These days we spend a lot of time waiting for emails from our attorney, the chaperones in Latvia or anyone else who has new information about our adoption case or general information about how our kids are doing. We were excited when we received a letter this week from the Ministry for Children and Public Affairs in Latvia. Right after the children went home, we sent a letter to the Ministry to let them know we would like to adopt Olegs and Kristine. In their reply, they let us know that Kristine had previously been interviewed in March by someone from the Orphan Court about her feelings concerning international adoption. At that time, she had said she didn’t want to be adopted by a family in a foreign country. She was probably scared of the unknown. The letter then went on to say that they received additional information last week from Kristine’s children’s home that she does now wish to be adopted internationally!! She had changed her mind since she and Olegs came to visit us. YIPPEE!! We were so happy to hear that. We always felt she did want to be adopted but it’s good to hear it from an official source.
The Ministry’s letter also addressed Olegs’ situation and confirmed that he is not currently available for adoption. This is nothing we didn’t already know as we are currently going through the steps to get him cleared. The letter went on to say that they would be forwarding our request to the Orphan Court so they can review both cases. Our attorney says our dossier translation will be complete next week so she will then give our paperwork to the Ministry or Orphan Court (not sure which one of them is supposed to get it).
Today we finally got confirmation that we’re allowed to talk openly to the kids about adoption now. We are so happy that we don’t have to avoid the “A” word anymore. Rob and I decided, however, that we won’t talk about it unless the kids bring it up. We don’t want Kristine to be overly excited in front of Olegs. It may be hard for him knowing that we are adopting Kristine first. For now, we’re just telling them both that we’ll be seeing them soon. We’ll talk in more detail about things when we see them in person and have a translator with us.
Another bit of awesome news we got is that the director of our kids children’s home says she noticed a tremendous change in Kristine and Olegs after they got back home…especially Olegs. Olegs was more introverted and sad when he first got here, but after his experience in America and with us, the director says he’s now like a different child. He is much more outgoing and self-confident now. That warmed our hearts tremendously to hear that. He is such a precious kid. Kristine, of course, was our little social butterfly from the very beginning, but she’s now happier too. It’s amazing how just a few short weeks with them made such a difference in their lives and ours too. They understand now that we really do love them and care about them and we haven’t forgotten about them since they left. We feel like our weekly phone calls and letters go a long way to remind them that just because we’re miles apart, we’re always thinking of them.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
8/27 - We Talked to the Kids Again!
We tried calling the kids yesterday morning and were a little bummed when we couldn’t get them on the phone. No one answered the phone at the children’s home this time. Rob and I had already decided that if we didn’t reach them on Saturday we’d try the same time on Sunday. We were so excited when someone answered on Sunday. We politely asked for Olegs and Kristine in Latvian and the woman on the other end shouted for someone to go get them. Then we heard lots of laughing in the background. We always assume they’re laughing at us because our attempts to speak their language must sound pretty funny to them.
A few minutes later Kristine was on the line and immediately started playing some sort of kiddy music into the phone for us. It sounded like that music you hear when the ice cream truck is coming down the street. At least that was before she disconnected us and we had to call back. LOL! Our Kristine is quite the little social butterfly. A couple of her girlfriends came to the phone with her and they were all giggling the entire time. We asked her what they were doing today and she said they were playing with Barbies. She said the weather in Latvia was rainy today. We asked her if she enjoyed her time in America and she exclaimed “Yes, Yes, Yes!” Once again we told her how much we missed her and loved her and she said “me too.” She told us they will be starting school this week and she isn’t looking forward to it. Next she put her friend, Agnese, on the phone and we got to talk to her for a minute. She did more laughing than talking. Each time we asked her something, she’d say “What?” and put Kristine on the phone to translate. We’re so happy that Kristine felt comfortable putting her friends on the phone. We can’t wait to meet all their friends.
We only talked to Olegs for a few minutes this time. We pictured the poor little guy surrounded by Kristine and her giggling friends and imagined he probably wanted to get away from them as fast as he could. LOL! He sounded happy to hear from us. We talked to him long enough to tell him we love him and miss him so much. He also replied, “me too.” We asked him what he was doing today and he just said “nothing.” We asked him if he was having fun and he said “no.” He later admitted that he had played a little bit. He said he was glad to be going back to school. We told him how smart we think he is and he said “thank you.” Then in a flash he was off to something else and Kristine was back on the phone.
