The Waiting Game Continues

It has been too long since I last updated the blog. Now summer is over, school has begun, and football season is in full swing around our parts. It is hard to believe that today is the last day of September.

As you know we were hoping to have gone to Russia by now. In June, we were told we could get our referral as soon as four to eight weeks. Well, after August came and went we began to realize that something was probably wrong. As it turns out, our region just wasn't giving out referrals. They didn't have any children available in our preferences. This region was supposed to facilitate eight adoptions this year. At this point, they've only done two - and the last one was in May. They are free to do whatever they want, though, and we have to just accept that. Such is the nature of Russian adoption!

So, as much as we didn't want to do this again, CHI recommended that we change to a different region. We could have stayed in Yaroslavl out of stubbornness or trust their knowledge and recommendation to leave. So, we are back in the region of Astrakhan. We were in this region for a very short time early this year before we moved to Yaroslavl.

The good news is that as of right now Astrakhan is moving and requesting families. We were able to gather enough documents needed for our registration in Astrakhan in a matter of a few days. This allowed our documents to get hand delivered to Astrakhan through a family who was traveling there for their first trip. Sending documents this way was much quicker than mailing them. We still have a lot of other documents to get together for when we go to court in the future. But, we should get registered in this region this week. This could mean that we may be able to travel as soon as the end of October. If that were the case, we would be receiving our travel dates in a few weeks. It is always hard to share time lines and dates, though. We've always seen those dates come and go, which is hard. We are hoping, though, that this time things will be different.

If you'd like to know more about Astrakhan, I wrote about it in this post. The main difference in this region is that we will travel "blind", meaning that we will not receive a referral until we get in the region. Also, many of the children in this region have Asian features due to its close proximity to Kazakhstan. We do have some apprehension about traveling "blind", but just have to believe that God will give us the wisdom to make the decisions that we'll face. We are hoping and praying, though, that we'll be able to accept our first referral.

I'm sure many of you wrestle with the same questions we wrestle with as you support us on this journey. Wouldn't it be easier to just give up and quit? Probably. Is the Lord trying to show us that this may not be the road He has for us? Maybe. Is there a better option out there? Possibly. Why are we (they) still doing this?

Well, that question evokes much more than a one word answer. I was actually thinking about this a few weeks ago as I was driving to Montgomery in a torrential down pour, after an extremely stressful morning of collecting the recent documents we needed to send to Astrakhan. I was very frustrated about the fact that nothing about this journey has been easy - especially the events of that day. As I drove 40 mph on the interstate barely being able to see a few feet in front of me, I asked myself the same question raised above...Why are we still doing this? Well, I remembered that we are still doing this because there is still a child on the other side of the country, whom we already love, who still needs a family. We are doing this for him. And I'll just tell you, when I begin to remember this reason and picture the son we hope to have, I can't help but smile. All the frustration, all the sweat and tears, all the waiting - he is worth it all.

We are also still doing this because the Lord has yet to release us from this journey. He has actually done quite the opposite and has continued to confirm that we are where He wants us. We are so thankful for the reminders, because we do question often. The Lord gave a verse to my Dad that he passed along to us. It has been amazing how much this verse just seems to keep popping up everywhere. It always serves to remind me to keep persevering:

"For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay." Habakkuk 2:3

I also like how this verse is translated in the Message:

And then God answered: "Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what's coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
And it doesn't lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It's on its way. It will come right on time. Habakkuk 2:2-3


One last thing - we have begun reading an excellent book on the theology of adoption and the journey of adopting a child. We highly recommend it! The book is called Adopted for Life by Russell Moore. Here is a link to the book.

I will be sure to post of any new future developments. Thanks for your continued support and prayers.

Nesting

After this past week, I'm pretty sure that adoptive parents can "nest", too! Our big week of "nesting" began last weekend. We painted the ceiling in Fyodor's room, the hallway ceiling and the bathroom ceiling. Then, Zac installed a new ceiling fan and painted the air vents in the nursery and bathroom. The vents were silver and very large. Now, you hardly even notice them! While Zac was working on those projects, I just decided to go ahead and paint the bathroom which I had been wanting to do all summer. The rest of this week was spent painting our bedroom, which was another project that I'd been wanting to complete.

Me in my "do-rag". I learned the hard way once that you need to cover your head when painting ceilings unless you want paint all in your hair!

Zac did a great job on the ceiling fan, and it was not easy!!

You can see the painted air vent to the right of this picture.

