The Last Few Documents (I hope...)

We got our court petition and police clearances on Tuesday and our homestudy update on Friday. Praise God! They are now on their way to the Secretary of the Commonwealth for apostilles. Now that we have the homestudy update, we have also filed for our I-171H extension. The last two documents we need are the new I-171H and the letter from CPS. Please pray for these to arrive as quickly as possible (the I-171H usually takes several weeks, I'm hoping for a miracle...to have them within a week or two). If we get all of our documents within the next week or two, we will probably have a court date in mid to late January.

Dasha's 2nd birthday is in less than two weeks (Dec.5). I wish we could be with her to celebrate. I wonder if the orphanage will recognize her birthday or if she won't even know that she is turning two years old.

Please pray for Dasha and her birthmother on her birthday. Also, please continue to pray for financial matters relating to the adoption and that God would continue to provide what we need to finish the adoption and for me to be able to take off a couple weeks when we get home from Russia (my job only allows 4 weeks of sick leave to be taken for an adoption, then it's unpaid leave...at this point we can only afford for me to take off while we are in Russia. Please pray that God would provide for more time for us to bond as a family before I have to return to work.)

The Latest News

Well, the latest news is that our region in Russia has decided to require the 8-doctor medical exam in Moscow. This means that we wasted our time and $ getting our medicals and psych evals done here, since we'll have to be examined by 8 different doctors now in Russia including a Russian psychiatrist (VERY EXPENSIVE!). It will also add a day or two to our trip. We had to have new bloodwork done to take the lab reports with us and a chest x-ray to test for TB so hopefully we won't have to have the bloodwork done in Russia.

We are still waiting for our homestudy update to be completed. We are also waiting for our police clearance letters, letters from Child Protective services, and our court petition. These are the last four documents we need before we can get a court date.

Thank you to our family and friends who have donated towards the orphanage donation fee, we have raised $700 of the $1000 that we needed for the donation. God is good! We are now trying to raise money for the last $300 and the cost of the medicals (about $1500) in Russia.

I had a wonderful adoption shower yesterday with my girlfriends! Chris was so excited to look at all of the toys and cute clothes when he got home from work. I can't wait for Dasha to come home so she can see how loved she already is not just by us by by all her "aunties".