes before Christmas.

Russia began celebrating the New Year as a separate holiday in 1700, when, on the order of Czar Peter the Great, Russia started to count the New Year as beginning in January rather than September, as had been done previously. At the same time, an order "about the celebration of the new year" was issued and people began a tradition of decorating their houses with pine boughs. In spite of this, Christmas remained the main holiday of the season until the revolution in 1917 when the new government tried to minimize the role of faith in Soviet people's lives and persuaded them to pay more attention to New Year celebrations than Christmas celebrations. Today, more and more people are trying to restore the Orthodox traditions, but the New Year traditions remain strong and it is still the main winter holiday celebrated in the home.

The main New Year’s celebration takes place during the night of December 31st - January 1st. People get together around the table, eat lots of home-cooked food, exchange wrapped gifts, take pictures, watch TV, go outside to watch fireworks, and go to bed really late. Many people continue visiting their friends and relatives with New Year greetings for several days or even weeks. It is also quite common to have a New Year party with colleagues from work several days before December 31st.

The big New Year celebration usually ends after January 13th, when the country celebrates the so-called "Old New Year". This event is unofficial but is a very popular holiday and represents the beginning of a new year according to the old Julian calendar. After that, people finally remove the decorations from their houses, take down the trees, and get back to work.

Nearly everyone celebrates New Year in the same way on the whole territory of the former Soviet Union.
The New Year’s Tree (Novogodnaya Yolka), decorated with tinsel and sweets is always in the center of attention. During Soviet times people also used to put a big red star on top of the tree. Now some people put angels on top of it or some other decoration, but many still use the red star.

Old Grandpa Frost (Ded Moroz), similar to Santa Claus, and his granddaughter Snowgirl
(Snegurochka) bring presents for the children. Similar to the US, children are told that in order to get a present from Old Grandpa Frost they must behave well all year.
The most common food for the New Year table is Olivier salad (consisting of chopped meat or chicken, potatoes, pickles, green peas, onions, carrots, and mayonnaise), while the most common drink is champagne. After listening to the traditional New Year speech from the president, everybody tries to open a bottle of champagne and make a wish within the first seconds of the New Year.

New Year’s is a very festive time in Russia. Everyone dresses up and children are allowed to stay up very late welcoming the New Year with their parents.

On a personal note - we are very excited to make New Year's a tradition to celebrate in our house in honor of our children's heritage. New Year's was always something we celebrated at my grandparent's house with family and food ... looks like they may have been on to something and hopefully beginning next year we will begin that celebration with our children, family and friends!!!

WOO freakin HOO!!!!

Well that's how I feel about the e-mail we got today from WHFC.

Here it is:

Congratulations! Your dossier is complete! It will now be sent to Russia , where it will be translated and submitted to a regional Ministry of Education. We expect you to wait approximately 5-9 months for a referral, though timeframes are constantly changing. Please keep in touch by contacting us every 8 weeks or so for an update on your status during your wait.

We have lots to do in the meantime to get ready to go to Russia for that 1st trip but at least we know this step is done and now we can move on to things that should be more fun and exciting!!! I feel like I'm walking on cloud nine.... I just want to go out and buy stuff for kids!!!!

On it's way....

Well, we have finally finished collecting and notarizing dossier documents and I am EXCITED to report our dossier is on it's way to Waltham, MA to Wide Horizon for Children!!! Next stop RUSSIA!!!!

So what does that mean.... well... we have become an "OFFICIAL" waiting family and once our dossier goes to Russia it will be translated, stamped, approved and then sent to one of the 8 regions that our agency is currently working with. Once a sibling group becomes available and is a match for our preference (2 children between 0 -4) we will get THE PHONE CALL from our agency saying we've been matched.
This phone call is most likely 4 - 9 months away but could come sooner or later than that.

For those who have wondered what our dossier looks like..here it is!! There are 3 copies, 1 for us, 1 for WHFC and the orignals for Russia!!! Look at all that paperwork.

Next Step.... complete the dossier

Now that we have our CIS approval we are just about finished with our dossier! Just to update everyone, we sent our dossier to Wide Horizon on Friday, September 26th to have them review everything we had done so far in case anything needed to be redone.