I also decided that it was time to pick out nursery bedding. I have been looking for a LONG time and found some that I liked. I even posted about it once. I really liked that bedding, but wished the bedding wasn't so bright. I really want the nursery to be calm and soothing and not overstimulating. All the bedding that I've found in the past that fit this category looked very "baby-ish". I wanted it to be light in color, but have a "big boy" theme. Well, I finally found what I was looking for at Pottery Barn Kids. The only bad thing was that you can no longer buy it online. But, my mom went to the PBK in Birmingham and found all the pieces. So, instead of being indecisive and wanting to wait, I just bit the bullet and bought it!! It is adorable, and even though I haven't seen it in person, I think it is going to look great in the nursery. Here are a few pictures:

My mom even found the window valances. So, we are getting closer to setting up the nursery. We don't have any furniture yet, because we have to decide first about the flooring. Right now we have hardwood floors in the nursery, which is nice, but they aren't in great shape. Plus, we'd like to have carpet or a rug so that it is nice and soft and cozy. We did some carpet shopping this weekend with Zac's parents who came to visit and did find some that would work. We're just not sure what would be best. Any of you parents out there that have any suggestions about what has/hasn't worked for you, please share!

I talked with Leslie this week. She said that our paperwork is at the Department of Education in Yaroslavl. I'm not sure if that is a new developement or if it has been there for a while, but she feels that we should hear something very soon. I told her that I hope Russia's definition of "very soon" is the same as mine! I sure would love to hear from her this week! Please continue to pray for this referral process and for the Lord to sovereignly intervene and work through the adoption officials in Yaroslavl to match us with the child that is meant to be ours. We know His purposes will prevail for our family. Hope to post some good news "very soon"!

Summer Highlights

Here are a few pictures of some of the things we have done this summer. I hope this will serve as a good catch up for my slacker blogging!

Zac turned 30! We had some friends and family over to celebrate. Zac had really wanted a surprise party - a surprise party, though, that he knew about. Ha! So, we all pretended to surprise him.

My mom came down for a few days to help/teach me a little about sewing. We made two matching roman shades for my side and back doors. We are planning on getting new doors, so we made the curtains to match that window size. I still wanted to hang them in the meantime, so they're a little small on our current door windows. I really like them and enjoyed learning about sewing. I'd love to learn more!

My sister was in a wedding for one of her friends. I drove up to Birmingham to see her and go to the wedding.

On June 7th, Zac and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We ate at Amsterdam Cafe and then walked around Samford Hall. Zac proposed to me right in front of Samford Hall all those years ago. While we were there, we ran into Zac's sister and she took our picture!

One of my dear friends from high school and college, Morgan, came to visit for the day. She lives in San Diego now so we don't see each other very much.

On June 13th, Zac participated in his 2nd strongman competition in Douglasville, GA. He did really well! I tried to take some pictures and video of his events. He was also able to make a few new friends.

At the end of June, I went to a reunion with some more of my dear college friends. We try to get together once a year. We went to Lake Martin for a long weekend. It was really great to get to see them!

A few weeks ago my friend Naomi came over for a few hours, and I finally got to meet baby Patrick! He is precious.

For the fourth of July, we went to Birmingham and spent the weekend with my family. We had a lot of fun and also learned a new domino game that we played all weekend.

Last week, Zac and I went to Orange Beach for a few days for a late anniversary trip. It was the first time we have gone to the beach by ourselves. The weather was perfect, and we had a great time relaxing & swimming & laying out. While we were there, we found out our friends Ryan and Mandy and their girls were in Gulf Shores, too. We met them for lunch one day. We feel like this might have been the last time we'll be able to get away for a while (except for when we go to Russia!), because we'll have to stay at home a lot once Fyodor gets here.

Hopefully, my next post we'll be with some news from Russia. Keep praying!

Nothing Yet

Well, it has been four weeks today that we found out that our documents were being registered in Yaroslavl. As you may remember, Leslie felt that we could receive our referral as early as a month. Well, here we sit...one month from that conversation. I emailed her yesterday and she hadn't heard anything, so we continue to hold our breath. We try really hard to not get a time line in our minds, but when a time line is given to us it is hard to not start getting our hopes up. It just makes the waiting that much harder. So, the days are starting to be filled with more anxiety and building with anticipation. I guess that is not all bad, but I am trying to stay guarded in case something not desirable happens like last time. We've been this close before and things didn't go the way we hoped. Let's all pray that doesn't happen again!

Please just continue to pray for the son that the Lord has for our family and that we would get to meet him very soon. Pray for his protection and that God would take care of him until we can bring him home. Also, pray for peace-filled days for us and for sufficient grace and strength to keep trusting and waiting.

