Updated info on submission to region

Long version:

I was standing in a store yesterday, talking to a friend of mine- about kids, first days of school and, of course, how everything was processing with our adoption. As we were beginning to wrap up our conversation, my cell phone rang. I jokingly said, "Please excuse me, I know I shouldn't expect a call for a couple of months, but I still wonder with each call :)"

So, I answered the phone- and- you guessed it, our family coordinator, Kristen from AWAA was on the line. I was surprised and pleased to hear from her- especially when she went on to tell me that they were beginning to submit to the baby homes in the region!!! Our submission and subsequent referral are delayed just a bit, due to a piece of paperwork that turned up missing somewhere over the Atlantic. (I choose to believe that, possibly, our baby is not quite ready, so God, in His infinite wisdom, used this way to delay our submission just a bit more.) Kristen laughs when I tell her- "We have to get the time machine running, since we have to go "Back to the future" to get our baby." (Krasnoyarsk is 12 hours ahead of us, as you can see on the clock above.)

Well, you can imagine my excitement. I was really dealing with being "bummed out" that it would possibly take so much more time. Then, suddenly, we hear this great news. God is so awesome. We will probably receive a call as early as September. (I'm praying for early Sept- but narrowing it down to a month is phenomenal at this point!)

The referral process is going to be different now. As our program director at AWAA said today-

The process has changed to matching children with a particular family in order to receive the official referral. If a family chooses not to pursue this referral, the family will need to write a letter explaining that they are not accepting the referral and provide the reason for not accepting the referral. The family will then wait for the next available referrals, which may take a few months (this time frame is uncertain), and the child will be referred to a different agency. The previous process was not as concrete in matching particular families and children, and did not require families to write a letter when they did not accept a referral.

Previously we shared that there were fewer children available, and a lower number of girls, due to the measures taken over the last year to increase domestic adoption. We are now hearing that the referrals we will received are more likely to be male and to have some health concerns, since Russian families are provided the children deemed healthiest. I would note that Russia does not consider any child in an orphanage to be healthy, and that it is difficult to know the true health of these children until they are examined in person by a medical professional. For example, in Krasnoyarsk, all children are listed as having perinatal encephalopathy and pyramidal insufficiency, which are vague diagnoses, without exact definition in Western medicine, and of which we have seen no corresponding diagnosis when children come home.

So, that is the latest update. I keep trying to remind myself that all the things I want to get done are really peripheral right now, and it is very important to continue to enjoy life and not stress over the details. Time to spend with Tim, as the 2 of us will become 3 or 4 soon :)

Continuing to praise and thank God for a forward movement in our Russian Adoption process. Also, praying for all families involved with this process. Thank you for sharing our joys with us!


Short version- Should be getting a phone call on a baby as early as September.