We got word today from Tiana that everything looks good and there were only two minor things, one which will need to be Apostilled and one that does not.

1. 2 copies of the Social Worker's license: Jennifer's license expired on 10/1/08 so we will need to include a new license in your dossier. I will work on getting a copy of her new license and notarize it before sending it out to you. You will then need to have it Apostilled. (Just waiting to hear back from Tiana on if we should get it Apostilled in NY or MA - for those who remember - Massachusetts changed their policy for copies of documents.

2. The photos of us and our house were great. We just need to send a new photo of our Living Room because when I took the picutre we had the dry sink in the room with the wine and other alcohol. If you remember Russia doesn't like to see any alcohol in pictures - no biggie here (at least I hope) I have other pictures of the room. Tiana said I can send this picture in with our remaining paperwork and she will replace the old with a new one.

So looks like we are just about done... fingers crossed, salt over the shoulder or whatever your favorite superstition is... we will have everything completed and begin our "official" wait in the next week or so!!!

FINALLY!!!!

Our Citizenship & Immigration approval has finally arrived!! It came in the mail on Saturday, October 4th!!! It took EXACTLY 8 weeks from the day they received our application to the day they signed the approval form and put it in the mail!!! This is the final piece of documentation we need to complete our dossier for Russia and make us an "official" waiting family!!!

I have to admit.... the form itself was a little disappointing. I mean we have been waiting FOREVER to get this and get our dossier completed.... I thought it would look different, be bigger.... heck at this point it should have come with balloons or something to announce it was here in the mailbox but we do finally have it and can get it notarized, county sealed, apostilled and then sent off to our agency to complete the dossier process!!!

Almost there

We received the las group of documents we sent to be apostilled in NY and MA in the mail today. Everything looks set and we are just waiting for the immigration fingerprints to come back in the mail!!!

We did a call in session the other day with the Russia program team at our agency and learned we had just made it under the wire with getting our Massachusetts documents apostilled - apparently the secretary of state for Massachusetts is changing the process for photcopied documents but since ours were already apostilled we are okay!!!

Hopefully our fingerprints will come back soon and we will have everything finalized and ready to go by the middle of September!!!

Moving towards the light....

Friday we got the last 9 documents we needed from WHFC - can I get a WOOHOO :-)!! We made the copies for the 5 that need to be apostilled in Massachusetts and those are being FEDEX tomorrow!!! We had to sign 4 and get them notarized and county sealed in NY and those are on the way to Albany for the apostille - WOOHOO!!! Friday was a great day to bring the mail in.... we got all our WHFC documents AND we also got our Immigration fingerprint appointment .... Tuesday, August 26th!!! (can I get another WOOHOO :-)!!!

The light at the end of the tunnel is finally there .... it's faint but hopefully it will get brighter and we will have our paperwork completed in the next few weeks and then FINGERS CROSSED we have done everything right the first time and get approved!!!

Update on Russia

If you are like us - you have been watching the news and the latest events in Russia wondering how this might affect our adoption. We got the below information from WHFC today - fingers crossed the situation between Russia and Georgia doesn't explode and become an issue for us.

Dear Russia Program Families,

The recent new reports regarding Russian and Georgian troops fighting over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia have led several WHFC families to inquire if this will impact their adoption from Russia. At this point in time, we have no reason to believe that the political situation in South Ossetia will directly impact international adoptions from Russia. You can read more about the situation at http://news.bbc.couk/2/hi/europe/7549736.stm.

Our representatives have not reported any new concerns about travel in their regions. WHFC currently has families in Russia and families preparing to travel to Russia this week. Families are always encouraged to check the US State Department travel advisories at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1006.html. Please feel free to contact the Russia Program Team directly if you additional questions or concerns.

Paper Chase ... part 2

We have collected all the documents for our dossier that we are responsible for! They have all been notarized and sent to Albany,NY for the apostille. We are still waiting on the "official" copy of our homestudy and a few documents from WHFC. Once these arrive we will sign, notarize, and apostille them to complete the dossier. Our last step will be getting fingerprinted for Customs and Immigration Services - we are hoping that our appointment time is sent soon!