On a much lighter note, I am hoping to post some pictures to catch you up on what we've been doing this summer. Right now, I'm having trouble getting them all in one location to upload them. I hope to do this soon! Thanks for your continued support and prayers!

Some News, Finally

I realize the blog has been pretty quiet around here. We just haven't had any adoption news to report lately. However, last week we received some good news that I wanted to share.

In my last post I had mentioned that we were moved to a new region and that I wasn't sure where we would fall "in line". There was a couple at the time who were in the process of completing their adoption. Once their adoption was finalized the region would proceed with a new family. When I asked Children's Hope about who would go next, they really weren't sure because of the fact that our paperwork was submitted around the same time as another couple's paperwork. We were really hoping and praying that we would be chosen next.

Well, a week ago we found out that we are the ones who should get to go next!! Our documents are now in the process of being officially registered. This means that we could receive our referral possibly within the next 4 to 6 to 8 weeks. Things tend to slow down in the summer, but CHI still thinks it could happen in four weeks, which would be awesome!

We are trying to remain "cautiously" optimistic (thus the use of the words "should" and "could"). While we are very happy about this news, we know that anything could happen. So, we are trying to not get our hopes up too high. But, this was still exciting news, and we are very thankful for it!

We do have a few prayer requests. First and foremost, please be in prayer for our referral process. When we are matched with a child we will have to determine based on the information we receive, which may not be much, if we would like to travel to meet him (I think this is how it might go). Please pray that this would be an easy process and the God would fill us with much wisdom. We don't want to have to make a tough decision - we'd love for it to be easy! Please be praying for the child the Lord has for us and that we will know him when we see him. Pray for the Lord to show us/direct us to the child he has chosen for our family (which I know He will)!

Also, our immigration approval is expiring in about a month. We are working to get this renewed, but we have to do a home study update and this update then has to go through DHR all before it can make its way to CIS. We have submitted everything but this. Please pray that our approval would be renewed very quickly. It shouldn't cause too much of a problem, but I will feel much more at ease once it is renewed.

We feel that in some ways this journey is just beginning. There is a lot that still must take place for us to reach the goal of bringing home our son. Please pray that this will be a very smooth process and that we don't run into any problems.

The next news we hear should be about our referral, so stay tuned...Hopefully, it won't be too much longer!

Oh, and I am going to try and update the blog with other things that have been going on soon. Since it is the summer, maybe I'll get better at blogging!

Yaroslavl

I know, I know - long time, no post. A lot has transpired since my last post and I just wanted to bring everyone up to speed.

About a month ago, we found out that we had been transferred, yet again, to another region. After our documents made it to Astrakhan, the region came back and said that they had no boys in our age range and/or requests available for international adoption. That seems strange, but who knows. We really had no control over this so we had to just go with it and trust that the Lord was guiding us to where we needed to be.

We have now been moved to a region called Yaroslavl. Yaroslavl is north of Moscow and takes about 4 hours by car to get there. If we do stay in this region, we may actually end up taking three trips instead of two. This could be a better option for Zac as he would get to take off less time from work. We would go on our first trip a few weeks after we receive our referral and meet our child. Our second trip would take place about a month later and we would be gone for about a week for our court appointment. Then, we would come home to wait out the typical ten day waiting period before we could pick up our child. Our third trip would last a week to a week and a half and we would get our child and come home for good!

I'll be honest, the last month has been tough. We haven't really known what to think about changing regions again. The bad news was that we had to re-do almost all of our documents...again. My consultant, Leslie, really emphasized that it would be good if we could get everything done as fast as possible. So, there was some added pressure there, but then she shared about a week later that another couple had been moved to this region from Astrakhan too. She also mentioned that we were kind of in a "race" between them to get documents in the region. Knowing all of this I did everything I could to work as fast as possible. I had to do many of the documents and then Lifeline had to do the others. It is always difficult when having to work with outside sources - working on their time table and pace, having to explain how to do the documents, dealing with being in another city, etc. This was the most stressful part of collecting our documents, and we were very disappointed that we didn't get our documents from Lifeline as quickly as we had wanted.

Finally, though, after an initial failed attempt last Monday to get everything collected and certified (who knew about "Confederate Memorial Day" and that government offices close this day...ugh!) everything got mailed to Children's Hope Tuesday and then sent to Russia on Wednesday. It was the biggest relief, and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again - this really took a lot out of me (and Zac, too).