It was a great call. We told them both that we hope to see them soon and we want them to show us their favorite places in Riga. We told them that we will call them every week. Rob and I can’t wait to hear when our first court date will be so we’ll know when we’ll be traveling to Latvia. In the meantime, we look forward to these weekly calls. We’ll be thinking about Olegs and Kristine this week as they go back to school.
A few minutes later Kristine was on the line and immediately started playing some sort of kiddy music into the phone for us. It sounded like that music you hear when the ice cream truck is coming down the street. At least that was before she disconnected us and we had to call back. LOL! Our Kristine is quite the little social butterfly. A couple of her girlfriends came to the phone with her and they were all giggling the entire time. We asked her what they were doing today and she said they were playing with Barbies. She said the weather in Latvia was rainy today. We asked her if she enjoyed her time in America and she exclaimed “Yes, Yes, Yes!” Once again we told her how much we missed her and loved her and she said “me too.” She told us they will be starting school this week and she isn’t looking forward to it. Next she put her friend, Agnese, on the phone and we got to talk to her for a minute. She did more laughing than talking. Each time we asked her something, she’d say “What?” and put Kristine on the phone to translate. We’re so happy that Kristine felt comfortable putting her friends on the phone. We can’t wait to meet all their friends.
We only talked to Olegs for a few minutes this time. We pictured the poor little guy surrounded by Kristine and her giggling friends and imagined he probably wanted to get away from them as fast as he could. LOL! He sounded happy to hear from us. We talked to him long enough to tell him we love him and miss him so much. He also replied, “me too.” We asked him what he was doing today and he just said “nothing.” We asked him if he was having fun and he said “no.” He later admitted that he had played a little bit. He said he was glad to be going back to school. We told him how smart we think he is and he said “thank you.” Then in a flash he was off to something else and Kristine was back on the phone.
It was a great call. We told them both that we hope to see them soon and we want them to show us their favorite places in Riga. We told them that we will call them every week. Rob and I can’t wait to hear when our first court date will be so we’ll know when we’ll be traveling to Latvia. In the meantime, we look forward to these weekly calls. We’ll be thinking about Olegs and Kristine this week as they go back to school.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
8/20 - Time for More Fundraising! Next Garage Sale Sept. 9th!
As I’m sure you can imagine, this whole adoption process will cost thousands of dollars. In our case, the costs will double because we’re doing two separate adoptions. While we’re waiting to find out when our first court date will be for Kristine, it’s a good time to work on some more fundraisers. We have tentatively scheduled another garage sale/bake sale fundraiser for Saturday, September 9th. We’ll be collecting donated items to sell again so if any of you have items sitting in your closets or basements that you’d like to get rid of, we’ll be happy to take them off your hands. We also need to borrow some tables if any of you have a table or two you wouldn’t mind loaning us so we can display the sale items. We’ll take all kinds of items…housewares, linens, furniture, kid’s clothes, toys, books, tools, etc. We had all kinds of things donated for our last two sales. You’d be surprised at what people will buy!!
I’ll be selling my scrumptious banana bread again for $15/loaf and my popular monster chip cookies for $10/dozen. If you’d like to place an order, just shoot me an email.
Also, don’t forget that I’m a Mary Kay rep if you’d like to place an order on my website. All profits from my Mary Kay sales are also going towards our adoption fund. There are a lot of great new products to choose from and I offer FREE shipping/delivery. Remember, I can get you a free sample if there’s a product you’d like to try before buying.
So please spread the word about our sale on Sept. 9th. Thank you so much to all of you who have donated items for our sales and those of you who have been praying for us. Please pray for good weather and a successful sale!
I’ll be selling my scrumptious banana bread again for $15/loaf and my popular monster chip cookies for $10/dozen. If you’d like to place an order, just shoot me an email.
Also, don’t forget that I’m a Mary Kay rep if you’d like to place an order on my website. All profits from my Mary Kay sales are also going towards our adoption fund. There are a lot of great new products to choose from and I offer FREE shipping/delivery. Remember, I can get you a free sample if there’s a product you’d like to try before buying.
So please spread the word about our sale on Sept. 9th. Thank you so much to all of you who have donated items for our sales and those of you who have been praying for us. Please pray for good weather and a successful sale!
8/20 - We Talked to Kristine Today!
