We keep on going...

I haven't posted in a while because there's not much to say really. We continue to have some paperwork trickle in and get us baby steps closer to completing our home study. Provided our doctors can complete our medical forms in a reasonable time (namely, MY doc's office) we should be completed with our home study by Dec. 10th. Once that's completed we'll dig further into our dossier paperwork. Kentucky is one of the few states that requires documents to be certified in the county they were notarized in before the documents can be apostilled (Apostille: the legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents) We are hoping to be completed with our dossier at the end of February. I have added links to other families blogs who are adopting from Ukraine. Some are currently traveling in country and it's quite interesting to read what they are going through. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving - Christmas is right around the corner!

Immigration

We got a big step accomplished this morning at the immigration office in Louisville. Being the earlybirds that we are we rushed to L'ville at 6am for our 8:40AM appointment. We had no idea what traffic would be like and we did NOT want to be late for this appt. Needless to say we were very, very EARLY. Good thing there was the fine dining establishment called "White Castle" across the street so we grabbed some breakfast & coffee while we waited. Around 8am we walked over to the courthouse and walked right into the office where our appt. was. The lady went ahead and took our paperwork & payment (of course, they ask for that up front before we can proceed!) then directed us to the basment where our fingerprints would be done. Little did we know, our appt. was only to turn in our paperwork, NOT to get our prints done. We headed downstairs anyway and were told that appts got first priority and "walk-ins" were fit in if they could be. At that point I was preparing myself for a full-day's wait at the immigration office. No need to worry though, in about 15 minutes our names were called, we submitted our fingers to be printed and we were outta there -- at exactly 8:47am. Seven minutes after our appt. I am still in shock that it went so quick.
Just a few more documents are needed for our home study and that will be completed!! We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving - I know we have a lot to be thankful for this year! Love to all!
Susan & Truman

Digging out

Hip Hip Hooray - our home study visits are done! Now we are just waiting on some paperwork to come back to either us or our social worker and that will be behind us. The one surprise is that she recommended we allow her to approve us for two children, just on the off chance something unexpected - say, like a sibling - appears after we've selected our child. It's not likely, but on rare instances it does happen. We would just hate to get over there, fall in love with a particular child and not be able to take them home because we were not approved for 2. However, she IS going to state in her letter that we STRONGLY prefer one child. Let's just hope and pray we don't have to face that decision once we are there. So, I got myself organized with all the dossier paperwork - 3-ring binder w/ sheet protectors. Now I feel like we have a handle on things. Monday is our appt. with US Immigration for fingerprinting - that's a big step - the approval form we get from this fingerprinting is something we cannot let out of our sight!! We have to keep the original of it in order to travel and actually finalize the adoption. The next few months will be spent reading book after book on adoption issues, such as bonding & attachment, trust & potential in country setbacks. Last night Truman bought a couple Russian-English phrase books/cd's. The only one we memorized last night was "ya teebya lyablya" (I love you) -- yeah, I don't really know how to pronounce it either! Even though are traveling to Ukraine, the people there also speak Russian and since we cannot find Ukraine-English books, we settled for Russian. I'm sure it will get us through just fine. Have a great weekend & Happy Thanksgiving!!

Buried in Paperwork!!

Well, our first home study visit is under our belt and our last visit will be tomorrow. That was quick!! But actually the home study wont be complete until we get certain forms back from the government. I'm anticipating the home study will be complete in 2007. Thank you to my dad for running around this morning getting us a certified copy of our marriage license!! It's hard to get all that IL & IA & IN paperwork since we are in KY. We did receive a list of all the documents that are required for our dossier yesterday. It's all very overwhelming and you wonder how in the world it will get accomplished. My plan is to take a few hours each day and see what I can get done and make appts, etc...It's tense because everything has to be submitted just right - every I dotted and every T crossed. So, the next few months will be spent gathering paperwork, having it ALL notarized and then having it ALL apostilled. Which requires most of it going to Frankfort, KY to the Office of the Secretary of State, some other documents need to go to Indianapolis, IN & Springfield, IL. At least here in KY we are able to hand deliver this stuff and get it done right then and there. It makes me nervous to send these important documents and hope I get them back quickly. But...people do this all the time so hopefully these offices understand and are quick about this sort of thing. Our main focus right now is to dig out from under all this paperwork and pray we get it done right!

Paper, Paper & MORE Paper

So many pieces of paper to fill out with the same information it seems! Still - every day we are getting more accomplished and one more thing checked off the long list of to-do's. We have our fingerprinting appt. with U.S. Immigration for next Monday. Darn - that will require a morning off work to get that taken care of. :) Yesterday, I sent in our KY State Police clearance and Child Abuse & Neglect clearance. Yesterday I also wrote the first draft of my autobiography. It turned out to be about 4 pages. Soon we will need to get physicals, and then it's pretty much waiting on other papers to be returned to us with an official stamp that should say "YES! They are good people who should become parents today!". Wonder what would happen if the government made every pregnant woman fill out all these papers each time she had a child?! Maybe I will lobby for that once this process is over and done?! LOL - I doubt it, but it's a thought!
The past few nights I have just not been sleeping well. I can tell I am dreaming about our traveling time in Ukraine, but cannot see any clear pictures of what we are doing. All I know is that I'm constantly waking up during the night and getting no good sleep. I hope this does not continue for the next year! If I'm going to be waking up multiple times in the night I want it to be for a child and not because I'm feeling anxious!!! Last night Truman and I were at Sportsmans Warehouse and saw cute camo/outdoorsy kids clothes. Soon...very soon we'll be able to buy those. Not yet though...
Well, I didn't really have anything specific to report, just felt like writing today. Thanks for checking in today!
Love,
Susan

