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Wednesday, August 27, 2003 |
We were missing two documents in the dossier. Well, not dossier documents, additional documents. One was a signed fee schedule; I hadn't realized the sheet I had was this document. When I went to copy it this morning, I discovered Eric's supplemental visa form was still in the copier. Ooops. So both are going out in today's mail.
posted by AnnMarie at 9:31 AM |
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Tuesday, August 26, 2003 |
The paperwork was delivered at 9:16am to CHI!!!!!
posted by AnnMarie at 8:43 AM |
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Monday, August 25, 2003 |
PAPERWORK DONE!
We shipped off our paperwork to CHI on Saturday afternoon!!!! I sent off the last apostille request on Thursday. Apparently, the Sec of State's office received, processed, and mailed them all on Friday. They arrived in Saturday's mail. Luckily, we were in the midst of printing off our photos, the only other thing we had left. So we wrapped everything up, got our passport photos taken, and shipped it! (From the Oshkosh Fudge Shoppe, just for the coolness factor of remembering each time we go there.)
posted by AnnMarie at 7:12 AM |
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Thursday, August 21, 2003 |
I just drew a bunch of lines through the "apostilles" item on my to-do list. I just mailed it off! Woohoo! As soon as they come back and I get them stapled, we can mail our dossier to CHI! We can't wait!!! (Ok, we still need to take those photos of the house and receive the last reference letters. Minor details. We'll have that done by the weekend. I'll also be going through all the papers again just to make sure it's all correct.)
posted by AnnMarie at 9:24 AM |
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The good news: The homestudy is being updated. And the approval date doesn't change.
The even better news: The BCIS approval does not have to be updated!
Oh, and our social worker said they don't send drafts to adoptive parents. Makes no sense to us, and we'd both swear that she said they would send it to us.
posted by AnnMarie at 9:29 AM |
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Monday, August 18, 2003 |
Good news and bad news. I have to give the good news first, because the bad news doesn't make sense without it.
Good news:
On Friday, we received our home study! Completed, signed, notarized, 4 copies of it and supporting documents required for dossier.
On Saturday, we received our BCIS I-171H approval letter, stating that we are allowed to adopt two children.
The bad news:
The home study has quite a few errors in it. They didn't send us a draft, as promised! We are so disappointed. Otherwise, we'd be jumping up and down. the only thing left would be to get the apostilles. I expected that after we received the homestudy, it would be another month to get BCIS approval, so we never expected they'd come together. So, we need the homestudy corrected. What we don't know is if that will require an update to BCIS. I think so, because the current homestudy is dated July 23 and the BCIS approval Aug 14. If the homestudy gets a new date, the BCIS approval will appear to be before the homestudy was finished.
Everything else with this agency has been so wonderful, we are so upset and disappointed that we didn't get a draft. Since the homestudy was complete almost a month ago, we could have had the draft then. Which means we could have been paper read RIGHT NOW. But we aren't because they really messed up. And that makes me angry.
posted by AnnMarie at 7:22 AM |
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Thursday, August 14, 2003 |
Yesterday, we got our state marriage licenses, the corrected medical license copy, and the corrected police reports. I'll send off those apostille requests by the weekend. Unless I find more mistakes. LOL Both Eric and I looked them over to make sure the dates and language were correct this time. One more step closer to being done!
posted by AnnMarie at 12:30 PM |
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Friday, August 08, 2003 |
Earlier, I posted CHI's regions based on someone else's website. Here's the definitive list: Astrachan, Chelyabinsk, Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Smolensk, Tomsk, Tver, Vladivostok. Over the next weeks, I'll be researching each area and posting more links, like I did for Kalinigrad earlier. Then, when we learn where our dossier is (or when we are told we're traveling), it will be easy to quickly learn about the general area. (Hmmmm, I'd swear Astrachan, which was just added, was referred to as the 11th region, but that list only has 10 in it.)
posted by AnnMarie at 9:10 AM |
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Well, turns out the wedding invitation is not in Russian, but probably Kyrgystani so I still don't know what it says.
Alex is from the Vladivostok region. And he said he'd be happy to share tips on flying that far! He's also willing to help with translations for the photo albums, and anything else we might need.
posted by AnnMarie at 8:57 AM |
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Recommend on FRUA: PROMT's Online Russian Translator. It will do websites, text, email, and WAP (cell phone text messages?). Said the text was really good, but the websites so-so. Directions for getting it to Word: "First, do the translation and copy the Cyrillic text. Then in Word, go to , then , then and change it to Russian, and then you can paste in and print out the Cyrillic alphabet text." This is how I can create captions for photos. I might have someone (like Alex, a student worker for Media Services) proofread them first, but it's nice to be able to do it myself.
Too bad it can't translate offline text. Yesterday, we received a wedding invitation from Jhon and Zulfiya, who live in Kyrgyzstan. It's in English and Russian. And I don't think the Russian says the same thing the English does. I've figured out a little bit, given the places where numbers/dates are and my slight knowledge of Cyrillic letters. But not much!
posted by AnnMarie at 6:52 AM |
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Thursday, August 07, 2003 |
TIP: Bring packets of tissues for use as toilet paper. Bring a drain cover for sinks w/o stoppers. Plastic diaper covers. Our own pillow cases (provided ones are often very rough).
posted by AnnMarie at 7:31 AM |
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It's been recommended we get a FedEx account to make it easier to ship things back and forth to CHI. And maybe even to Russia. With an account, we can print out labels online and have it billed to us. And right now, you get 10% off all orders processed online!
