Adoption Journey!

So, many of you may already know this, but Brian and I have officially started on an adoption journey. We have begun the process to adopt from Russia! We are so excited about it, but also a little daunted, for reasons I'll discuss below. Anyway, we just decided that we'd had enough of trying to have a biological baby. Three miscarriages and fertility treatment since the beginning of the year with no results is enough. It's funny, with the fertility treatment, the more intervention they did, the less pregnant I seemed to get. And it just seemed like the treatment caused a whole other set of problems that needed further treatment, etc. Where does it end? At the end of July, shortly before we went up to the UP, we just decided, nope, no more. And it is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.

In case you are wondering, here is a brief outline of the process, which is why we feel daunted. There are 3 different sets of paperwork to do. The home study, the dossier, and the USCIS paperwork. The home study is working with a social worker here, having meetings with her, and doing an educational component. We can hopefully get that done in about 2 months. The home study goes in both the dossier, which is the file that gets sent to Russia, and the USCIS paperwork (USCIS is the United States Custom and Immigration). The dossier literally consists of about 20 different documents, like original birth certificates, marriages license, the deed to our house, fingerprint checks, etc that we have to gather, have notarized and some state sealed in Lansing. I am going to be doing A LOT of running around. And the customs paperwork is sort of similar, some the same info, with some additional documents. Yikes!

After all that paperwork is done, our dossier is submitted to Russia to be translated and registered in a region. Then, the waiting begins. We could wait a year for a referral for a child or children (we are thinking of adopting 2 kids at once) that match your criteria as far as age, gender, etc. We hopefully will not wait that long! A referral includes some medical information, and perhaps a photos. Before deciding anything, you take that medical to a doctor who specializes in this stuff, and they give you an assessment whether they think the child has serious health issues. Then you decide if you want to accept the referral. Quickly after that, you travel to Russia for the first time to meet the child. You meet the child at the orphanage, and decide for good if you want them. If you do, you fly home after a week, and wait for a court date in Russia 2-3 months in the future. Then, you go back, have your court hearing, and the kids are yours after a waiting period. You can then go to the Embassy in Moscow, and you get permission from the US government to come home, and paperwork making the kids American citizens. Then, you are home with your child!

So, Brian and I will be making at least 2 trips to Russia in the next year or two. We are kind of hoping we can be done and home by next Christmas, but that's just sort of something we have in our head, nothing is set in stone with any of this. This is clearly not an easy or quick process, but like I said, we are so excited! For those of you to whom we've already told this, thanks for your support and enthusiasm. We appreciate it, and we're going to need your support in the coming months so we don't get discouraged!

Back to School...I Wish

So, it's September, and all the kids (college and younger!) are back in school. I cannot believe how quickly this non-summer summer we had passed. It's completely ridiculous. It's only September 10, and the leaves on the trees are already starting to turn colors. Ugh. I am so not ready for fall. Not that fall is bad, but fall leads to winter, which leads to snow and cold...you see where I'm going with this.

Anyway, back to "back to school." This time of year always makes me nostalgic for school days. It's been 5 years since I graduated law school, but I still feel like I should be going back to school this time of year. I honestly just love school; I'm such a nerd to the core. I love buying school supplies--the pens, pencils, paper and notebooks. Once I hit college and law school, I loved going to the bookstore and buying all my books for class, and all the highlighters and paper flags I would ever need (although I didn't like the bill!). I loved organizing my notebooks for class--in law school I had a very organized system, consisting of a huge 3 ring binder in which I kept all my notes for classes, organized chronologically, i.e., the first class I had Monday morning was first in the book, the second class of the week was next, and on down. At the time, I was very proud of this system, but now I realize it was dangerous--what if I lost that notebook and all my notes were gone? That would have been deadly.

Buying supplies and organizing was just one reason to love back to school--the other reason truly was the school part. I LOVE going and sitting in class (I always went to the front left of the classroom--I still do even when doing my exercise classes). I LOVE listening, taking notes, and raising my hand to talk, even if I am a bit like Horshack from "Welcome Back Kotter." ("Oooh-oooh-oooooh!" while raising hand vigorously.) Or, to give another example for those not familiar with "Welcome Back Kotter," see also Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. (God, I see so much of myself in that character!) I am such a nerd to the core, and truly in my heart, feel like school is the thing in the world I'm best at. I've never been as good at any job as I am at attending school. Unfortunately, being a professional student does the opposite of providing a pay check, but if I had the money, the first thing I'd do is enroll in classes again. I'd get a Masters in something like Political Science (my undergrad major) or even in English Lit (my minor). And when that was done, I'd move on to something else!

I know I'm probably nuts, and most of you reading this could not be more glad to not have to go to class. So, if any of my readers out there ARE actually going back to class, enjoy it and know there's at least one person who'd love to trade places with you. :)