OMG! IT'S DONE!!!

Yes, it's true -- the dossier is FINISHED! And there was much rejoicing, yea! Truman got the remaining documents certified & apostilled today in Frankfort and called me from the steps of the capital building to say it was DONE!! You might find yourself asking us, "Now What?". We send it to the Florida branch of our agency, get it translated and then we wait....and wait...for how long, we're not exactly sure. Three months? 12 months? We are hoping for somewhere in between that time frame. We have gotten some great advice from fellow adoptive parent friends to focus our time on each other before we have a little one demanding all of our attention. That is what we plan to do. What a huge weight lifted off our shoulders!
If you have time, please try to follow along with two other families linked on this blog -- Kelly & Steve are adopting 2 little boys and the Johnson Family is hoping to adopt a little girl. They have both just arrived in Ukraine and I look forward to following along with them as well. If you are interested in what might happen to us while we are in country, their stories might help answer some of your questions (and ours too!).
Love, Su & Tru

Good News

Bad news first....there has been 1 confirmed case of the flu in the Cox household, but Truman has taken great care of me and I love him for it!! Now for the good news - the pre-determined "quotas" have officially been recinded (to some degree). Ukraine is now allowing 1453 (?) international adoptions of kids in any category (now that is all countries combined). It's still way better than the previous established quotas. The even better news is that our immigration form came today. Talk about lightning speed! The next step is to have the remaining documents notarized, certified and then apostilled. I'm guessing that can happen in the next 2 weeks or so. I also have to put together some pictures of us, our house & our familes to include in the dossier. SO....this dossier should be done in January!!! Whoohoo!
Love,
Susan & Truman

6 Down...22 more to go

Yep, as the title states I had 6 of our documents county certified today, but still have 22 left to go. The "final" 22 are split between 2 counties, but they are close, so no more traveling for me to get that done. Today went smooth, AND neither county charged me for the certifications. AWESOME! I don't think we'll be that lucky for the other 2 counties. On the down side, I think I am coming down with the flu. So, I opted to come back home after my travels today instead of going back to work. Venus is patiently waiting (sprawled out on her back!) for me to rub her belly. I think I'll give her some love, then head to bed. Thanks for reading!

Countdown to Dossier Completion

We are still busy working on paperwork, but we see a light at the end of the tunnel. Monday I will be getting some papers "county certified" in 2 separate counties. Unfortunately, both are about an hour away from home, but in separate directions. But it's a small price to pay to get these documents one step closer to being submitted. We did get our Ukraine Travel Guide from our agency the other day. It was an interesting read and it pretty much broke down our trip week by week. All I can say is that I'm not really looking forward to an overnight train ride. :) We also should be seeing our final piece of dossier paper in about 30 days. Let's hope the immigration office moves quickly!!!
That's about all news we have, we'll post more soon I'm sure!

Love,
S&T

Grant

We have some great news to share! We have been approved for an adoption grant in the amount of $2,500! Is that awesome or what?! We were given the grant information from a neighbor, called to follow up on the requirements, wrote a grant letter and just found out today that it was approved. A HUGE thank you to the committee here in Versailles that sponsors the grant. Good thing is that the money is paid directly to the agency and since we have a nice sized bill due...this couldn't have come at a better time!
In other adoption-related news, I was able to get some other questions answered about travel issues and our paperwork is almost complete. Our home study should be on it's way to the immigration office and we have been told to expect 30-40 day turnaround time on the major form we need in order to adopt. Let's hope that timeframe holds true. That would put us having all documents by Feb. 13th. Then all documents have to be county certified (which is the county clerk verifying that the notary is in fact a notary) then on to be apostilled. After that we wait....and wait...and wait...maybe update a document or 2...and wait some more. We're still hoping to travel in Sept. or October, but you just never know. Thanks for reading!!

Love,
Susan & Truman

Happy New Year!

We are hoping for an exciting 2008!! Our approved home study should be making it's way to our Case Manager in Florida this week. Yay! We should also get a hard copy of it this week. One more dossier document down! Actually we are doing really good on our part getting all our documents together. Looks like after this week we will be only waiting on our I-171H (approval of our petition to adopt an orphan) from US Immigration offices. This is usually the last document families are waiting on. We hope it can get to us by March 1st. That has been our planned date to submit our dossier. I have to admit, I did something this weekend I said I wasn't going to do until we got our travel date....I bought kids stuff. However, I did only buy clearanced items and nothing was over $5 each. Since we have no idea what size or boy or girl, I tried to stick with some gender neutral clothes in 3T & 4T. We also got some kids card games that will be easy to travel with. I have to thank my hubby for indulging in my need to buy some kids stuff. It's so much fun!! :) We checked out some hiking/camping type backpacks for our trip too. It didn't take long for Truman to sell me on using these instead of 2 suitcases a piece for the trip. Being the planner/organizer I am, I also created a pre-travel list (eg...things to buy before, what to pack, things to do at home before we leave, etc...).
We have also heard rumblings of Ukraine eliminating the quotas, or at least having just one major quota (w/ all countries combined). Either way, that's better for us than the limited quotas before. Nothing has been said officially, but we are staying positive and still hoping to travel this year! (yay! I finally can say we should be traveling THIS YEAR!)
I will post again when we have more news to share!
Happy 2008!

Silver Lining...

For those of you who read my earlier post in full, you noticed that they were accepting unlimited referrals for "handicapped children". We have just heard from our agency that their definition of a handicapped child is very broad. They have said it can apply to severe cases (HIV) to asthma. If America defined an asthmatic child as "handicapped" many more people would be classified as such. We also have learned that Eastern European countries are quick to diagnose a "handicap" that we would not necessarily consider a problem at all. Many children are actually misdiagnosed. Sad for them, but good (I guess) for the people who want to adopt. Our agency remains optimistic about our upcoming travels and that is great news to have this time of year. I guess you could say we are going up, up, up on this roller coaster ride. Thanks for following along!!
Love,
Su & Tru