Puzzle put together

Grandma Hatfield has worked diligently on our fundraiser puzzle and has completed it. This is a picture of the puzzle about half done, it sat this way for months! J and I would work on this occasionally and we didn't ever seem to get anywhere. Grandma Hatfield spent a week with us and completed the puzzle. We have glued it together and flipped it over and have began writing names on the pieces. Thank you to those of you that have graciously supported us and bought a piece of this puzzle. We applied for a matching grant and did not get accepted to receive it, so we will be planning more fund raising..........yipppeeeeeee! A follow up picture with it completed will come soon, it is an incredible puzzle and it really is the perfect puzzle for us.

Same journey, different path

We have officially signed with a NEW agency from California. They have been helpful and informative and let us take our time moving on with Russia. So to recap our last month or two of our lives. We were notified that we would not be allowed to submit our Dossier(official paperwork)through our original adoption agency. They were no longer processing Russian adoptions due to Political instability. We researched several agencies across the country and pleasantly surprised that Russia was still an option for our family, it would just require us to change agencies. So that is what we have done and we are finishing up our paperwork for our initial Dossier. We are hoping to be officially on the Russian waiting list by June 15th, 2012. We have been assigned an official region in Russia. It is a place called CHITA, this is considered part of Siberia and will require an extra couple plane flights but this particular region is still operating relatively normal even though other parts of Russia have put a temporary hold on US adoptions until the US/Russian Adoption Treaty is ratified. This should happen in May or June. We are excited to get a focus and continue with this process.

So what happens next............we get on the official waiting list and wait for our referral! This could be 4-12 months, we have decided to leave our referral open to either gender which should speed things up a bit, and we will see what God has in store for our family. Once we get a referral we will travel to Russia to meet the child chosen for us and officially sign paperwork to proceed with the adoption process. Then we will come home for about 6-8 weeks and then return to Russia for another week or two for a court date. Then we can either wait in Russia for 30 days or come home and return the 3rd time to bring them home officially! So we are actually getting into the intense part of this journey. Tomorrow marks an important day in Russia, Valdimir Putin take office for his third presidential term. He served two consecutive terms in 2000-2008. It is Russian law to only serve two terms so when those were up, he took the prime minister role and has actively been part of the Russian government since. May 7th, 2012 he take office again as the President. He has made statements about eliminating foreign adoptions but no one knows if this is really going to happen. So we are praying that this was just political talk so he could get back into office and he will continue to allow Foreign adoptions from his country. There are over 700,000 orphans in Russia that are either living in the streets, orphanages, or foster care homes. A majority of these orphans are not eligible for adoption because they still have living parents and have been removed from their homes because of neglect, abuse, or drug/alcohol abuse. However there is still over 100,000 orphans that need a home. We invite you to join us in praying for the political changes that will be taking place over the next few weeks and that the Russian government realize that there is a huge need to continue foreign adoptions.

USCIS Clearance

We received our FBI fingerprinting clearance letter this week....Normally this would be really exciting and move us to the next step in our adoption process, but given our last few weeks this is a relief that our letter came, but it also means we missed the cut off point with our agency by about 3 weeks! We are praying this is for the better and that we are headed in a new positive direction.

Tomorrow will start the process over for us as we are mailing our application into a new agency to continue with our pursuit of a Russian snow princess! More to come.......

Update

So two weeks have went by since our Agency called and told us that they would not be processing our adoption and that the Russian government was too unstable to proceed with American adoptions and since we didn't know any better we were devastated and lost. But, the investigator in me came out and I have done tons of research and talked with Social workers across the country about this Russian problem. However, there isn't really a Russian Problem! Several agencies I talked to have experienced a slow down with the Russian Election but none of them are considering closing their programs. Now I would be skeptical if I had only talked with one, but I have talked or emailed with 6 differnt agencies in the last week and they all told me the same thing. Russia is Russia! They have a history of stirring things up during the election season and then things get settled and adoptions continue on. The adoption Treaty between Russaia and Us is supposed to be officially signed in the next month or so, but again Russia is in control of their children so who really knows.

