Whew!

So much has happened these past few days in trying to finish up all the non time sensative documents that we need to have completed for our second dossier! I feel like I would be writing a book if I shared all of the hangups that were then answered by prayer. But, that is in part why I started this blog- to journal all of the amazing miracles that God does along the journey- so, here it goes!

I must have made at least 3 extra trips over to our notary- thank God she is so kind, because I would notice a mistake, or have the wrong date...and she was a saint through it all!

While all these trips to our notary were happening, I was double checking our paperwork to make sure all the notary dates matched the dates on the documents, and found that our letter from the NJ State Board of Medical Examiners was not notorized...it was just sealed with their NJME seal!  Knowing Greg was going on Wednesday (and this all happened on Tuesday) to get our documents apostilled in Trenton, I had to get them to send me a new letter that was notorized. After going back and forth on the phone with this department, and going from "we don't even have a notary on our floor, in our department" to asking our agency if an astentation sheet was acceptable to Russia. After a long day back and forth on the phone, the kind lady at the Medical Board of Examiners' office said she personally printed out the letters we needed, and ran them down to another floor in her building and found someone who could notorize them for us! WHO HOO! The next step was seeing if I could get to those letters by the next day (this was about 5 o'clock that we finally had the letters we needed notorized). We found out that the building the ME office is in, is not too far away from the department of NJ who apostilles. So, yesterday, Greg just drove to the ME office first, picked up those letters, and then went to have everything apostilled.

Last night, it felt so good to know the documents were out of our hands, and being taken care of (with only a little concern that they would be done incorrectly...that did happen to us on our first dossier, and we had to drive up to Trenton again to re-do a document)...little did we know last night what we'd be in for this morning...

Fast forward to this morning at about 7:15. I awake to "Liz, where's the number to the apostille office?" Me: "In my phone, why?" Greg: "The guy checked off to have everything certified, not apostilled! I must have told him like 6 times 'apostille!' " (NOT exactly my favorite way to jump start my morning...I'd rather leave it to the caffeine..rather than a good scare!)  So, we called the office about every 5 minutes, until we finally got ahold of someone- and got transferred to this nice lady who calmly said, "oh, I think I apostilled your documents yesterday." To which I replied, "Apostilled? Did you see that they were incorrectly checked off to be certified?" And, she said, "Yes, I did, but I saw 'Russia' on it, and knew they needed to be apostilled." THANK YOU LORD!  It took everything within me to hold back the tears of relief!  I had visions of me having to re-do those 32 documents!  She also told me she put them in the Fed Ex drop yesterday, and we should be getting them today.

Lo and behold- as I am typing this now- I got the FedEx delivery- and I stopped my typing, and checked everything- ALL CORRECT! I feel so so relieved!

So, the only documents we have left to be done for our second dossier is our Medicals (need to be within 3 months of court date), FBI Clearance forms (should be getting those in the next few weeks), and another "updated" copy of our NJ Criminal Clearance forms- they also must be dated within 3 months of our court date.

So, those of you who are in this process might be thinking- wow, you don't even have a referral yet! How do you have all this done? And, I would answer, "Miraculously"  Since we know we are assigned to the Moscow region, we can do the Moscow specific Dossier #2, and there are only a few time sensative documents, so I figured I would take the time I have off this summer, and get as much of it done as I can. Our agency said we can hand carry over our second dossier if/when it is done on our first trip- and that will expedite the wait time between trips. Since we are expecting the wait between our trips (after we meet and spend a week with our child) to be much more difficult than this initial wait is, we thought it would be best to get on it as fast as we could...hoping that it will pay off later.

Well, I think this is enough blogging for one day- whew! Time to start the day!  As you can see, we could really use your continued prayers! You never know what each day is going to bring! 

Just in case you are wondering just how many documents we are talking about...and how many hours of hard work....here's a picture!

It's cute...but is it a good sign, or a bad one?

Okay, so the baby's room seems to be Dakota's favorite hang out spot lately. I think it's adorable, and picture her sleeping by the crib when the baby is home. Honestly, I'm not worried about her adjusting at all. I know she is so good with kids- she lets my little cousins lay on her, and lift up her lippies, and play with her puddies (aka lips and paws for those of you who don't speak the cutsie doggie language that the "other" Mrs. Jackson has made up and I have taken on)  ;)
However...could she really be thinking, "ooh, I love that mom and dad have cleared out this whole room for me! That's awesome!" In that case, she is in for a rude awakening...hopefully sooner than later!

 Well, here's what I see everytime I walk by the room:

Oh, and another note on the baby's room- just seeing a picture of the room in this awful color is making me very antsy to get to the decorating of the room. Greg and I have poured over lots of bedding designs. We really like a good 3 or 4 of the gender neutral patterns, but there are SO many cute gender specific patterns, that we may just wait on picking and painting. But, who knows. We are both pretty spontaneous when it comes to starting something like painting a room, and so if we get the urge...we may just go with one of the gender neutral ones- and if not, then we'll wait to see whether we are going to have a boy or a girl!  Just thinking about it gets me excited about getting our referral call! I can't believe it's been 7 weeks since our dossier has been in Moscow! We were told a 2-6 month wait...so who knows...we could be getting this call in the next few weeks, or we could be waiting until October!