This morning we called the children’s home again at 9:00 a.m. (4:00 p.m. Latvian time) and were able to get Kristine on the phone. Like yesterday, I was on one phone and Rob was on the other extension. This time when we called, someone answered in Latvian so I said “Labdien, Kristine Ludzu”. The woman then started speaking to us in Latvian. I quickly said “Ne Latviski” which means “No Latvian.” We heard a lot of rustling in the background and we could tell she was calling for someone to get Kristine.
A few seconds later Kristine was on the line. She was a little reserved. We could hear that there were other people in the room so it was probably hard for her to talk. She didn’t speak much English to us, but we were able to tell her in Latvian how much we loved her and missed her. She quietly said, “Me too.” It was SO good to hear her voice. She said she was doing good and that camp was fun. She asked us what we were doing and we told her our plans for the day. She said she was playing with her friends today.
Once again, we didn’t care what we talked about. We were just so thankful to hear her sweet voice over the phone. We plan to call both kids weekly now and will continue to write letters to keep in touch. Hopefully, we’ll be going to see them in Latvia real soon. We can’t wait!!!
A few seconds later Kristine was on the line. She was a little reserved. We could hear that there were other people in the room so it was probably hard for her to talk. She didn’t speak much English to us, but we were able to tell her in Latvian how much we loved her and missed her. She quietly said, “Me too.” It was SO good to hear her voice. She said she was doing good and that camp was fun. She asked us what we were doing and we told her our plans for the day. She said she was playing with her friends today.
Once again, we didn’t care what we talked about. We were just so thankful to hear her sweet voice over the phone. We plan to call both kids weekly now and will continue to write letters to keep in touch. Hopefully, we’ll be going to see them in Latvia real soon. We can’t wait!!!
Saturday, August 19, 2006
8/19 - We Got to Talk to Olegs!
Rob and I got word yesterday that we could call the kids at 9:00 this morning (4:00 p.m. Latvian time). FINALLY!!! We prepared a list of things we wanted to tell them and questions to ask. Then we purchased a prepaid calling card PIN online in order to save some in international long distance charges. A friend of ours told us about this website where you can purchase discounted long distance calling card PINs online and have them emailed to you. This will work fine for now but we're hoping the children's home will eventually get Skype which is an online service that allows you to make international calls for FREE from your computer. You just need to download the software and hook up a microphone (and optional digital videocam) to your computer. It will make things much easier once that gets set up.
Anyway, back to our phone call. We had no idea what to expect since we hadn’t talked to Olegs & Kristine in weeks. We didn’t know if they’d be real quiet and shy again or if they’d be talkative, etc. It was decided that I’d do the talking at first since I’d at least figured out how to ask for them to be put on the phone. Rob and I were so excited we were almost giddy!
When 9:00 came around, Rob and I each got on an extension and I dialed the number. We planned to ask for Kristine first and then talk to Olegs. The phone rang about 3 times and this voice answered in English…"Hello." It was unbelievable that we were talking to someone way across the globe in Latvia!! I said "Labdien, Kristine Ludzu" which means "Good Afternoon, Kristine please." The voice on the phone said "no, Olegs" so I assumed that they were telling us we’d have to talk to Olegs first so I said "okay, we talk to Olegs." Well it turns out that I was speaking to Olegs!!! He had answered the phone!! I thought I was speaking to some young girl in the office. LOL! We had a good laugh about that and then Olegs began talking up a storm!! He sounded so excited and happy to talk to us!! We were impressed that he was even speaking more English to us. He had obviously been practicing. We told him how impressed and proud we were of his English skills and he politely said "thank you."
Olegs told us that Kristine wasn’t able to make the call and that we should try again at a different time. We think he said we are supposed to try again tomorrow morning but we’re not sure. Some things were a little hard to understand. We’ll just go ahead and call again in the morning and hopefully we can get her on the phone. We asked Olegs if he had been playing Uno and he said he played with his friends who he described as “crazy.” LOL! He said camp was okay but we couldn’t quite make out what kinds of activities they did at camp. He said they played cards but I’m not sure what else. It didn’t really matter what we talked about. It was just SO good to have our little man on the other end of the line. He is so precious!!
Rob and I kept telling Olegs how much we missed him and loved him. It melted our hearts when he replied in English..."me too." We told him that Winston and the kitties missed him too and he laughed. We had some great laughs about some of the funny things that happened while they were here. We asked him if he’d had any lemons and he chuckled (remembering our outing at Red Top Mountain when he ate the lemons, rind and all, and made himself sick in the process).
