The Wait

Where do I start today? It turns out that the staff at the DOE was not on vacation. They were told to take off while the government decided what to do about the case in Utah where an adoptive father murdered his adopted children from Russia. This happened on March 7, and our paperwork made it to Russia on March 3. Just our luck.

Well, so the DOE is back and running again processing adoptions. However, there is another dimension to the game. Now when we arrive in Moscow before we go to court, we have to undergo an 8-doctor visit. It's supposedly non-invasive. Just so these specialists can go over our paperwork that we did in the States and ask us questions reguarding our health. There is also to be a psychiatric exam to boot. It's to cost $650-800 per person.

As if that's not bad enough, our fingerprints for Immigration expire in June, and 8 weeks before they expire we have to notify Immigration so they can make another appointment for us to get fingerprinted again (another $80). So, I sent in my letter on Friday, a few days early than the 8 weeks.

But wait-there's more! On Friday our social worker told us that Immigration wrote them and said they cannot approve us for Russia because we had not had a home visit in almost a year. Also, some of the answers to our questions were not acceptable. For instance, our other social worker asked us if we were ever accused of a sexual offense, and we said "no". But since she did not write our responses word-for-word, it's unacceptable. How many words does it take to say NO??? Anyway, she's coming today at 5:30. I'm not as nervous as the first time, but I am kind of nervous because our downstairs bathroom is torn apart because we have to replace water-damaged walls and ceiling, and our bathtub has part of the wall missing from having pipes replaced. I know I'm being paranoid, but those are my fears.

Anyway, I do know that the executive director and the president of our agency are in Russia right now checking into the situation. They are also checking on each individual case. We will be called in a week or two to get an update on what is happening with our case and to also maybe even get a travel date. So, here I go...waiting at least another two weeks before we hear anything!