I'm thinking of putting a poll on the side of the blog to "predict/guess" what the gender will be- all those in favor...???

Another plyushevogo mishku (Teddy Bear)

After finding out that our child will not be able to keep the teddy bear we are planning on bringing with us on the first trip, we went to Build-A-Bear to make a duplicate- I've been calling it "Mishku dvah" (which translates "teddy bear 2"). Okay, so the Russian word for Teddy Bear technically looks like this: плюшевого мишку  , but I have no idea how to pronounse that combination of letters and symbols, so I have to look to the pronunciation column in the dictionary- thank God for that column!

Anyway, the goal is to keep Mishku A-Din and Mishku Dvah in our bed to absorb all of our smells...I know, kinda gross, huh. But, since babies know smells, we are hoping this is a way to keep a piece of us with our baby in between trips. On our 2nd trip, we will be bringing our little one home- but before we do, we will be staying in the hotel for I believe about 10-14 days with him or her. During that time, we plan to try to get to the Moscow Mall and get a birth certificate printed up for Mishku Dvah that matches our little one's birth date, and name.

My two adorable cousins Hannah and Leah have been so excited and anxious to meet their new cousin (which, by the way- they are hoping for a girl!). They have even put together a little gift bag for the baby already with hand made crafts and cards- so so cute! I wanted them to be a part doing something special for the baby, so the three of us went together the other day to Build-a-Bear. Here are a few photos of Mishku A-din (1), and Mishku Dvah (2).

                                                                       Here they are!

The girls making sure the Mishkus are all clean!

All buckled in!

171-H Arrived!!!

This very important approval from the USCIS just arrived today! Praise God! :) One more document off the big check list!! 

Someone's Waiting For You

Along with Summer comes some more spare time which is very nice. One of the things I always wish I had more time for is playing the piano. I'm not great, but it's something I enjoy. Yesterday I sat down at the piano and played for a while. I grabbed one of my Disney songbooks, and came across this song, "Somone's Waiting For You" which was on the Rescuers. I remember watching this movie when I was young, and loving this song, but I hadn't remembered it or thought of it in years. As I began to play it, I caught sight of the words, and couldn't help but fill up with tears. I realized that these are some of the thoughts I am thinking right now for our child: "Have faith little one...someone's waiting to love you." 

So, if you have a few minutes, enjoy this link and clip from the movie...you might want to grab a tissue if you're like me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyHX71Z6M7s

How often we pray and think these words: We are waiting for you, and loving you so much, sweet baby! We can't wait to meet you and bring you home! We love you!

One Month into our Wait

Well, today marks one month since our Dossier was Moscow bound. We have been busy since then- working on documents for our second dossier, and just busy with life!

We are excitedly following two families via blogs who are in-country right now, meeting their child. While at times, "the process" can make you feel like you are not really a few months (or weeks) away from meeting your child, reading their entries makes it feel real again.

Our agency talked to their Russian contact yesterday just to check in on our status. We are "on his radar" which is really good to hear. We also heard that July and August are big, long, vacation months for many Russian court officials, so it may be possible that we won't hear anything until September or October...but, we are supposed to still be as ready and as prepared as possible for a call in the next two months.

Well, time to get back to the paper chase...FBI fingerprinting letters, NJ State Medical Board letters, and more!  Of course, we will continue to keep you posted!

Fingerprinting Done, and reality setting in...

Our appointment for our FBI fingerprinting was at 8AM. We were out the door by 8:10. Amazing! So, we headed to breakfast, and then to Babies R Us. It was the first time I have ever walked into that store for us. I have been in there countless times for my friends, but this time was special. We were excited to start looking for things that we will need, and cracked ourselves up at how much we will have to learn: 5 minutes to fold a stroller? Oh my!

I think for me, anyway, (Greg usually doesn't think this much into things like I tend to) I have finally let go of any worries, and fears that this somehow will "not happen." I am finally into fulltime "We're going to be parents!" mode. And, it's a wonderful place to be.

On that note, we are still at least 3-4 weeks from receiving a call from our agency. Whenever they do call, it will either be with a referral (which for those of you who may not know, a referral is basically getting to know who your child is...their age/sex/medical info/pictures), or we will get a call to let us know how many months of waiting for a referral we will continue to have. I am trying not to get my hopes up, but I now know of two families who were DTR in early April that already have their referrals, and are heading to Russia.  How encouraging!  I am honestly not rushing this part (at least not today), and enjoying this preparing for baby stage...thinking about how to do the room, what jogging stroller I want (which is a whole post in and of itself...do you know they have MP3 Speaker hookups on these strollers now?!?) 

We will continue to keep you posted!