Now that the kids are back from camp, we want to set up a time to call each week so we can talk to them. If we can just hear their voices periodically, it will go a long way towards helping us get through this long wait that’s ahead of us! Rob and I keep replaying this morning’s call in our minds. We’ll be on cloud nine for the next couple of days for sure!!
Anyway, back to our phone call. We had no idea what to expect since we hadn’t talked to Olegs & Kristine in weeks. We didn’t know if they’d be real quiet and shy again or if they’d be talkative, etc. It was decided that I’d do the talking at first since I’d at least figured out how to ask for them to be put on the phone. Rob and I were so excited we were almost giddy!
When 9:00 came around, Rob and I each got on an extension and I dialed the number. We planned to ask for Kristine first and then talk to Olegs. The phone rang about 3 times and this voice answered in English…"Hello." It was unbelievable that we were talking to someone way across the globe in Latvia!! I said "Labdien, Kristine Ludzu" which means "Good Afternoon, Kristine please." The voice on the phone said "no, Olegs" so I assumed that they were telling us we’d have to talk to Olegs first so I said "okay, we talk to Olegs." Well it turns out that I was speaking to Olegs!!! He had answered the phone!! I thought I was speaking to some young girl in the office. LOL! We had a good laugh about that and then Olegs began talking up a storm!! He sounded so excited and happy to talk to us!! We were impressed that he was even speaking more English to us. He had obviously been practicing. We told him how impressed and proud we were of his English skills and he politely said "thank you."
Olegs told us that Kristine wasn’t able to make the call and that we should try again at a different time. We think he said we are supposed to try again tomorrow morning but we’re not sure. Some things were a little hard to understand. We’ll just go ahead and call again in the morning and hopefully we can get her on the phone. We asked Olegs if he had been playing Uno and he said he played with his friends who he described as “crazy.” LOL! He said camp was okay but we couldn’t quite make out what kinds of activities they did at camp. He said they played cards but I’m not sure what else. It didn’t really matter what we talked about. It was just SO good to have our little man on the other end of the line. He is so precious!!
Rob and I kept telling Olegs how much we missed him and loved him. It melted our hearts when he replied in English..."me too." We told him that Winston and the kitties missed him too and he laughed. We had some great laughs about some of the funny things that happened while they were here. We asked him if he’d had any lemons and he chuckled (remembering our outing at Red Top Mountain when he ate the lemons, rind and all, and made himself sick in the process).
Now that the kids are back from camp, we want to set up a time to call each week so we can talk to them. If we can just hear their voices periodically, it will go a long way towards helping us get through this long wait that’s ahead of us! Rob and I keep replaying this morning’s call in our minds. We’ll be on cloud nine for the next couple of days for sure!!
Friday, August 18, 2006
8/18 - Our Documents Are In Latvia!
We confirmed that our attorney, Agnese, received our dossier paperwork this week. Today she emailed us to say she gave it all to the translation company to have it translated into Latvian for the court. Once it’s translated, she’ll submit it to the orphan court. After that, they’ll assign us a court date and then we’ll book our first flight. YIKES!! We feel like we’ll probably be traveling on our first trip to Latvia sometime in October but for all we know it could be earlier. Not much we can do but wait right now.
The kids are expected back at the children’s home this weekend so we’re hoping to talk to them soon. We also heard that the children’s home director and possibly Helen and Ilga (the chaperones who accompanied the children to the US) will be interviewing the children (or at least Kristine) about their wishes concerning adoption. Since our kids are older, their wishes are taken into consideration by the court. Of course, we expect them both to say “yes.”
The kids are expected back at the children’s home this weekend so we’re hoping to talk to them soon. We also heard that the children’s home director and possibly Helen and Ilga (the chaperones who accompanied the children to the US) will be interviewing the children (or at least Kristine) about their wishes concerning adoption. Since our kids are older, their wishes are taken into consideration by the court. Of course, we expect them both to say “yes.”
Friday, August 11, 2006
8/11 - Sending our Dossier to Latvia!
The highlight of today was getting our paperwork to our new friends who are traveling to Latvia on Sunday for their 2nd court date. We are so thankful to them for taking our dossier to our attorney. Things seem to be happening really fast. I don’t know if it’s this situation in particular or life in general. I just remember as a kid how time would never move fast enough. I remember crossing the days off of the calendar waiting for school to be out for the summer. Now it seems like life passes at lightning speed. Anyway, now that the paperwork is on its way to Latvia we need to get ready to GO to Latvia. WOW!! Sometimes we can’t believe we’re actually doing this. It’s so exciting!!
