Making Progress!!

We have traveled on 2 out of 4 flights for the day! We flew out of Birmingham early this morning to Atlanta to New York. I'm sitting in the gate area now in NYC and everyone around me is speaking Russian! It's so fun! I can make out approximately...three of the words I have heard. Ha! By the way, did you know that when you fly to Russia (maybe other countries?) that you have to get a round black stamp on your boarding pass at the gate before you can board? You learn something new each day...

Also, there is a family traveling to Volgograd with us! We met up with them in ATL and have enjoyed our journey together thus far. We are getting ready to board our flight to Moscow (10 hour flight then a 6 hour layover before our connecting flight to Volgograd) - so до свидания!

T Minus 11 Hours

Um...what in the world. We leave for Russia in 11 hours. We're going to be in the same city as our son soon!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!

Bows To Bring Our Baby Home

My sweet cousin, Ryann, has offered to host an online bow fundraiser for us to help offset some of our adoption costs! She makes hairbows, headbands, pony streamers, tutus, tutu dresses, pacifier clips, hairbow holders...adorable products!!!

Check out her Facebook page "Sweetie Pea Bowtique" ...https://www.facebook.com/sweetiepeabowtique... and message her if you are interested in purchasing anything. You can look through her pictures to see examples of what she makes or you can look at her color charts and request exactly what you want! :) You can find her email address on her Facebook page. Just let her know that you are interested in supporting us and she will donate her proceeds to our adoption fund.

Please place your order between now and May 16!! 

Thanks everyone!!!

We Stand in Awe

We sang a song in church this past Sunday with the lyrics, “We Stand in Awe of All You Have Done, Father, Spirit, Son…Almighty One.” I just was overcome with emotion…I really am in absolute awe of God’s plans. How He has worked out every little detail of this adoption…of our whole journey these past few years. There are several other details about this adoption that I can’t share at this point for confidentiality reasons, but wow…just wow. God is truly amazing. I still can’t see the whole picture, but just to see God making beauty out of the ashes…it’s truly an amazing feeling.

Yippee!!!

OUR VISAS HAVE ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prayer Requests

We had some sweet friends from church come over last night to pray with us before we leave for Russia. We spent a while in prayer praying for the specifics of the trip, that the words that we speak while we are gone will be honoring to Him, etc. We are so so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives. We made a list of specific prayer requests so I thought I would pass them on…

• That our visas will arrive in time!
• That everything with our travel goes smoothly – flights on time, baggage not lost, no problems in customs, that our facilitator/translator/driver/etc. will all be on time and easy to find, etc. (I’m a control freak so having to let go of ALL control and depend on others for EVERYTHING is very nerve-wracking!)
• We will have an interview at the Department of Education on Wednesday morning where they will ask us questions about our home study, ask us why we are adopting from Russia, why we are not adopting from the US, etc. We were told by our worker that they do not like to hear “God led us to adopt from Russia” but that they like to hear things such as “We respect the Russian culture”, etc. I feel very uncomfortable not being myself and having to screen my own answers but a family that recently got back from Volgograd with their son said that they had NO problems, were completely honest about the Lord leading them to adopt, etc. and they have their son! I feel so much better knowing that I can be myself!! In our prayer time last night we prayed that God will be glorified in all of our answers and in this whole experience.
• Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we will visit with our son!!! We are just praying that this will be a sweet time that we will never forget. That he will feel our love and know that he is wanted, that he will begin the bonding process with us, that we will be able to talk with his caregivers and get many of our questions answered…we are bringing note cards and are hoping that we will be able to get his caregivers to write him little notes. I feel like this could be so special to him one day.
• That our return travels will go smoothly.
• That we will feel God’s peace that surpasses our understanding as we leave Volgograd Saturday morning…
• And that God will continue to care for our sweet little boy in ways that only He can. We pray that he is getting the proper nutrition, that he is being held, given the opportunity to move around, that he is being talked to, that his caregivers are making eye contact with him and loving on him…I know that God created this little boy and has been holding him in the palm of His hand. He won’t stop now…but this mommy’s heart is already aching with the thought of leaving him at the end of our time in Volgograd.

Those are our specific prayer requests for now. Thank you all in advance for your prayers!! We really feel like we are not alone on this journey…you all are traveling it right along with us!

