Moritz Adoption

We're home and trying to keep ahead of the paperwork

We got home late on Saturday night. We had a slight crisis in Chicago.
We missed our connecting flight by 20 minutes. Our airline tickets and
our itinerary did not match. We were on different airlines at different
times. We had neglected to notice this difference until it was too
late, but we managed to get home after our travel agent found us some
seats on American Airlines (for another $400!) The airline tickets
alone cost us about $4,500 for trip one. Wow, it's pricey to travel to
Russia.

We came home to a cute welcome-home banner made by E-ma and the boys out
of toilet paper. :) Very creative. It was so good to be back home and
spend time with the kids. We missed them. Emir did a great job
babysitting. Thank you! Papa came and spent the day on Saturday too.
The boys have been enjoying watching the video of R and L. They like
the details from our trip and want to go to Russia themselves! It's fun
telling them about their sisters.

Nothing like coming home and needing to start right in on the paperwork
again. I am having trouble keeping my head above water this week. The
jetlag hasn't been too bad but I am definitely feeling exhausted today.
I am just going batty having to do the same papers over and over.
Yesterday I worked on the police clearances for both of us. Our police
station was torn down so I had to figure out where the temporary police
trailer was! We called our doctors today to schedule what we hope is
our last round of medical tests. We've been to the doctor about 5-6
times this year so far. You can only get so many blood tests before
they start to think you're a tad wacky. I am going to the credit union
today to have the proof of home ownership form filled out once again.
But the form that is driving me the most crazy is the United States
Citizenship and Immigration I-824. I'm about ready to pull my hair
out. I've been working on it for 5+ hours the last few days. No one
seems to be able to help me. It's a learning experience. I happened to
notice today that the form says we're only qualified for one child, not
two. I called my agency and they were unaware of this! Oh my
goodness. So now I'm filing for a change from Moldova to Russia (no one
ever told us to do this before now) and possibly for a change in the
number of children. We need to get all of this done as soon as possible
because it will affect our given court date---which we hope will be
sometime around March and April. The papers take awhile to process.

Many of you have asked how long our second trip will be. We will be
there for about 3 weeks (18-25 days). Our court date happens within the
first day or two of our trip and then we have 12 days of waiting until
they're officially ours. During that time the children are usually
allowed to live with the adoptive family. I believe at this point the
new birth certificate is issued. Then we head to Moscow after the
waiting period and work on the childrens' visas while there. That takes
about 2-4 days. Then we head home. If the 12th waiting day falls on a
weekend or a holiday though, you have to wait until a business day. So
that's why the days can not be exactly determined. All airline tickets
have to be pretty flexible.

One of the forms I'm working on is an application to the court in
Khabarovsk. We have to choose names for the girls on this form. We do
plan to keep their first names, but we are considering middle name
options for them. That's been kind of fun. R's name will be pronounced
with the hard G sound (as prounounced in good). It's grown on us and we
noticed how much she responded to her name while we were there. One
time Dan had the video camera on with the screen pointing at R so she
could see herself. She noticed herself and yelled out her name! It was
so cute. That is my favorite video of her all week.

I've been on the phone alot this week with various paperwork issues. I
am feeling guilty about not spending much time with the boys. I hope I
can just relax once Christmas gets here and spend the time with my
family. My mom, dad, and Linda are flying in on Thursday morning. It
will be wonderful to see them all and chat about our trip...and show
lots of video!! :) Dan put some of it to music and it's really
touching to watch. I decided I better not to do that often. My friend
Dia told me I'd have it all memorized by the time we went back there. I
think she's right.

Once the holiday dust settles, we need to do some major thinking about
how we're going to arrange our home for 4 children. We plan to do a
major overhaul of junk tossing too. Most likely Hayden will keep his
same room. No one wants to move to the downstairs 4th bedroom (too
scary I guess). We have 3 bedrooms up. For now Holden, R and L will
share the bigger room. We have bunk beds in there. Holden can have the
top, R can be on the bottom, and we'll use a pack n' play for L for the
time being. We have so many gracious friends that are offering their
car seats, cribs, toddler beds, toys, clothes, booster seats, etc...
Thanks a million. That will really help us alot.

We'll keep you updated as we hear more news. For now it's just papers
and more papers--notaries and apostilles. I'm a pro at all that, but
it's getting the best of me. Someone told me once it takes a couple
trees to do an adoption. They were right. Trees and tears.

Merry Christmas to all of you!! The Moritz Chestnut has yet to be
written, but don't worry--there will be a late edition. :)

-Nancy

posted by Dan @ 11:21 AM