I really don't know where we stand in the region yet. We did find out that the other couple who had been moved to this region got their documents in the Thursday before we sent in ours - so they ended up being about a week ahead of us. This was upsetting at first, but I'm still not sure that this will mean they'll be ahead of us in "line." Children's Hope usually assigns line order based on how long you've been waiting. I can't imagine most people have been waiting as long as we have. Originally, Leslie had told us we would be first in this region, but that was before this other couple was moved. I'm hoping to get a clear answer on this soon.

If we are first in line, we might be able to travel this summer - maybe June or July. I am really hoping that this will be the case. We are very weary of waiting and extremely anxious to finish this adoption process.

We would appreciate your prayers for our referral to come soon and for continued perseverance while we wait. We have been struggling with discouragement lately. More importantly, please also keep our son in your prayers and that he would be well taken care of while we cannot be with him. Pray for us to be united soon.

I'll end with a picture since I haven't posted one in a long time. This was taken Easter Sunday.


And, here is Gracie's Easter picture for a little humor:


I'll try and update more frequently as I know more!

One Year

It has been way too long since I last updated the blog. I've been wanting to update for the past few weeks, but just haven't taken the time. Here is an attempt at an adequate update:

First of all, it has now been a year since our paperwork went to Russia and we've been waiting on a referral. I really didn't expect it to take this long, so it is a little surprising that we're still where we are. Of course, we did get delayed by the situation that came up in January, and we have always known it could take over a year or more. I just really didn't think that it would. But, the Lord sees fit for us to continue to wait, so waiting is what we continue to do.

In February, about a week after we were assigned to a new region, we got another piece of discouraging news. Russia put together a list of adoption agencies that had not complied to post-adoption reports the way Russia expects. It was a very long list with several agencies per state. Well, our home study agency, Lifeline, was on the list. Basically, Russia sent this list to all the regions and encouraged them to not move forward with new adoptions from any families who were using these agencies as their home study provider.

At the time, we were not sure what this would mean for us. Worst case scenario - we'd have to re-do our home study with a new agency. Thankfully, though, when we contacted Lifeline they were already aware of the problem, had figured out what had happened and sent in the necessary documents that should resolve the issue. Russia stated that agencies can be taken off the list once they correct the problem. I received an email on February 24th that Lifeline had at that point mailed the necessary documents to Russia. It is now up to Russia to review the documents and decide if what Lifeline sent in is enough to be taken off the list. Well, at this point we have still not heard any news on Lifeline's current status. Please pray that they will get on the "good list" soon, because this could make our documents "pending" until the Lifeline issue is resolved.

The other factor to this situation is how Astrakhan feels about this list. Some regions have come back and said it is not a big deal, while others have felt quite differently. News about this list came to us on February 19th, and we still have yet to hear any news about how Astrakhan wants to handle things. So, we are hoping that if they really cared they would have done something by now, but you just never know.

I talked with Leslie, my Children's Hope contact, a few weeks ago and she mentioned that things in Astrakhan (as far as referrals and adoptions) are continuing to move along. It seems that Astrakhan proceeds with two families from each agency at a time, which is great! It looks like two families that traveled in early January are awaiting a court date to travel back to adopt their children. One family has received their court date. Lesley feels that after these families receive their court dates, then two other families who are currently registered in the region should receive their travel dates for their first trip, and then they should register two new families - which should include us!!! However, because of the Lifeline issue I am worried that they could skip over us and choose another family that is not working with an agency on the "list."

If we were registered in this new batch, it should mean that we would receive our travel dates to go on our first trip a few months later. This could mean that we would get to travel this summer (maybe June?) - which would be wonderful!! If we don't get registered, it would probably push our first trip to late summer/early fall.

All of this is making me very anxious. I feel like it is all coming to a penacle and I don't want to miss our opportunity to be registered at the soonest opportunity. I feel compelled to do anything and everything to fix it, but I have done really all that I can do. But, I just can't stop thinking about if there is something else that can be done. It's so hard to know that everything is completely out of my control, because I just want to rush in and intervene and make sure that we get registered in this new batch of families. But, once again, it is completely in the Lord's very capable hands and we have to just trust whatever decision He makes. Can I just be honest and say that this feels really hard right now?! We do want His plan, but days like today I feel desperate for His plan to be on my timeline. We are just so ready to get this waiting over with and begin our new life with our son. The thought of it taking even longer is really hard.

Would you please pray for this situation? Please pray that the situation with Lifeline would be resolved and they would receive a favorable status soon. Also, please pray that the Lord would open the doors for us to be chosen as one of the families to be registered in the region with this new batch of families. Last, would just please pray for the Lord's peace to reign in our hearts and for us to continue to trust His plan as we wait? We are so grateful for your prayers and concern.