Preparing for Trip 1

The past couple of weeks have been very hectic. We received a referral for a child from Russia. The Main Surprise was this was not the region that we were expecting to receive a referral from. Originally we were registered in Perm Russia. Yet this referral was from Orenburg Russia which is a few hundred Kilometers south west of Perm (our original region). This time we had more information to go on, and it all looked really good. So, we accepted the invitation even though it meant more paperwork for us. We could travel in 2 1/2 weeks if we could get the paperwork submitted in one week. Fortunately, the paperwork for this reason was a lot easier than the other region, and we were able to get it all done in about 3 days. We didn't have to get the apostilles done, as the Orenburg judge had said he preferred to have everything apostilled at our agency headquarters in MN. So we just had to get it all notarized and sent to our agency HQ, and they took it from there. We were all set for our Orenburg MoE appointment for 07 April.

We were also told that it would really speed up the time between trips if we could get Part 2 done. So we spend the following 10 days or so working frantically on those documents, including physicals with our doctor & a signoff from a psychologist. We had a few hurdles to overcome. Our doctor's receptionist insisted that they had done previous Russian adoption medical reports, and none had insisted on the requirements we were giving her. (Filling out the sheet we provided, printing it on clinic letterhead, & having a notary there for the signatures.) Well, I don't know what regions of Russia prior patients used, but these were the requirements given to us, and we can't change them just because it's inconvenient for her. But we were able to make all the arrangements, including having Cerri's exam 2 days later so that we would have the results of Kris' & my lab work. And we had a traveling notary meet us there to notarize the final signatures on all the documents.

Meanwhile, another challenge we encountered was getting a psychologist to do a signoff on people they didn't know in a fairly short time frame. Ironically, us being in pretty good mental health turned out to be a drawback for getting that paperwork done. We tried asking friends of family members who were in the business, but one after another could not do it. (One didn't do those kinds of exams, another felt that it would be a conflict of interest due to having a personal relationship with our extended family, etc.) But we finally found one who met with us (individually), and gave us a favorable report.

By the time we left, there were only a couple more things we needed. One was the 10-day waiver request (one from us, one from the child's doctor). And the FBI clearance was due to arrive while we were away, but we had our next-door neighbor pick it up for us. It's a good thing she did, too, because where it was sitting against the garage, it would have been soaked and/or blown away by the time we returned.

While all of that paperwork was underway, we also had to work through our travel arrangements and get Russian travel visas. And pack everything we needed for ourselves and Cerri's trip. She was given the choice to come with us (with Ange's dad to help care for her) or go with Ange's parents to visit her cousins in Florida. Not a really tough decision for a 4-year-old, of course. Still, we do think it helped her in being away from us that she was the one who had made that choice. She had a lot of fun, but she also missed us, and we missed her. The second Russia trip we will definitely be taking her with us. And she wants us to all go together (all FOUR of us!) to visit her cousins sometime.

Anyway we made the flight arrangements without too much hassle for the first & last legs of the trip. United now has a direct Washington DC (Dulles) to Moscow flight. This is a daily flight and certainly has the potential to become at least one of the new baby flights back from Russia. And it's on a very comfortable 767 jet. Best of all, we were able to get a great rate under $500 round trip DC to Moscow. Then it turns out that my mother-in-law had enough frequent flyer miles to get both of our tickets, so that was very nice of her. We did have to clear our flights with our agency to make sure it worked with the rest of the internal travel. This took a day or two of coordinating, and finally when we had an itinerary we decided to stay an extra night in Moscow on the way in and out, to break up the jet lag a little. We did have a mix up about who was supposed to book our hotel going into and out of Moscow. The agency’s recommended travel agent thought he was supposed to do that, and we were under the understanding that was our job. So we ended up double booked but canceled one of the bookings. He did take care of our our flights on OrenAir, the only airline to fly Moscow to Orenburg. So we completed all that by Wednesday, and we were set to fly out on Saturday. Our schedule was looking pretty good.