Last Documents

You'd think that this post would be a reflection on the past year- yada yada yada

But, we have no time for that.

I finished what I thought was all of our final paperwork in the past two days. Running around to the mortgage broker, notary, doctors, city clerk and department of state, I got everything done with time to spare. So I decided to come up to CT yesterday, to begin my vacation for the New Years Weekend. It is a complete blizzard right now and we are in White Out conditions. It is really beautiful looking outside, but I am happy I am inside and happy that I am not driving in weather. The bad news is that last night as soon as I got to CT I received an email from the agency stating that we needed ONE more document. This last document has to be completed ASAP so we can Fedex it with the rest of the documents for Friday delivery. Michael is not happy about that. He had to take time out from work to run around. We had to have an attorney sign a True & Accurate statement and attach it to a letter from Homeland Security. Basically, the Russians want us to have another FBI background check but we already have to have a full check for USCIS to receive government approval. It would be unnecessary and expensive to get another check. So, our agency got a letter from homeland security saying we already had an FBI check. We had to have an attorney letter notarized and have it certified and apostilled. So, after some frantic calls we got an attorney letter and Michael ran around Manhattan on New Years Eve day getting it all done. Mike FedEx'd his documents and I UPS'ed the rest to the agency. It is out of our hands!

Much thanks to Mike's Uncle Marty and the good people of the City government agencies that were open for Michael. He made it up to CT on the train and we both are thankful this year is OVER!!!

Everything will get to our agency on Friday January 2nd and immediately be sent out to Russia to our coordinator. It will be translated and She will bring it to the Region and deliver it to our Judge on Monday January 12th, which is the first day back for the Russian Government after their January New Years/Russian Orthodox Christmas holidays.

Here is to a quiet beginning of 2009.

Happy 1st Birthday

December 29th 2008

Happy Birthday to my little Tsarinas


The twins turn one year old today. I wish we were there with them to celebrate. Actually, I wish they were already home, here with us so we could celebrate in a bigger and better way. But, alas, we must still wait for our court date. I hope that they were told it was their birthday, maybe the orphanage workers sang to them or maybe they got a special meal. Probably though nothing special happened and they all went about their day like normal. That makes me sad. We will more than make up for it when they come home.

M-
Happy birthday to my sweet little girl. Even though I only met you a month ago and our meeting was so brief you are already a huge part of our family. You are such a sweet and beautiful little girl. We had so much fun playing with you and really took everything in. I cannot wait for you to come home and begin to thrive and develop. I am so excited to watch you grow up and see your relationship with your sister expand. I wish you the happiest of days and hope to see you again soon.

D-Happy birthday to my sweet little girl. Our meeting was so quick but I could tell right away how bright and rambunctious you are. You are a smiley and happy little girl. We look forward to seeing you flourish and grow and cannot wait for you to come home soon. I am so excited to watch you grow up and become part of this family. I look forward to seeing your friendship with your sister develop and change. I wish you the happiest of days and hope to see you again soon.

Love mom and dad

The Nursery

The Girls Nursery is almost complete


This holiday week was spent working on the girls bedroom. We had so much fun. Well, not Mike and Neil, they spent the day putting together 2 cribs. First one took about 1 ½ hours. Second one only took 25 minutes. Neil and I also put up a light fixture and the matching valance to the bedding. It looks so great. Lulu had gotten us some beautiful embroidered pillow cases in Brussels. We bought inserts and Michael’s craft store, and they look so great on the bed. My parents and Lulu and I went to my friend Esther's house and loaded up two SUV’s full of extra cribs, twins clothing and toys. M&D will really get to know Esthers twins very well, hopefully more than just through their hand-me-downs. Esther, you have great taste, but most of you already knew this already. I barely have to buy anything for the girls for the first 6 months home because we got such great stuff from Esthers girls. The Nursery is almost complete. We need some more artwork; real shades (we still have up paper home depot temporary blinds up throughout the condo!) and a couple other things.

We are also gearing up for the trip back to Russia for court. We already have a double stroller, snowsuits, coming home outfits, toys etc. I am trying to figure out what our orphanage donation will be and am putting together all of the thank you gifts for Russia. I need gifts for all the orphanage staff, and slightly nicer things for the Orphanage director, social worker, our coordinator, translator, judge, driver etc. Lots of gifts to get. Thankfully after Christmas sales are helpful.

Bobo already found a cozy spot. We have put a stop to that right away!

Here are more of the room:

We have some many cute outfits already. Between Lulu's shopping sprees and Esthers hand-me-downs, we are ready!

Blog goes Private

I was urged by my agency to take the blog down after my first trip through the end of the adoption so as to not piss off the Russians before our adoption was final. Not that I was saying anything bad about them, but either way, I took it down. Unfortunately I lost all of the posts from the original blog, that had been put up before our trip. Not sure what happened as I tried to save the whole thing to my hard drive. I seem to be technologically challenged. I will re post the posts from Trip 1 and continue the blog from there. I have been journaling everything offline and will post them in order as well. Unfortunately- all posts have been completely lost. I only wrote them in blogger not in word first. Silly me. I will reconstruct them and put them back up.

Sorry you couldn't follow in real time.... It sure has been an amazing journey so far!

Enjoy

Melissa

Thinking about Our Girls

In the short period of time we had with M&D we feel that we have already learned so many things about them.

