Only small updates

We received our I-600A paperwork approval yesterday. I'm not sure what that is for. All I know is its the first thing you apply for when you start the adoption. Something to do with your Visa to travel and your approval from the US Government to bring an orphan back to the USA. We applied back on January 23rd and it was approved on May 26th. Can you believe how fast the government works?! 4 months to sign off on one piece of paper. We havent heard a word from our Adoption Agency. Hopefully that is a good thing? One tricky thing about adopting is that you really don't know how/when to start planning simple things like the nursery room, buying a crib, stroller, etc... I was telling my sister its like waiting until you are 8 months pregnant to start planning for the baby. But you're not sure how old the baby will be when they arrive or if they will be a boy or girl. Crazy stuff. Keeps life interesting!!!

If anyone you know has considered adoption...

Today we received an email from our caseworker that there are multiple "older" children available for adoption from Eastern Europe. It is so sad. There was a list sent to us of children. Some were single children and some were sibling groups. Their ages range from 2-10 years old. Jason and I are looking to adopt a younger baby due to the fact that this is our very first child. Perhaps the 2nd time around for us we will adopt an older child. If you know of anyone who has ever considered adopting, there are even grants & subsidies availble for adopting sibling groups! They can email me and I can give them the information. Seeing these types of things make me so grateful that I was born into a family and have a great Mom and Dad.

Hurry Up and Waiting Period

Well now we sit and wait. So I won't have a lot of adoption related info to share with you for the next few months. I have joined a few online forums for soon to be adoptive parents. There are a lot of people out there with interesting and greatly varying experiences. One lady I spoke with (okay typed with) received a referral of a 10.5 month old little girl from the Moscow region after waiting only 1 month! That is amazing. She of course isn't working with our agency, but a different one out of Pittsburgh. I have learned SO much about the adoption process in the past 4 months. If any of you know of anyone who is thinking about doing this, feel free to have them contact me! It really does make a difference which agency you go with. They all have "relationships" with different regions within Russia. Some of those regions are near Moscow or St. Petersburg, which is a much shorter travel time/distance and some of them are all the way across Siberia. Did you know that it takes nearly 9 hours to fly from Moscow (near the western end of Russia) to the eastern tip of Siberia? That is nuts! And I hate to fly!!! Some agencies can get referrals of younger children and some tell you the youngest you will find is 2 years +. The Cradle is one of the biggest agencies in Chicago and they tell you it will take 12 months to get a referral of a little boy and none of them are under 2 years. Obviously thats not true everywhere.

Its a learning process. I'm sure I have a lot more learning to do!!