The Paper Chase

Here's the latest update on our quest to get all documents needed for the Russian Dossier.

Just before we left for Cape May, I sent 25 documents to Albany,NY to be apostilled - it's the final seal we need to make 1 document complete and dossier ready! We got our first packet back when we returned from vacation. I have a 2nd packet ready to go with 4 more documents!!!

We are still waiting on 9 documents from Wide Horizon and 2 medical forms for me and then that's it!! Oh, did I mention we need to be fingerprinted for the 3rd and final time for the USCIS office (United States Citizen and Immigration Services). Once that's done and has all the stamps and seals needed we will send the entire packet to Wide Horizon for review and if everything has been done correctly they send it to Russia!!!

We will be sending our I-600A application out this weekend (this is the request for USCIS to fingerprint us) hopefully we will get our appointment time in the next few weeks!!!

Good news - we are more than 1/2 to having all our Russian dossier documents completed - you wouldn't believe the stack of papers we have!!!

Cape May vacation

We just got back from our week at Cape May, NJ. This was the second year we rented a house and went down for a week at the beach. We invited my nephew Billy (8) and my Mom to come along this year and of course we brough Nikolas (6) with us for his 2nd trip! It was a blast!!! Here are a few pictures of the fun we had. Hopefully if timing goes right we will have 2 additional guests for our summer vacation next year!!!

Passport has arrived!

When I got home from work on Tuesday I had a nice surprise - my new passport had arrived and the name change was the one I requested!!! My old passport had my last name as Nadeau so I needed to send it back and request a name change. You would think it wouldn't be a big deal but it did cause a little worry. You see, I had requested it say Nadeau-Pupek because that's what all our adoption paperwork says but after I mailed the paperwork out I realized our marriage certificate only says Pupek. Not really a major deal... except... the names on our passports has to be EXACTLY the same as all the adoption paperwork for Russia. Lucky for me it has worked out and getting my passport is another item we can check of our Russian Dossier collection list. We are one step closer to having everything.

Honestly, we are just waiting on agency paperwork and the medical forms!!! This is the part we were told would take the longest.... patience, patience....the new Pupek mantra!!!

Who's reading???

Just curious since so many of you have commented on reading our blog. If you are reading the blog - please leave us a note - you don't need to have a blog account to leave a comment- you can do so anonymously - just sign your name so we know who you are or don't and we'll try to guess!!!

Got any questions about our adoption, let us know and we'd be happy to answer them!!!

This is the slow part of our process so I don't always have a lot to post but if you are curious about the adoption - LET US KNOW!!!

Thanks for your support and for reading our blog!!!

Pre Adoption Class Done & FBI Fingerprints back!!!

We attended our pre adoption class yesterday! Woohoo for having that done and out of the way!!! There were 4 couples total at the class and everyone was in different stages of their adoption process! The good news - we were all doing international adoption - 1 couple is going to Korea and the other 2 couples were doing Ethiopia. We were the only couple adopting from Russia. The class was okay - a REPEAT of everything we have read and done on line so far - they really drum this information in to you!!! It was nice to meet some other couples who are adopting and see where they are at. We decided to attend the WHFC Western Massachusetts - summer get together in July so we are hoping we can connect with some families who have been to Russia or are also planning to adopt from Russia. Since we won't travel with a group - more likely just us - it would be nice to meet and talk with other families who have recently done it or may get to go before we do!!!

Our suprise when we got home - our FBI Fingerprints arrived and are done!!! Neither of us had a problem with these fingerprints!!! Guess I didn't need to send and pay for 2 cards each but we all know if I only sent on card for each of us we would have had issues so I guess it's better to be safe than sorry!

We have a lot of documents collected at this point and we are hoping to get most of them notarized in the next few days. Once they are notarized I can go and get the county seal and then send a bunch of paperwork to Albany for the apostille (state seal). Good thing I am off contract as of July 1st - can you guess what I'll be doing. We are hoping to get our homestudy soon and be done with the dossier paperwork collection by August! Fingers crossed!!!

