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!