D
Is a flirt and will smile for anyone who makes a funny face.
She already has a lot of teeth but I am not sure if she knows how to use them as we do not think they are every given solid food
She loves to be thrown up in the air and caught or turned upside down
She is a snuggle bug and will curl up in the crook of your neck, and make you melt.
She sucks her thumb and hooks her pointer finger around her nose.
Always a on the go, but stops for hug, but them goes back to being a busy girl.
Squirmy


M
Is very sweet and shy. Real strawberry blonde hair.
She will give you smile when you throw her up in the air, but does not smile much in general
She liked to suck on her middle 2 fingers and put the pinky and pointer up in the air like she is giving the ‘dude’ sign.
She has the sweetest blue eyes and seems to take everything in.
She keeps her hands balled up and it takes a while to pry them open. Once open she will hold toys and touch, point to things.
It takes her a while to open up but once she does she is adorable and babbles a lot.
She has spaghetti legs and has no interest in standing or walking yet.
Might be left handed.
She seems very careful, and sizes you up to see if she can trust you.
She is content to be held and rocked.

It is Snowing Paper

I have had to print, redo, and reprint so many documents today that there seems to be just as much shredded paper in my apartment as snow outside!

Did you know Notary Public guidelines are 26 pages long. x 3 copies! My printer and shredder are on their last legs.

I am overwhelmed with paperwork but promise to come back and do a real post this weekend.

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Drowning in Papers

I have gotten off to a great start on our paperwork.

• Psych evaluation for Mike (he is sane!) came in the mail while we were in Russia. I already handed mine in (I am almost sane!)
• Updated police checks were also in the mail upon our return.
• I was able to make Doctor appointments for next week to update our medical letters and fill out the 8 Doctor medical forms for both of us.

• · Mortgage letter is being worked on and the coop letter is on its way to me.
• · Social Worker is working on the home safety and sanitation letter.
• · My neighbor who is a real estate broker is helping with an assessor letter and apartment appraisal.
• · As soon as I get the new 'certificate of assets' form from my agency Mike can begin to fill it in.

Everyone I have to depend on for these documents are being so receptive and helpful it feels wonderful. Especially after I show them photos of us with our two precious baby girls.
There is an end in sight and I am thrilled people are so helpful. I think the joy of the holiday season helps too. But I do need to get a lot of this done before people start leaving on vacations and holidays.
Other papers I have already finished:

• · Copies of last 3 years of tax returns along with w2 forms.
• · photo pages of pictures of us with the girls to present to the judge
• · employer letters already brought to Russia

Items that I need but haven't figured out how to get them yet are:

• · Offical document from NYS or NYC stating minimum wage or poverty level for our state
• · Medical licensing letters from the state licensing agency for both of the doctors who fill out our 8 doctor medical forms.
  

Of course, I have not heard from the coordinator about which additional documents (on top of all the ones I already know about above) will be needed. The director of our adoption agency is at a conference the next few days so I am not sure I'll get the list this week. Hopefully the documents will not be too complicated.

December 13, 2008 ~ DELIRIOUS

Delirious
We have made it to Paris and are spending time in the Air France lounge before our connecting flight to NYC. It feels like I was drunk when I wrote those posts last night. I am sure there are a ton of grammatical and spelling mistakes. I will go over them when I get home and fix them up. I feel like I got most of the facts and events out but maybe not all of the emotions. There is still so much more to say about the trip. I want to remember everything about the trip, everything about the girls. We took so many pictures I am trying to go through them to weed out the duds and find the best ones. When we were playing with the twins we got so many great smiles and giggles but because both of us always had our hands full ( I know- we better get used to it, say all my twin-mom friends) I feel like I didn’t get any really good pictures of them smiling. I wish I had taken more videos, but again I just didn’t have time or the ability to do it. I am having tons of fun going through all the pictures. When we go to court we have to present the Judge with a few pictures of us with M&D to prove we actually met them so I want to find the best ones to print out.

We do have some awesome memories. Mike and I keep on going over every little detail of each of them so we don’t forget. We miss them so much already. There was so much more that I wanted to do and say and play with them. The time always went so quickly. We were constantly on the go. No time for sightseeing or being a tourist. It was a very tough trip, definitely emotionally draining. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

I have to bounce back quickly because on Monday I have to start the rushed paper chase again. There are a lot of documents I need to get. Christmas and New Years are coming quickly. Russian Holidays are from January 1st through January 7th when they celebrate their Christmas in the Russian Orthodox Church. So between all of these holidays I have to manage to get a ton of documents done and sent to Russia. If the Coordinator has our documents by January 10-15th, than it is possible that we could have a court date as soon as January 21st. I’m just not sure it is possible for us to get it all done by then. These documents include:
8 Doctor Medical forms filled out. We need 48 signatures on the medical forms, 2 letters written by each doctor and a copy of the medical license for each doctor.
List of Assets and Liabilities with a true and accurate statement signed by us
Letter from Home study agency saying our home is safe for children
New Police state checks
FBI updated background checks.
Letter from Mortgage Company and coop board/management Company
Photos of us with M&D to present to the Judge, photos of baby’s room set up.
I am also waiting for a call from my agency on Monday or Tuesday. Our region coordinator will be back in Tver on Monday and is supposed to speak with the judge about our case. She’ll have a larger list of documents for us to complete to add to our already long list.
See you back in NYC tonight.

December 12th, 2008 ~ Shot of Vodka

FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE NOVOTEL HOTEL AT THE MOSCOW AIRPORT

Пока Пока РоссияМы будем тосковать без Вас