Will we ever get USCIS approval?

Rich and I have been waiting for 3 months now to hear back on our USCIS approval.
We were told several times NOT to follow up with them, that they will put you at bottom of the stack. So we didn't, until we reached the 7 week mark and had heard nothing.
After a half dozen emails, we hear back finally and they advised that they could not find our docs. Yes our original birth certs, marriage etc. We have tracking docs and know it got there, so we sent all of that info.
Since then we have sent about 8 follow up emails and called several times. They just ignore us and don't respond. We resent our docs in with a 2nd request notice and still nothing.
Rich called today and basically begged for someone to call back, and no one responded, imagine that! We tried to zero out and it goes nowhere.
We think we are going to try and write the Senator this weekend and see if they have any suggestions.
We have some time here, but we are quite concerned that we have gotten nowhere in 3 months!
Wish us luck!!!

We were also told by our caseworker that we may be able to travel end of March, early April. She hopes to know more within the next few weeks. We hope we get to travel soon!!!!

Jenny

Jenny

The paperwork continues....on to Dossier 2

We got our directions for Dossier 2 today. So there is more paperwork ahead of us! It seems never ending these days.
We have started working on some and will dive in more this weekend.
Our caseworker said we will hopefully have more information next week on possible travel etc.
So we will see. I hope we find out more soon.

Rich and I have been picking things up for the kids at the orphanage for our donations. We have a nice little collection started.

That's it for now! We hope to meet Maddux soon!

Jenny

Apostille Completed!

Finally, after days and days of trips to the Fed-Ex store, more notarized documents than we can count, and anxious waiting, the dossier is heading to our agency!! It only took a trip to the state capitol in Lincoln to get it done. The people at the notary office were very nice, getting it done for us in about 15 minutes. We spent more time at the Fed-Ex store making copies of everything! All in all, it's a giant relief.

We're trying to get there buddy! Hang on!!

Dad (aka Rich)

Seriously??

We called on our documents today that we sent to the state to be apostilled. Thank goodness we called!!!
The state sent us the wrong form for the passports so that is still wrong... Plus they said our passports 1- look too good, the color copy is too good. HUH? 2- that they can't be photocopied on the same page as our agency wanted.

I called our agency and she said that is silly about the color copy, that Russia will accept and she has never heard of such a thing. For the photocopies that is also how Russia wants it.

So, we are both taking the day off tomorrow and driving to Lincoln to do this in person. We are going to drive the new forms down and wait until they apostille all of the docs. We will wait all day if that is what it takes. We need to get this in by Friday!

This paperwork is going to be the death of us! It's very frustrating. Guess we have some tips for Dossier #2! We need to call and have them review and a Lincoln trip may be necessary to avoid such time delays.

So tonight more paperwork!

We are crossing our fingers tomorrow goes well!

Jenny

Ugh...the state!!!

Well we got our FedEx package back today with our paperwork and the state did not apostille any of it. They sent it back because we need 2 more pages in front of our photo's. They are so particular! Our agency didn't even know we would need this pages!

We won't make our Wed deadline now. We HOPE to have it in by Friday and still make the deadline but time will tell.

We are just keeping our fingers crossed we get lucky...

Jenny

First Dossier Done!

We got an email from our social worker today advising us that she would like our first dossier to be turned in by Wednesday of next week.
We were still waiting for our home study but ended up getting that this afternoon.

So we spent about 3 1/2 hours tonight going through all of the documents and putting together.
We hustled and got it all done!!!! YEAH!

We will send the originial to the state tomorrow to be apostilled. HOPEFULLY they are quick, the turnaround is supposed to be 24 hrs.

Once we get that back we can turn our docs in.

Hopefully we get to travel in March... There is also a possibility though it won't be until this summer, so hopefully we get lucky and can travel soon.

Our worker also advised (after I asked when seeing other people's posts) that you can adopt 2 children at once in Russia. She said if we see another child there we can ask about him/her. Something to keep in mind...

Jenny

Working on new dossier

We accepted our referral on Wednesday night. We got our new dossier instructions on Thursday.
We have been scrambling to get it all done. We have a lot of the information already from the Kaz documents we had been working on.
We should be done by tomorrow with our paperwork.
We will have to wait for our home study agency to amend the Kaz home study to Russia.
We hope to have that quickly so we can send all docs in for apostilling.

Once that is done we can send it all in and then hopefully we can travel for trip #1 soon!

Jenny

BIG change of plans

What a difference 48 hours makes. Sunday night we received an email from our adoption agency. It was sent to all the couples in the process of adopting, with most all of us having a completed homestudy. The email explained that there is a region in Russia that has more boys ages 2 and under than they have couples looking to adopt. She asked if any of us would be interested in seeing a referral and medical history. There was no obligation, and we wouldn't switch programs unless we were interested in the referral we were sent. We figured we had nothing to lose, and emailed her back expressing an interest in seeing a child.

The first referral was cute. Boy, less than a year old, born premature. We consulted our newly found international doctor and came to the conclusion that he might not be right for us. It was a difficult decision, but it was for the best.

The second referral came about a day later. Once again we got on the phone with our international doctor and started asking questions. This one seemed like a better fit, and after a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesday, and our nightly trip to Wal-Mart, we decided he was the one. We emailed our adoption agency and accepted the referral.

Words cannot describe the feelings. I think we are both excited, scared, happy, and nervous all at the same time. It's strange how you think about the day when you finally see his picture for the first time, but you never really know how you are going to feel until that day comes. I guess the one thing we have learned so far is you never know where the journey is going to take you. Maybe Kazakhstan is still in our future for child #2? But now we are off to Siberia. I've seen Rocky 4 many, many times. My guess is it's going to be cold. Better start growing that beard now.

Rich