The Referral!

Arriving home from work on January 10th I pulled up my e-mail and there was a message from our SW (social worker) telling us there was a referral in the Orenburg region! Attached were pictures of a girl about to turn 3 and a boy who just turned 7 months. It was too late to call her so I just kept looking at the pictures and and reading the e-mail. This was going to be a long night! I called Kim and Dave who thankfully were here in minutes.
When we filled out our original paperwork (called a dossier and includes everything there is to know about you) we asked for 2 children, a boy and a girl, under 36 months at the time of adoption. We stated we preferred them to be a year apart but were flexible if we got a referral we thought was right for us. This little girl in the picture was just adorable but I was concerned about her age. She would be 3 1/2 by the time this was finished. When you're looking at a picture and seeing her face all night, it's not easy to think rationally. His picture was quite a few months old and his birthdate and last name did not match the information given in the referral. We thought there was an error somewhere so I sent off our concerns and waited.
When I got to talk to our social worker at 9:30 the next morning everything had changed! The baby boy's picture we had was not him and the little girl was no longer available for adoption. What a rollercoaster of emotions we go through during this waiting stage. She then sent me the correct picture of the little boy and told me about a baby girl who was available. The picure of him was tiny and clearly taken soon after he was born so it's impossible to know what he looks like now. There isn't a picture available of her but here's the shocker...they are 25 days apart! Twins?! They were both born in April 2006. So much for all the books I've read on toddler adoption!
This referral is considered a blind referral since there isn't any information regarding health, background or updated pictures. You make a decision to accept or not and if you do you travel to the region and meet them. These babies are so young they are just coming off the registry which means becoming available for international adoption. The week they come off is the week you travel to meet them we're told, so we take another leap and say yes.
The paperwork chase begins again. Every region is different and since our original paperwork is now a year old, it's all expiring. We can't have that! The attention to detail we need to have with each document is really time consuming. We also have to rely on our local SW, friends, doctors and local state and governmental offices to process the paperwork we need before we can send it back to our agency where they go over it and then send it to Russia. During this time new requests for new paperwork come in. You don't want to make a mistake. We are also getting information back from families who have been to Orenburg thanks to a list-serve of adoptive families. We are getting travel info, researching hotels in Moscow and of course flights. I don't know what we'd do without the internet. Did you know Moscow was the most expensive city?! Do you know what a VAT tax is? And we thought it was expensive to stay in NYC!
Delta offers an adoption rate but it's double the cost of the regular rate?!!
Families are required to make their own travel arrangements to get to Moscow where we will meet our coordinators and any other families that have gotten referrals in Orenburg. Once we are all together we drive to the domestic airport (about a 2 hour drive) and then fly to Orenburg which also takes about 2 hours. These arrangements are made by the coordinators.
By the time we get to Orenburg it will be after midnight. Dave and I decided to go a day early, stay in Moscow for a night and then meet everyone the next day who is flying in. We're hoping it alleviates some jet lag and starts to get us accustomed to the time change. If not, we would arrive at 11:00am and not fly out until 8:00pm (3:00am and 12:00pm EST). Up and traveling for over 36 hours-I'm not sure we would survive the time in between flights and be able to get up the next day!
The fact that we are told we can book this trip means it's going to happen. Finally, we're one step closer to what we've been waiting for.