Good news...well, sort of... Portions of our dossier are being rejected and need to be redone. Why is this good news? Well, it indicates that the judge is actually reviewing it! *Woohoo!*  ¶ 12:33 PM 0 comments

  Russian adoption moves to the front page... of today's Washington Post. A nice summary for the masses. Not to mention a lot less explaining we have to do to our loyal Post-reading friends and families as to why this process is taking so long.

To me, the one surprise from the article is just how supportive President Putin is of foreign adoption. As prospective adoptive parents, it's nice to know that having room in our hearts and home for a Russian orphan--along with unlimited patience for the "legally impeccable" process involved in bringing one home--will eventually lead to Elena's successful adoption.

Apparently, becoming head of state and first lady of a neighboring country wouldn't hurt any, either.  ¶ 8:51 PM 0 comments

  A room waits...

Jews can be annoyingly superstitious in nature when it comes to upcoming blessed events. Some won't announce a pregnancy until their closest of friends notices a strange puddle of water on the floor. Baby showers are out of the question. And the baby's furniture is never, ever delivered before the baby itself.

With that in mind, we had no intention of accepting the furniture for Elena's room until we had our plane tickets firmly in hand for our return trip to Russia. However, two factors weighed heavily in our decision to take delivery:

• "Strong encouragement" from the furniture retailer, who's not used to holding ordered furniture in their warehouse for over seven months;
• Requests to include a photo of Elena's room in our dossier for the judge to review.

You can't see them in the picture, but Elena's first impression of what makes America great may be the 400-threadcount sheets on the bed, her first practical gift from her Dad. (See cousin Rich's post about the importance of threadcount.) Mom continues to contribute her design skills and handpainted accessories for the finishing touches. Brother Jesse has gladly given up the books and DVDs he considers to be either too "babyish" or "girly" for his own collection.

The room is ready. The family is ready. Elena is ready. The numerous girlfriends who'll be sleeping over in the trundle are ready.

Bring her home.

  ¶ 12:37 AM 1 comments

  When it absolutely, positively has to be there...whenever.... Follow the FedEx delivery of our documents here! Go! Go! Go!  ¶ 8:12 AM 0 comments

  Paperwork done...well, sort of... The dozens of documents we've collected are now completed, notarized, county-sealed, and apostilled by the appropriate Secretaries of State. They now comprise our dossier. Our dossier should arrive in Russia by the middle of next week, get translated, and placed before the judge within a few weeks.

When this is put before the judge, one of three things will happen:

1. The judge will say everything appears to be in order, and give us a court date to finalize our adoption and bring Elena home.
2. The judge will reject the entire dossier, often for incredibly nit-picky reasons such as placement of the notary's seal, inclusion of a middle initial on one document and not on another, etc.
3. The judge will overlook one or two little things and review the dossier, accepting an "IOU" for better paperwork.

We are expecting our paperwork to draw Scenario #3; our agency felt it would be better to get our paperwork in quickly even though we are aware of at least one thing the judge will question. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the judge won't notice.

Yeah, right.

  ¶ 4:21 PM 0 comments