Gathering documents for our dossier

Well, you wouldn't believe all the paperwork that we are trying to obtain and get processed for our dossier. This is the document that will go to Russia and be translated into Russian and then approved by the Russian government so we can be matched with our children.

In the 2 weeks we've been working on this paperwork process we have been able to gather the following:

* Pictures of us as a couple and pictures on our home (inside & out)
* Letters of employment from our jobs
* Marriage certificate
* FBI fingerprint cards that we are sending out and hopefully will get approved on the 1st try (fingers crossed)
* Residential property card (we have to prove we have a home)

What we are waiting on:
* All documents from Wide Horizon (homestudy...etc.)
* Copies of our passports (just waiting for mine to come back with my name change)
* Medical documentations (physician form for each of us, a copy of each doctor's medical license, a letter stating they are licensed to practice in the hospital for each doctor)
* 2 Photocopies of our Citizenship Immigrations Service Petition (we haven't even started this yet - waiting for our SW to say we can)

Once we get everything we have to have EVERY document notarized, then get a county seal and then we send EVERYTHING to Albany,Ny to be apostilled - which is the state seal.

So all and all things are coming together - slowly at this point because we are dependant on other people for some of the documents but we're hoping to have everything done and ready to be turned in by the end of July/beginning of August - but you know what they say about "best laid plans" and all that!

Home visit a success!!

Today was the day our social worker from Wide Horizons for Children, Jennifer, came to visit us at home and complete the last step in our home study. Things went great!

Jennifer arrived at 1pm and was "officially" greeted by Tyson and Lucy and then we all sat down at the kitchen table for lunch. It's funny - the word on the adoption bulletin boards is that some social workers don't want to eat a snack while at the house but we feel like Jennifer is becoming a part of our family so we served her lunch - it was 1pm after all and you know me and when I get hungry!!!

The home visit was a breeze - a few questions about our town, the schools and children activities and then we gave her a tour of the house and showed her which room(s) we would use for the kids and that was it!!!

We are just waiting on a few more pieces of paperwork (new finger prints for Christine, data clearance check by family services,reference letters and our pre-adoption class) and Application B will be complete! Jennifer is going to be sending us a list of documents to begin pulling together for the Russia dossier and then it's on to our next step!!!

Oh, and for those of you who know Tyson and Lucy - they were unbelievably well behaved while Jennifer was here! Who are these dogs is all we kept asking - Tyson never tried to jump on her and Lucy became bored after awhile and went and took a nap on the couch - again "Who are these dogs?!?!?"

Getting ready for our home visit

Well today was our home visit - more on that in another post. I felt like there was so much to do to get ready - I'm glad I took the entire day off - at first I thought I'd only take a 1/2 day but my boss said to take the whole day - it would be less stress. She was right, so thanks Pat for the suggestion.

Let me tell you a little about my morning (Stephen did go to work for a 1/2 day). I started the day by getting in a workout on the eliptical and then called our town police station to go down and do another round of my finger prints. They said I could come right in so I go all my stuff together and left for the police station. When I got there the office who was going to do my finger prints said we needed to hurry because they were bringing in a "bad guy" and they didn't want to have me come back. We did two sets of finger print cards just to be sure - fingers crossed these go through!!!

The fun part began when I came home and noticed that Lucy had helped herself to the flowers I had sitting on the front steps. Appears that she wanted to help get a jump on planting them so some of the impatients were strewn around our front yard and the plastic containers and tray they were in were in little pieces throughout the front and back yard! She's such a good helper - NOT - so I added to my list of things to do to plant the flowers that were out of there containers and pick up plastic pieces then it was off to vacuum the downstairs.

Good news - everything got done by the time Jennifer arrived at 1pm!

Different Trips to the Same Place

This poem was posted on the adoption bulltin board I belong to through RESOLVE. I thought I'd share it with everyone to give you a sense of how we are preparing for our family. I hope you enjoy it.

Different Trips to the Same Place
------------------------------------

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place. You've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you look forward to be being pampered on the trip.

So you go the the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you, you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait, and wait, and wait.

Flights to Australia come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax, You'll get on a flight soon.: Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!"

After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat."

"By boat!", you say, "Going by boat will take a very long time and costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than by air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three times, marveling about each trip.

Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined and the beauty is magnified by you long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during the voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air.

People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible, traveling by sea is so easy."

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty is not in the way you get there but in the place itself.

Step 2 of homestudy DONE!!

Stephen and I journeyed out to Pittsfield, MA on Friday (5/16/08) to meet with Jennifer, our SW to do the individual portion of our homestudy. We both spent about an 1 1/2 hours with her talking about our "individual" life - what it was like to grow up, describing our family life, how close are we with our siblings, how did we like school, where did we go to college and where have we lived since graduating. It wasn't to bad and the time passed quickly!!! Jennifer comes to our house on Thursday (May 22nd) to spend more time with us and to meet Lucy and Tyson - don't worry we've prepared her for their greeting!!!

We have also finished all our pre adoption reading and on line courses! So that step is out of the way and we are just waiting to attend our pre adoption class on June 24. We tried unsuccessfully 2x to get into a Saturday class in NY but no luck so it will be back to Pittsfield on a Tuesday for us!

Updates on paperwork

Reference Letters: The deadline for these is coming up --- May 23rd. So far we have one in ....THANK YOU Kristin but we know the others are not to far behind so we say THANK YOU to everyone for taking time to write these on our behalf.

Data Clearance Check: We got this form back from Wide Horizon and had to make a few "changes" and resend. This is the form we had to list all of our name alias on and where we have lived for our ENTIRE live! The list was VERY LONG for me ... all those moves since Graduate School and being in Higher education!!! Let's hope we got it right this time!!!

Finger prints: Well, looks like we need to do this again too! Stephen's came back fine but mine had a smudge and needs to be redone. What a pain.... our police station doesn't do the old way with ink and paper..everything has gone electronic so it makes it difficult but to be on the same side we've asked the office to send a couple of forms so we can have them do a few sets to get the best copy!!!

A few hours with Jack and Christopher

Stephen and I went to Massachusetts this weekend to visit family but our highlight was visiting Jack (7) and Christopher (5)!! For those of you who don't know, Jack and Christopher are the sons of our friends Amy and Brian Josey and the boys were adopted as siblings from Russia through Wide Horizons in 2003. These boys were AWESOME and we had a blast with them.

Just after we got to the house, Brian brought out some photo albums from their Russia trips and Jack and Christopher helped us look through the books and talked with us about the pictures!! It was so wonderful to talk with a family we knew about their trips to Russia and how things went for them. The boys have soooooo much energy and were just a blast to hang out with - we can't wait to visit with the Josey's again. Thanks to Brian and Amy for sharing your memories of Russia with us!!

Stephen commented on the ride back to my sister's how it helped to make tangible what we are doing and knowing that in the end we will have 2 children who come home with us.

Step 1 of homestudy DONE

We have completed the first step in our homestudy - we met as a couple with our SW - Jennifer in the Pittsfield, MA office. It went great!!! We spent 2 hours with her talking about our relationship as a couple, how we came to decide on adoption, did we know what country we'd like to adopt from - (yes, Russia and we'd like siblings :-), did we feel ready to move on from IVF and how did we grieve the IVF process.

We signed up for our pre-adoption class on May 17th and then she gave us some required reading for adopting and we have to take 6 online courses together. Can you believe that people who get pregnant NEVER have to do any of this stuff - it's a little bewildering that if you are lucky enough to have a child the natural way - no one says "hey, are you sure you want to do this, have you given this any thought and what have you talked about as a couple???" It just makes you think!

We will meet with Jennifer again on May 16th for our individual appts and then she comes to our house on May 22nd - I can't believe how quick this process seems to be going- I really thought it would be June before we finished our homestudy!!! Most of our paperwork has been completed and sent back - just waiting on the reference letters from friends and our doctor appointments next week to complete that step and then all paperwork for Application B is FINISHED!!! I think the Dossier for Russia will be more complicated but we'll be ready!!!