What happens next...

I've had several questions about what happens at this point, when we get to bring our baby home, etc. So, just so we are all on the same page... :)

The adoption process in Russia will take three trips...the first trip lasts about a week and we will meet our child. We will spend about three days in Volgograd, visiting at the orphanage during designated hours, and the rest of the time will be spent in transit. At the end of the three days in Volgograd we will sign an intent to adopt.

Then we wait to hear back from Russia about our court date. In the meantime there will be a TON more paperwork to complete. It typically has been about four months between the first and second trips, but this time frame can vary greatly. Our prayer is that things go so much faster than anticipated and that we will be back in Russia in much less than four months. During that trip we will go to court and appear before a judge...we will probably have to make speeches about why we will make good parents, details about our income, our home, etc. The judge will determine if we can adopt this specific child. Then we come back to the US...

And we wait 30 days. This is new as of 2012. There used to be a 10 day waiting period between the court hearing and when we can actually take custody of our child, but they have now increased it to a 30 day waiting period. This is the reason why three trips are now the norm instead of two. It's not so practical to stay in the country for that whole time. After 30 days then we get to go back to Russia and take custody of our baby!!! This third trip lasts between 7 and 10 days.

So there it is. Our rough time line for when we will be a family of three living under the same roof!

I Might Not Be a Very Stable Person After All...

These are some of my thoughts that I wrote the week after receiving the referral...

"I go back and forth between being so excited and falling in love with this baby to being terrified that the referral will be taken away. In Russia, if at any point before the adoption is final a Russian family comes forward interested in adopting him, they will be given first priority. This possibility terrifies me.

But then I think...When we were pregnant, I enjoyed every minute of that pregnancy and even though we were crushed after our miscarriage, I don't ever wish I had guarded my heart more and not let myself enjoy and attach to that baby. God gave us that pregnancy and wanted us to enjoy every second. I feel the same way now...God allowed us to get this referral and for today we rejoice in that.

But then my flesh goes back to...protect yourself, it is a very real possibility that a Russian family could come forward interested in adopting this precious child.

Bleh."

I'm doing much better now but I did want to share the emotions from this roller coaster we call adoption...God is really helping me not dwell on those thoughts that I know are straight from the devil. God is in control here!! We are praying, and please join us in this prayer, that this IS the child God has for us to parent and that He will continue to work out all of the details as only He can.

Thank you for all of your prayers and for traveling this journey with us!!

Praise the Lord!!

Our visa applications have arrived at Go To Russia Travel! With all of the Russian holidays between now and our travel date it's still very scary but at least one step is completed! They're at least being processed now!

Visas and Travel Arrangements

On the way home from Birmingham I started taking care of business! Talking to Terri about details, making flight arrangements with a travel agent (great agency in Seattle that works with a lot of adoptive families…the agent was GREAT to work with and very knowledgeable about the process!), looking into the visa process, etc.

For our visas, we used an agency called Go To Russia (GoToRussia.com) and luckily you can fill out an online application (you print out the application after it auto fills in the details for you and then you mail it in). The application is just crazy though…you need to have addresses and phone numbers of past employers, schools, etc. in addition to a ton of other details. It took us several hours to fill out both applications. It was a very stressful process because we are on such a time crunch and I analyzed everything we put on there, double and triple checking every little detail. The representative at Go To Russia was so helpful and easy to work with though - I highly recommend them if you are traveling to Russia!

To complicate matters, Russia has several holidays coming up in the next few weeks…5 holidays in the next 10 business days before we travel to be exact. Because of this, we had to use a very quick processing time which, as you could expect, was a bit more expensive than if we had more time. And by a bit more expensive I mean like twice as expensive. We just had to laugh about it because it was so expensive and crazy what we were having to pay. God is so faithful though and even though money has been going out very very quickly over the past few days, He faithfully provides! And it's not our money in the first place, everything we have is the Lord's!

Everything is in the mail as of Saturday morning though and we are praying that everything moves smoothly and that we get those visas in the mail quickly. Please join us in that prayer! It is really going to be pushing it to the very last second...oh how it makes the planner and organizer in me cringe. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:5-6

Now I start on my lengthy lengthy to-do list…I mean, my head spins when I look at it! But what a great problem to have. Who needs sleep, right??