Situation in Russia

It has been 3 months since we accepted our referral of Tatyana. In a normal situation, we would have taken our first trip toward the end of February or beginning of March, and would be expecting our second trip any day now. However, we find ourselves still waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

Our case worker sent out a general e-mail with details on what the executive director and president of the agency found. According to her, the Kemerovo region (which is where our paperwork is) has been temporarily shut down. There are two speculations as to why it is shut down. According to other agencies and people on the Kemerovo chat forums, the region is shut down due to the recent murder of an adopted child from Russia. It's a different story according to our agency, however.

Our case worker said that the region is shut down for a while because the orphanages for the region have exceeded their quota of children being adopted. The region will re-open in July or August. It is unclear if the "year" means that they exceeded the quota for a half-year, or a quarter, or if their "year" starts in July or August. I'm not too sure if this makes sense to me. There are a lot of children sitting in orphanages waiting for loving families. Why would there be a "quota"? Wouldn't these orphanages just love the chance to provide loving homes to the children they cannot care for? I don't know.

So, unless a miricle happens and Kemerovo opens again in the next couple of weeks, I probably will not post again until we get an invitation to travel.

USCIS update: We had our fingerprints re-taken this morning. Our social worker did come for a home visit a couple of weeks ago, and was supposed to submit a home study update to USCIS by May 1. I have no clue if she got it in on time, as I can't contact her now until Monday. I received an odd letter from USCIS talking about a home study and background check, but I have no clue what it's supposed to be talking about. I will also e-mail USCIS on Monday to check with them if they received the update they were waiting for. We've already been approved once, so this is just changing our country to Russia. I don't think they would approve us for one country and not another. That makes no sense to me. So, perhaps God sent this little "halt" to the region until our USCIS situation can be resolved. I don't know. All I know is we continue to sit here and wait.....