January 2008

It's January already.... We start the new year with the great news that our adoption agency just got accredited (December 17, 2007, to be exact) by the Russian Federation (yeahhh). Russia, as we were informed, is still celebrating Christmas holidays. The first business day this year will be January 9th and we want to be ready for the fresh start next week, just in case we get to hear anything...

We received news from CHI on 01/08/08, informing us that for all the families whose dossier is already in Russia, in the next couple of weeks we are supposed to be contacted by our personal case worker in Saint Louis about the documents we will need to update for registration of our family by local adoption authority under CHI accreditation.

We also received the news that CHI is planning to add more new regions. I have heard that some parents have already experienced adoption in new regions in 2007. They are going to be asking families if they want to be volunteers in their new regions. At first Mauricio (my husband) and I thought, Yes, sometimes it is more adventure and risk, but at the same time you can be first in line and finalize your adoption quickly. We spoke to our Coordinator Marti and we told her to please consider us, just in case the opportunity came up. Then , we were warned that there might be additional fees, in addition to everything else. What a surprise.... we kind of expected that!

In addition, we were informed that fees for new families who apply in 2008 will be increased, and at the same time everyone that applied in 2007 would have an increase in fees too, due to the devaluation of US dollar vs. Russian ruble. In other words, in order to complete our adoption, we will have to pay adjustment rate in addition to our signed fees.

We were also informed that this is the first year when domestic adoptions in Russia and foster care system became more intensive. As the result of this many of Russian families consider to bring home baby girls from the orphanage. Unfortunately for some families who are waiting for girls – this process will be longer. For families who have submitted their application for girls, but have not submitted their registration package – if you want to proceed with your adoption with CHI, you should be open to other ages or gender, or both. Currently, CHI are not accepting new applications for girls only, unless it is for a special needs girl. Acceptable request can be “boy or girl, prefer girl”. This can be very frustrating for families how have their hopes and dreams on having a "girl". This process of adopting in Russia keeps getting to be more complex every day :)

We are approaching the the end of January, and unfortunately, we have no news as of when we are going to be registered :(
God willing February will be better.....