We have a due date!

Sort of...We get quite frequently, "Have you heard anything with your adoption?" Today I can offer a response other than "No." I visited with our dossier specialist assigned to our case earlier this week on a question I had, and she commented that she thought we were either #1 or #2 on her list. I started sweating right there on the phone. She reminded me there were 2 other dossier specialists and didn't know where we stood with regards to them, but she would email the Russian office and find out where we were. She also said she would put in there that we would LOVE to travel this summer as Doug is off.

As it turns out, we are #4 on the waiting list, and 2 of the 3 ahead of us are requesting boys only and the third requesting either boy or girl, and so it will be later this year before we should expect to travel. Summer travel would have been AWESOME, especially with Doug still on summer break and the fact that sightseeing has a bit more appeal in the summer verses -10 degrees in a Siberian winter. However, I realized as I was talking to our specialist that we were grossly unprepared at this moment for a quick referral right now. For example, (and I consider this a big one for anyone considering international travel) WE HAVE NO LUGGAGE. Well, that is a slight exaggeration, but what we have would buy us about one night's stay, and although I'm not below washing stuff out in the sink, seeing the same underwear night after night for a week is not for the feint at heart. I've been reading that the big uprights out there (28-29") can easily go overweight, so I'm looking at the 24'-26" suitcases. Those of you who have traveled, what is your opinion? I also have no adapter plug, and I suppose the vanity is coming out in me when I say I will not step out into the Eastern European world with my hair haven been dried by the hotel room heating unit. I haven't made a photo album to leave with the orphanage after our first trip. I haven't finished reading about making a lifebook album for an adopted child. I can't remember how to say "hello" in Russia, and the list goes on and on and on.

Our agency had originally quoted us 6-9 months to receive a referral from the time our mini dossier was received in Russia. That was March 25, so I'm going to guess we should have the first picture of our baby boy sometime around October and have him home by Christmas. Here's to dreaming and praying that things will progress mightily in that direction. That gives me several months to get "focused" on my "to do" list. As I've written before, it has been hard to stay in the adoption mode because you don't really know when to expect the call. This helps me to get renewed about taking care of all these things. I'm good with a list and a calendar. I don't mind bragging.

I am now working on redoing some paperwork that I had already finished earlier this year. The obligation letters that we and our home study agency have to fill out have been updated and the new ones are the only ones that can be submitted with our main dossier. These basically say we are obligating ourselves to care for this child and we will fulfill the requirements of the post placement reports. What's interesting is the only difference is the heading on the paper. I take that back. Not interesting--perplexing. Why that makes a difference I'll never know. We also will be working on getting our state police checks started this week.

We FINALLY found us a CPA to sign our financial statement!! We had to drive 1 1/2 hours yesterday to get it done, but we did that gratefully. We finally remembered a friend from our old church who realized this was a formality for foreign court only and was more than happy to help us bring our little guy home. I think we have found us a new personal CPA.

I have a tantalizing topic for the next Russian 101 course, but I'll save that for later since this is already a lengthy post.