Thursday, January 29, 2009

Finally...some Progress!

Although nothing has really happened in the past few months regarding the adoption, we are now going Full Speed Ahead as we have changed the Russian region we are now going through.

The new region, or city, is called Vladimir. It is closer to Moscow than the 1st orphanage and will have a significanlty shorter wait time. As it stands now in the original region of Yaroslavl, we are currently looking at another 14 months wait. With this newer region, we are probably going to have our new addition this summer!

Currently we have all of our Pre-File completed and are now ready to have everything apostilled in Austin. This is basically a state-level notarization. We may drive everything down there to get it done quickly, but we will have to see what Mike's work schedule looks like in the next week or so. After the Pre-File paperwork is apostilled, we will send to our case worker at the agency to translate and officially submit to Russia.

We have just received our "invitation" to be fingerprinted for the national background check. We passed the state background check with flying colors...but I'm not so sure about Mike's past life in Louisiana so we will see!! This is just one of the several things left to actually complete the Dossier (application to Russia).

Also I have finally found a certified psychiatrist to perform our MMPI-2 Tests, which will determine if we are free from bi-polar and other major psychiatric disorders. The psychiatric center is located right down the street and are on the very low end of the price range! We were scheduled to do that today, actually, but we are all home sick so it will have to wait until next week.

That being said, we are actually seeing some major progress. I've started to do more research on flights and hotels, etc. The region of Vladimir is so beautiful. I am anxious to see some sights when the time comes.


Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue on the journey ahead!