newsy

Internet is back! Hooray.

I'm moved in and mostly unpacked. (Yes, yes... pix when I'm ALL unpacked.)

I've beaten the boat noise by moving into Sasha's room. See? Co-sleeping already. ;>

I'm overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to my shower. I never got to have a bridal shower, wedding shower, baby shower...housewarming shower so this is very exciting. I'm a little gobsmacked. I don't quite know what to register FOR. I've got so many things...but I guess we just register for the future. Right? I'll do some dreaming. And consulting. Maybe in addition to registering I can give you some basic guidelines for those of you who like to shop off the registry. (That's easy--no Disney, no characters, no synthetics, nothing too cutesy. I think she's a winter. Yea! Me, too! But we won't know until she's home and has lost that orphanage pallor.)

Paperwork. Bleh. My agency is going back and forth on whether or not we need to update my hs for USCIS. The latest word is yes--and get a new visa. If we do, that's a big update. It will take a long time to complete. Special needs adoptions need special paperwork. (Came up with that gem of a definition very late last night.) BUT the memo USCIS sent out to agencies in March (I have a copy) says that a doctor's exam can overrule the dx on the paperwork. I think my doctor's exam does that and have e-mailed USCIS to ask for their opinion.

My current hs update for Russia is 12 pages long! I thought it would be a page...or maybe two listing the things that have changed (salary, saving, address, special needs) that would be attached to my current hs. Instead, she's re-written a lot of things that haven't changed (personal history, why I'm adopting, plans for after d2b is home, guardianship, etc.).

Twelve pages will take a long time to translate.

I e-mailed my agency to ask their sw (who approves all the hs) what we need--two pages or twelve. She didn't know. Let me repeat--She didn't know. She didn't even understand WHY we were updating. (insert controlled scream) We're updating only because THE AGENCY TOLD ME TO UPDATE!

To answer your questions, it's not likely that I'll be visiting her during this wait. If she were close by, I'd be there every day! But she's hours and hours away. Russia's a big country. Imagine if you were adopting from another state. You wouldn't be able to visit every weekend. It takes longer to get to her than it does to fly from New York to London.

And, she really doesn't know what's going on at all. Having me come and go may be worse.

If it looks like court will be more than eight weeks, I'll go visit once more. Probably. If it's going to be soon, I probably won't.

That's the newsy-ness here.

(Sorry for no pix. A friend got on the blog without accepting his invitation. It makes me nervous.)