Moritz Adoption

Yeah, it arrived!

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the awesome emails of
support and excitement you are sending to us. We are so touched by your
response and your prayers for us. I wish I had time to respond to all of
you individually. Please know that we love reading them all.

After that discouraging day on Friday with the marriage license, it
actually arrived in our mail on Saturday. We didn't arrive home last
night until 8 pm and I kissed that document when I saw it in the
mailbox!! It was truly an answer to prayer.

We had our Russia travel orientation class yesterday. I thought it was
so fun. It lasted about 5 hours. They gave us a talk on airline
ticketing, travel visas, culture shock, money--how much to bring and the
exchange rate, food, the language, the emotions/unpredictability to
expect of the whole process, how to phone home, etc.. They had a
slideshow as well. They ended with a parent panel of couples who had
recently adopted from Russia. They were really neat to listen to. We
could also ask them questions. One of the couples on the panel went to
our specific region so that was fascinating to hear. They said our
region has a cook and she makes all the meals (lunch and dinner) for the
Americans from our agency. That is the only region that does it that
way. So it's home cooked food and you meet others going through the
same part of the process. Some have their children already and are
waiting to leave the country and some are only on trip #1. The hotels
all looked decent. They're nothing like they are here, but not too
bad. And they have internet cafes so we can most likely get to an email
station while there which will be wonderful. We ate a Russian lunch
while there too. The food was pretty good! We had a cabbage/potato
soup called something like Borsk, a pasta mayo salad called olivier,
some bread, a meat/pastry thing, and some Russian cookies. There are
not any foods we will need to avoid while over there, although bottled
water is recommended, which they sell alot of over there. Every 10
minutes or so I would just get giddy and on the edge of tears. Part of
me can't believe we're at this part of the process after all this time!
I just want to pinch myself. Most everyone we talked to yesterday was
going for their first child. They were nervous about diapering,
tantrums, and basic parenting techniques. It made me realize that at
least we semi-know what we're doing in that area. We're no experts, but
we are not scared of the parenting aspect at all.

Our specialist did tell us yesterday that Dan's doctor forms are
incorrect. The doctor and nurse wrote two separate dates on the test
result area. It doesn't match the doctor's signature date. So we have
to run to the dr's office again tomorrow and hope that they can redo
that for us as quick as possible. I have to type cover letters for the
forms because there are so many stipulations on how it has to be done.
I am going to the secretary of state's office at 11:30 tomorrow
morning. Tuesday I will turn in everything to our agency for the
dossier. Then it will be on its way to Moscow and more....to
translate. It's always something , I tell ya. Who says you don't need
lamaze breathing for adoption too? :)

We continue to pray for news on L's sister sometime this week. We have
amazing peace about it. We're confident God will show us the way. Dan
and I had such a nice weekend together. We are living a dream and there
is nothing better than doing that with the person you're spending your
life with.

posted by Dan @ 5:18 PM