Once the attorney receives our paperwork, the first step will be for her to have it all translated before giving it to the court. That should take about 1-2 weeks. After that, we just sit tight and wait to be notified of our court date. The kids are due back from camp in another week and we hope to call them when they’re back at their children’s home. It’s so hard not being able to talk to them.
Once the attorney receives our paperwork, the first step will be for her to have it all translated before giving it to the court. That should take about 1-2 weeks. After that, we just sit tight and wait to be notified of our court date. The kids are due back from camp in another week and we hope to call them when they’re back at their children’s home. It’s so hard not being able to talk to them.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
8/10 - A Little Bump in the Road!
Rob and I got to the sheriff’s office this morning at 8:00 am and luckily we were waited on by the really nice woman who had helped us when we originally came to get our background check letters. She’s not the one who actually types up the letters but just handles the requests and forwards them to someone else for processing. We explained to her our situation and gave her one of our incorrect letters and showed her that they weren’t notarized correctly. We had to tell her that we needed new letters no later than tomorrow because we’re sending our paperwork to Latvia this weekend. As soon as she realized the urgency of the situation, her friendly smile turned into a look of almost desperation…like she was scared of something. At this point, we expected her to tell us that there was nothing they could do for us and that we’d have to come back in a couple of days.
It turns out that she was actually a little afraid of asking the lady who handles the letters to redo our letters. Apparently, that just isn’t done. She told us that there’s some lady downstairs that types up the letters and everything would depend on “whether or not she’s in a good mood.” Rob and I pictured some old crabby lady in a dark dingy smoke-filled room with only a small desk and a typewriter. The friendly lady told us to sit tight and she would do her best to talk to the cranky woman. We waited and waited and soon afterwards she came back with new letters so I guess that woman was having a good day. She had done one new letter for Rob and one for me. That was great except we needed TWO letters each!! So then we had to explain that we needed one more letter for each of us. The poor woman looked overwrought and told us you just don’t understand…”going down there to talk to that woman is like cutting ice with a butter knife.” Those were her exact words…no joke!! Nevertheless, she went down there again for us and eventually came back with our additional letters. WHEW!!! We thanked her over and over and would’ve given her a big bear hug if it weren’t for the big glass window between us. She just smiled and said she was just happy that we were adopting and wished us well. What a nice lady!!
Now that we had our new letters, I took them right away to be apostilled. Since everything was in order this time, they apostilled them with no problem. With that, our dossier is now complete!!! YIPPEE!! Now, to get our paperwork to Latvia!
It turns out that she was actually a little afraid of asking the lady who handles the letters to redo our letters. Apparently, that just isn’t done. She told us that there’s some lady downstairs that types up the letters and everything would depend on “whether or not she’s in a good mood.” Rob and I pictured some old crabby lady in a dark dingy smoke-filled room with only a small desk and a typewriter. The friendly lady told us to sit tight and she would do her best to talk to the cranky woman. We waited and waited and soon afterwards she came back with new letters so I guess that woman was having a good day. She had done one new letter for Rob and one for me. That was great except we needed TWO letters each!! So then we had to explain that we needed one more letter for each of us. The poor woman looked overwrought and told us you just don’t understand…”going down there to talk to that woman is like cutting ice with a butter knife.” Those were her exact words…no joke!! Nevertheless, she went down there again for us and eventually came back with our additional letters. WHEW!!! We thanked her over and over and would’ve given her a big bear hug if it weren’t for the big glass window between us. She just smiled and said she was just happy that we were adopting and wished us well. What a nice lady!!
Now that we had our new letters, I took them right away to be apostilled. Since everything was in order this time, they apostilled them with no problem. With that, our dossier is now complete!!! YIPPEE!! Now, to get our paperwork to Latvia!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
8/8 - Apostilling Documents
Since we’ve finally gathered all of our documents for our dossier and had them all notarized, the next step was to get the documents apostilled. Since Kristine hadn’t been cleared for international adoption, Rob and I had decided we would wait until she did get cleared before sending the documents to Latvia and wiring money to our attorney. That was until we got an email this evening that said Kristine IS now cleared for international adoption so now we’re back to rushing around!!!!