For future reference, here are nearby FedEx locations. Includes a self-service drop box and a major service center up in Appleton.
posted by AnnMarie at 7:24 AM |
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Wednesday, August 06, 2003 |
I've been getting worried about our marriage certificates. I requested them nearly a month ago, and the check hasn't even been cashed. So I used this blog to find the site back so that I could make another request. Unfortunately, I didn't actually put in a link to the site! So here it is in case I need it again:
Instructions to Obtain a Marriage Certificate Copy. I also learned that there are so many requests that it takes about a month to fill. Therefore, I have to wait at least another 2 weeks before I send another request. I sure hope the request wasn't lost. I might be willing to pay for expedited service (an additional $16 total) at that point, however. I sure wish our county ones were acceptable!
posted by AnnMarie at 7:37 AM |
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Tuesday, August 05, 2003 |
We've been trying to decide whether to request a specific region in Russia. So I finally asked N. (the agency rep) if she recommends against doing so. Not only does she not, they don't really accept such requests. Other agencies do--I hear about it all the time on FRUA chat. Now, they have good reasons: "Some regions are small and only request a few dossiers a month, or state that they can't take any families that are interested in younger kids over the next few months, some regions already have many dossiers waiting asking for the same thing that you might be asking for, etc. All of this changes in each region often and we are made aware of the changes." Essentially what I've heard elsewhere as why to not request a region. But I hadn't realized they wouldn't accept such requests anyway, just telling the family that they might have to wait longer.
I had two reasons for requesting a region: My family is Lithuanian, so I would have liked to adopt from that area (unfortunately, CHI doesn't work in St. Petersburg, which is close and beautiful and where Sheryl and her husband adopted Addy). I also have a strong preference to not fly anywhere--I have severe ear pain on most descents and it sometimes includes being partially hard-of-hearing for a couple days. My ears do not pressurize properly. It will probably be horrendous after the 12-hour flight from the US. Having a second flight the following day somewhere in country will really knock me out. N. took this as "being afraid to fly" which they take no count of (since you have to fly to get there already). No, I'm not afraid to fly. In fact, I rather like it. I just hate descending and would greatly prefer to minimize this if I had a choice. Which I thought I did. But I don't. And now I'll worry about it and we'll end up in Moscow and have no traveling to do! (At least a girl can dream....)
posted by AnnMarie at 11:19 AM |
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TIP: Check out orphanage links to possibly find more information about "our" orphange in between trips.
posted by AnnMarie at 7:40 AM |
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Monday, August 04, 2003 |
::deep sigh:: At least I can sigh about it now. Saturday I was in tears. Of the three medical documents, one is incorrect. At first, I thought all three would need to be redone, but thankfully only the one (the easiest). We need a copy of the doctor's medical license. Not knowing if it could fit on the same page as the certification and notarization, I gave them a copy that said "...the attached reproduction of (describe document including number of pages) is a true and accurate copy...." Unfortunately, we didn't notice that they never changed that default text. AAARRGGGHHHHH Eric's taking it in tomorrow. Along with our thank you gift for all their work. This has really been a hassle for the office. And we have to do it again between the two trips.
In addition, the two police clearance letters need to be redone. Below the signature is a date (printed with the letter). That date, however, is the day before the notarization date. Of course, that isn't allowed because it implies that the letter was not signed in front of the notary. Dates must match!
Needless to say, I did not get the apostilles done this weekend. I did get started on the visa application, but forgot to get the rest of Eric's info from him. We have to list his military experience and any skills he has such as weapons training. I did take a couple photos of the house. My goal is to do one room a week at this point.
Months ago, a lady told me she did all of their paperwork in one day, just running around to all the different places. How in the world did she get it all done in one day????
posted by AnnMarie at 9:20 AM |
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Friday, August 01, 2003 |
How could I forget to post this??? WE GOT THE RUSSIAN MEDICALS LAST NIGHT!!!! And this time, they were done properly. At least, with the lookover I gave them at the clinic. I'm pretty confident, however. On the other hand, the homestudy medical came back. The doctor didn't sign it! They just sent it in with the original signature. AARGH. So Eric has to go back again today and reitterate that a medical doctor must sign the form, just like we told them last week. So that's another week's delay in the HS. ::sigh::
This weekend, I'll send off for the latest apostilles and fill out Eric's Russian Visa form. Males over age 16 must fill out a form asking all sorts of background questions. Since Eric was in the Army and served in Desert Shield/Storm, there are some lengthy answers we have to provide. If I get that done, then I'll work on getting the photos taken. We need a dozen or so of the house and us. I'm so glad we have a digital camera and a photo-quality color printer. But we're also going to EAA's AirVenture this weekend. Woohoo!
posted by AnnMarie at 7:19 AM |
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Plane tip: From a FRUA Chat post: "a neat tool that helps you to estimate ticker costs by season."
1 Go to Travelocity
2 Enter your departure and arrival destinations
3 Check the radio button "Show the lowest fares"
4 Click submit.
5 You will get a bunch of low fares for different companies Click on "select" for each company, it will give you a calendar with fare dates highlighted.
For example Aeroflot offers flights from JFK to Moscow at $491 plus taxes starting the third week of October, while Lufthansa offers one for $541 starting second week of September.
posted by AnnMarie at 7:04 AM |
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