Gathering all our documents for Application B

We have started to gather all the necessary paperwork for Application B. This step includes getting "offical" copies of our marriage certificate, both our birth certificates, medical information from our primary care doctor and a health insurance waiver that we have health insurance with Con Edison. We also had to send out our request for letters of reference from 5 people. We really need 3 but we figured if we asked 5 people we would be guranteed to get 3 back by the deadline of May 23rd. We had to chose people who have known each of us for a minimum of 2 years and they couldn't be related to either of us - sorry family members but that's why we couldn't ask you.

We are hoping to have our first meeting with Jennifer - our social worker - next week - May 2nd and then we offically begin the home study part.

We have to get fingerprinted in the next week or so! I called our town police station and they said no problem - as long as they don't have anyone under arrest!!!

So we are progressing - I can't believe it's only been a month since we went to our adoption information meeting with Wide Horizon!!!

We're PREGNANT!!

bet that got your attention! We received news yesterday that our application has been sent to a social worker and we will begin Part B - the homestudy - it's true we are considered "pregnant" or we finally have seen the BFP on the pregnancy stick!!! So excited that we can finally say those words and smile!!!

Our social workers is - Jennifer out of the Pittsfield,MA office. We've already met her at our adoption information meeting and she was just great so we are excited to be working with her! We think it's going to be a good fit!!!

In the world of adoption our "pregnancy" could last anywhere from 9 months to more but just like a pregnancy it gives us time to prepare for the children we will be matched with and get ready to be parents of 2 small children!!! If you think about it's the same thing most pregnant couples are doing with one small exception - I'll still be trying to lose weight NOT gain anything during this pregnancy :-)

So this news means we have begun the next step in our adoption journey. This is the part with paperwork, interviews, FBI clearance, fingerprinting and many, many more things to come.

Thank you for all the warm wishes and thoughts, please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we move forward to realizing our dream of becoming parents.

Application A done and in the mail

We finished the first part of our adoption application with Wide Horizon on Thursday night and put it in the mail on Friday along with our first check!!! This was probably the easiest application part - the next steps are more involved and require the documents to be done by others (doctors, birth certificates...govn't officials) and will need to be notarized. As you can guess when you are dependent on others for paperwork completion it can get a little tricky with timing and hoping others are doing the quick turn around you'd like!!!

Our next step is Application B - this is where a social worker will come in. Hopefully we will get our referal to a social worker in the next few weeks and then we begin the homestudy process!!! Fingers crossed that our path to parenthood continues to go smooth.

It came in the mail Wednesday

When I got home from work last night I was so excited to see that our application from Wide Horizon had come in the mail!! WOOHOO - so excited!! Stephen and I gave it a quick glance over to see what questions we would be answering and decided that we would spend time doing it Thursday night. We needed to call the WHFC office to ask a few clarifying questions about financial assests and current residences of family members. I want to be sure that we do it right the first time so we don't have to do it a second time - can you say OCD!!!

Once we complete Application A and mail it back we get a referral to a social worker and then the real work begins!! This is such an amazing step for us!

Registration Submitted

We submitted our registration application to Wide Horizon for Children today!!! This is the first step in the adoption process and now we wait to hear back from a social worker and receive the "official" application which begins the paperwork trail!!

We knew we would be going with WHFC (Wide Horizon For Children) after our adoption information meeting on March 29th but wanted to wait until I had a chance to meet and speak with our new friend Amy Josey. Amy is Jess's sister (Jess is my hair stylist and my sister Sara's friend). Amy and her husband, Brian, are part of the WHFC family and adopted their two sons from Russia 4 years ago and she had such wonderful things to say about WHFC and the staff!!!

So WHFC is the agency we are going to work with and we are excited to begin this next step in our journey to become parents.

Our First Step

Well, as many of you know we've been trying for some time to add a child to our family. Unfortunately, we got some news in March from our reproductive doctor that made us take some time to reflect on whether we wanted to be "pregnant" or just be parents ... no matter how it happened.

After an impromptu trip to Orlando, Florida (the happiest place on earth) we decided we really want to be parents and we've decided to explore adoption both domestic and international.

We attended our first Adoption Information meeting on March 29th in Pittsfield, MA and we are excited to begin this next step in reaching our dream to become parents. We are considering both dometic and international adoption - specifically Russia where we would be able to adopt siblings and add 2 children to our family at one time.