Paperwork Housecleaning

We finally have our realtor's declaration page for our dossier!! Thank you Winona! Now the only item left is our girls' medicals, and those will have to wait until after our first trip as they expire in 3 months. Speaking of expiring...our home study is set to expire the middle of February, so I've contacted our social worker about what all will be required for that. Four documents for our dossier expire in March, but our case worker said not to work on them until a month before they expire. Everything else is good to go until summer, I think. As I'm typing this I thinking I need to double check on our state clearance expirations. (For those of you new to international adoption, most documents expire 1 year from the date--or earlier if the notary's seal expires before then- -and the documents must be "good" on your court date or they are invalid.) So, expiring documents are equated with "ka-ching"--cost of updates, mailing, document fees, not to mention my time, etc. (But who knows, by God's grace we will have our little boy home before that matters anyway!) I'm just looking ahead as I would kick myself in the behind if a court date was postponed because of expired documents...where's that "I'm Proactive!" t-shirt?? Jeesh, that sounds like a commercial for pharmaceutical meds.

Here's what I've learned in my virgin international adoption run (take it for what it's worth)...aside from the home study (which had to be done first), I should not have been so gung ho on getting our documents for the main dossier finished as quickly as I could. I should have waited until at least our dossier was registered in our region...should of, could of, wish I would of...,but I just knew we would be traveling in the summer! Ha! Ha! Now we're looking at a Siberian winter! (By the way, have you noticed that it really hasn't been that cold in Krasnoyarsk? Are they having a heat wave this winter in anticipation of our arrival? Say it is so!)