One of the other families who is adopting a child from the Christmas hosting is leaving for Latvia on Sunday for their second court date, so they will be hand delivering our documents to our attorney for us. It costs about $130-$150 to FedEx paperwork to Latvia so this will save a little bit (every little bit counts at this point). We had originally heard they were leaving around August 21st so we had planned to wait until then. But then we later found out that they’re actually leaving THIS weekend so we’ve been running around like crazy gathering last minute items, getting things notarized, etc.!!!
Today I took our documents to be apostilled and ran into a little snag. It seems the notary who notarized our background check letters didn’t notarize them correctly. There has to be a notary statement on the letters and there wasn’t one!!! ARRRGGGHHHH!!! So the lady at the apostille place said we would have to redo them. Let me add that the people at the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority office (the ones who do the apostilles) were some of the friendliest people in the world. Sometimes government workers get a bad rap but these people were awesome. I was able to walk right in and hand them my paperwork. They did everything while I waited, except for the ones they were unable to process.
So Rob and I had to decide the best way to get new background check letters. How would we tell the lady at the sheriff’s office that she screwed up? They don’t take that kind of news too well. We ultimately decided we’ll get up early and be at the sheriff’s office first thing tomorrow morning. If I have to start crying to get something done, then that’s just what I’ll have to do. :-)We’ve got to have those letters by Sunday!!!!
One of the other families who is adopting a child from the Christmas hosting is leaving for Latvia on Sunday for their second court date, so they will be hand delivering our documents to our attorney for us. It costs about $130-$150 to FedEx paperwork to Latvia so this will save a little bit (every little bit counts at this point). We had originally heard they were leaving around August 21st so we had planned to wait until then. But then we later found out that they’re actually leaving THIS weekend so we’ve been running around like crazy gathering last minute items, getting things notarized, etc.!!!
Today I took our documents to be apostilled and ran into a little snag. It seems the notary who notarized our background check letters didn’t notarize them correctly. There has to be a notary statement on the letters and there wasn’t one!!! ARRRGGGHHHH!!! So the lady at the apostille place said we would have to redo them. Let me add that the people at the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority office (the ones who do the apostilles) were some of the friendliest people in the world. Sometimes government workers get a bad rap but these people were awesome. I was able to walk right in and hand them my paperwork. They did everything while I waited, except for the ones they were unable to process.
So Rob and I had to decide the best way to get new background check letters. How would we tell the lady at the sheriff’s office that she screwed up? They don’t take that kind of news too well. We ultimately decided we’ll get up early and be at the sheriff’s office first thing tomorrow morning. If I have to start crying to get something done, then that’s just what I’ll have to do. :-)We’ve got to have those letters by Sunday!!!!
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
8/1 - Making Progress Towards Adoption
Today it felt good to make some progress. We got confirmation that the attorney we were hoping for has agreed to help us. We’ve been communicating with her via email and she’s been so great at responding to our questions. Another big bonus is that she speaks English. The first thing on the list was to confirm what items we need for our dossier. She told us not to send anything more than what was asked for on the Procedures of Adoption section of the Latvian Ministry’s webpage. There were some extra items that we had gathered so it was good to know this ahead of time so we didn’t waste money apostilling extra documents.
For those of you who may be interested, below are the items we’re sending as part of our dossier. We think we’ve narrowed the list down enough to match what the Latvian government requires. Let me add that this is only what we believe to be correct. We are by no means adoption experts, so don’t rely on this list to be exact but use it as a guideline. Next thing on the agenda is to get these items apostilled so we can send them to Latvia.
- Initial Application to Adopt a Child
- Home Study, including Agency License
- Verification of Residence
- Autobiography - Wife
- Autobiography - Husband
- Financial Statement
- Police Clearance - Wife
- Police Clearance - Husband
- Color Passport Copy - Wife
- Color Passport Copy - Husband
Through an email exchange with our attorney, we discussed each child’s situation. We confirmed that we will have to focus on adopting Kristine right now because Olegs is not yet cleared for adoption. So that means we'll have Kristine home before Olegs. Kristine is free for adoption and only needs to be cleared for international adoption. Her case should move rather quickly. Olegs, however, is not yet free for adoption so his case will take much longer. We knew this before we hosted him and we chose to host him anyway in the hopes that he would eventually be cleared. We believe that he will also be cleared but it will take time and patience. There is a lot of red tape involved but we are prepared to wait as long as it takes. In the meantime, we will write to both children and try to set up times to call them when they return from camp. They should be back at their childrens’ home next weekend. And of course we will continue to do lots of praying!!
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