More Paperwork

Today we turned in our actual agency application, along with our contract, our express shipment authorization and some other consent forms. We also have our first home study visit scheduled for next Tuesday (Nov. 13th). Can you guess what I'll be doing this weekend??? Truman did alot of cleaning last weekend and this weekend will be my turn, so he can enjoy his time out in the woods. So, once I turned those papers in, I was given MORE paperwork to be done for the home study. It's nothing that has to be done by Tuesday, but just for the whole thing to be approved. So, in the near future we will be each be writing our life story for our bio, getting fingerprinted in Louisville so they can be sure we are not ex-cons or anything of the sort, send in our immigration paperwork, getting criminal clearances for other states we've lived in in the last 10 years, having physicals and collecting our reference letters. I assume we will be hearing from our Case Manager in the next week or 2 to get started on our dossier. I know it may seem like we are moving fast, but believe me, once the dossier is done our patience will definitely be tested. :) We're very happy that everything is progressing and getting accomplished. Ukraine did add one new "fee" that we were unaware of, but it's one that will better the life for the orphans so I'm A-OK with it. Tonight will be spent reviewing the new paperwork and hopefully getting some ready to send out tomorrow and others ready to be witnessed and notarized tomorrow. At least all that is making the week go by fast!

You may notice the new elements we've added to the page. I admit, we saw it on someone else's site and stole it - but it's a good idea!!!
Thanks for checking in! We love you all!!

Susan & Truman

Step 2...

It's funny how one phone call can put me in such a good mood! (I'm sure when we get THE important invitation phone call, it will be nothing compared to this though!). Anyway, I just received an email & phone call from our agency. Seems we submitted our home study application instead of our agency application - Whoops! No big deal though, she is sending me an agency application to fill out, along with our contract and more specifics on payment & the Ukraine program. She also said Julie, another social worker, will be contacting us soon (hopefully today) to set up our first home study visit! Yay!! I've never been so excited to have a stranger come into our home and tell us if we're safe enough for a child! Hopefully later today I can post the date of our first home study visit. Anyone out there know what we might expect from this first visit?

House Prep

A big thanks goes to my good friend Tony, his dad and brother. They came by the house yesterday and built a closet with a deadbolt lock in our bedroom. The purpose of this closet is to house the accoutrement's of my hobbies and keep them safe from small fingers. I would like to say I helped, but I was mostly just engaged in carrying heavy stuff and ordering lunch. The closet looks great and after a bit of mudding and paint it will look like it has always been there. I fabricated some racks and installed shelves which now hold all of my hobbies in a clean and organized manner. Susan is thrilled to get most of our bedroom floorspace back. Our next step is to THOROUGHLY clean the house top to bottom. Everyone tells us that we don't need to do this for the home inspection, but as anal retentive as Susan and I both are we wouldn't feel right without making sure.I finally feel like we are moving ahead and getting things done. It is busy work to keep from going crazy thinking about what is to come. However, it is productive busy work.

Truman

Seuss Pics

my beautiful wife, 1 puppy, The Lorax, and my sweet Truffula trees!
The brown barbaloots eating truffula fruits in their brown barbaloot suits
Singing swammi-swans

one fish, two fish... Can you guess the theme of our child's bedroom?

As per Truman's request (or should I say demand?!) :) I have taken some pictures of the furniture I painted for our future child's room. One I did a while ago, the other I just finished yesterday. Enjoy!

Truman's Note: For those of you who think these look familiar, you are correct. The "one fish" dresser is the Salvation Army purchase I inherited from Fondue in C101 and the Lorax Dresser is/was an FIT Dorm Dresser I brought with me from Roberts Hall to C-building. How did they ever survive this long?!?!

What Not To Say...

So, I came across this today and I wanted to share it with all of you. Some of you may know EXACTLY what this means, others may need some education. This is meant to be funny, please take it as such. :)
Things that are NOT to be Said to People Who Adopt:
1. How much did she/he cost?
2. Why did you go and adopt--couldn't you have your "own" child?
3. Did you buy that baby?
4. Maybe now that you adopted, you'll have "your own" child.
5. She/He looks nothing like either of you.
6. What are you going to do when she/he looks for their birthparent?
7. Do you know her/his "real" parents?
8. I sure hope he/she fits into your family!
9. Why didn't his/her real mom want him/her?
10. Don't even tell him/her they are adopted, they'll never know.
11. Too bad you had to adopt!
12. Whose fault is it you can't get pregnant?
13. You're doing these kids such a favor.
14. S/he is so lucky to have your family instead of his/her own.
15. An older child is damaged goods .
16. She's your daughter?
17. What about your own kids? What do they think about this?
18. She might come from a cursed background.
19. What are you going to do when you have kids of your own?
20. Do you think you love them as much as you could love your real kids?
21. You got kids the easy way you never even had to be pregnant.
22. What if the real parents come back and kidnap them?