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.
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