So where does that leave us?
That is the million dollar question. We are still seeking God's direction for our family. We are pretty confident international adoption is where we are supposed to be, we also still feel like Russia is the specific region of the world we are called to adopt from. We are pretty gun shy at this time and we need to be confident in our decision. We already took the leap of Faith we needed and said yes to international adoption, and now we have to rebound from our first roadblock.
We are hoping to make some decisions soon, but we are kinda letting things just resignate in our souls for a while, or if you are a spiritual person that believes in words from others, we are sitting on a verse - be still and know that I am God.

To our child, wherever you are: Know that Mom, Dad and little C love you so much and that we pray that God protect you while we sort through the logistics of how to bring you home.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Isaiah 55:8-9
My thoughts are not your thougts, says the Lord.
For just as heaven is higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.

Good Bye Russia

It is a sad day at our house. We received a call from our adoption agency yesterday telling us that they will no longer be proceeding with Russian adoptions. In a summary of events..Russia has elected a new president and he is calling for a minimization of all foreign adoptions that will soon be phased out completely or as a last result. We appreciate our agency's integrity, they were honest and willing to move us to another program within their agency or refund the money we have invested so far, but they did not feel like the program was going to have the end results we were all hoping for...a Russian child finding their way to a forever family.

They did tell us we could look for another agency that was willing to process new families, but to use caution and ask how deep the wait list is, because their comes a time when money can't be refunded because it has been used to translate paperwork or pay fees for certain things.
So today we are left with a void. We loved Russia, we loved our Snow Princess and a little piece of our hearts are broken.
Today we feel like if our agency feels like the program is too unstable that we should use that advice. We will contact a few agencies on Monday and ask questions but most likely, this chapter of international adoption is closed.

So the big question is what will we do? We will be changing agencies if we decided to proceed with international adoption, we really feel like Eastern Europe is where we are called to be and amongst our current agency our choices are limited to three other countries and two of them are about a 4 year wait for a healthy infant.
We are re-visiting our motives for international adoption, we are questioning our desires for a family, we are praying that God sheds a light on our future. We have choices to make that we were hoping to never make again. We could proceed with another country, we could check into domestic U.S. adoptions, we could call our fertility clinic and get an appointment or we could do nothing and be extremely happy that we have been blessed with the beautiful baby we already have. These are some of those tear jerking moments you just have to ask God why? Why can't we just have a baby? Why did we feel called to Russia? What do I do with all the emotions I have for this baby girl I don't know? Where are we supposed to end up?


We took a step of faith about 8 months ago and said yes to international adoption. This was a road we thought we would do someday, not knowing that someday was now....so we are trying to roll with the punches and look for God's plan in this. No one ever said International Adoption was easy, we knew we would hit some road blocks but we really were not expecting to change countries all together. So if you are a praying person, please pray for discernment and direction for our family.

USCIS Fingerprints done!

So we had heard through other adopting families that you could try to walk into the USCIS office anytime after you have your appointment letter, so we tried it....and it was sucessful.  We walked into the building at 11:48 on Friday and we both walked out completed with reciepts in our hands at 12:02pm....
It was simple, and the workers were curtious and didn't really even bat an eye at the fact that our appointments were not until mid March.

So what happens now, we wait!  We will get a clearance letter and then we will be assigned a region in Russia.  Our agency has notified us that a few regions will not be adopting any children out to Americans until the governments sign an agreement, but others are still operating as planned.  Each region has different criteria to meet and so with our assignement we can work on any final paperwork that will be required for that region.  Then we are done with the paperwork, and we will wait....and this wait is an undetermined timeframe.

We are getting more and more excited.  We are hopeful we will meet our child by the end of the year.  With this date in mind we are really needing to push our fundraising efforts out into the community.  Here is what we have planned if you would like to join us.

Fundraising:

Applying for a matching grant through a local organization - up to $5000.00 matching funds.  Praying we get accepted for this.  We know we have faithful family friends that can help us meet this goal.

Puzzle pieces: We are selling puzzle piece for $10.00 each.  We are writing your name on the pieces and you will forever be a part of our childs journey home.  Refer to a earlier blog for full details.

Garage Sale:  We are accepting donations from anyone local and we are hosting a garage sell in April or May during our nieghborhood garage sale..so advertising will be free and we are going to put adoption signs up allowing people to make a donation and take what they want.  Our goal from this is to hopefully make enough money to buy a plane ticket to Russia...

We are definately open to other ideas and have considered a few other options but they are yet to be determined.