FIRST WEEK BACK FROM TRIP 1

FIRST WEEK SINCE LEAVING OUR DEAR MAYA

Wow! Time has gone by too fast this week. We hit the ground running as soon as we came back Sunday morning. First, Maui and I returned to work, and it was like we had never left the week before. It was just work, work, work, but it is what it is! As soon as Monday hit, I started calling Psychiatrist’s offices to see if we could make an appointment with a Board Certified Psychiatrist. Ohh, my, I started to encounter the same problem we had encountered the first time, before we found our current Psych dr., no availability, and no willingness from either the dr. or the dr.’s staff to assist you. Every time I would call, I would either get a response like, we have nothing available until the end of March, the dr. does not do deal with those types of cases (adoption related) or, it would take at least 4 to 5 psychoanalysis session’s before the dr. could come up with a diagnosis! I called at least 15 dr’s before I started to get desperate. I started posting on adoption chat boards. I first posted a message on the CHI Russia chat board, then on the yahoo, Tver chat group, then my friend (A) recommended for us to post a message on the FRUA chat boards, since FRUA reaches so many people around the US and abroad, we had a bigger chance of finding a Psych (Board Certified) who had dealt with adoption before. Well, I will tell you that we received some responses, some good, some not that good. One of the parents’s recommended a dr. from Jacksonville. We called his office; first they told me that they could fit us in on the following week, then, when I told them why we needed the appointment ASAP, the lady on the telephone changed her tune and said that actually, that Friday was a cancellation, and that they had nothing until sometime in March. I told the lady, I was going to have to call her back. I had to see if we could get plane tickets to fly to Jacksonville. Well, then we got another dr’s info, from another parent in one of the chats, but the dr. was a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, so we could not use him. I even checked with the Tver staff to see if could use a psychologist, instead of a psychiatrist, and the answer was NO.

Well, even our own Psychiatrist, dr. I (one of the most wonderful dr.s I have ever met) was trying to help us out through a colleague of his. He told us to give him a couple of days to help us find someone. Then, my friend A recommended her dr. from Kansas City, MO. She and another adoptive family, the I’s had used them. He was familiar with all the paperwork and there was a possibility he could assist us. Then, the question aroused of whether Russia would accept a dr.’s credential and/or evaluation from a different state. I turned the question to our program coordinator at CHI and at the Tver staff. I only received answers from the CHI coordinator and the answer was NO, the judge will not accept Psych evaluations from a different state. At that point I was feeling desperate, I was to the point, that I was going to contact one of local TV stations asking them for help, but all of the sudden, on Wednesday morning, one of the parents from the FRUA chat boards answered my post with information from a dr. in Tampa, whom they had used with their adoption a while back. I immediately checked her credentials through the web to make sure that she was legit and that she had the credentials we needed. Ohh my, I love the World Wide Web!! I turns out that she was what we were looking for. I called her twice asking her to call me back. This time I did not want to scare her with so much information upfront, so I was very careful with my messages. I did tell her that we were from Miami and that we needed an appointment with her and that some parents who had dealt with her in the past had recommended her. After the second message she called me back. I spoke to her for about 10 minutes. I explained to her our situation. I also told her that she was our only hope and that we were desperate and without her assistance we could not bring our little girl home. She was a little taken off by our conversation; she told me that she was going to help us out. She also said that she was going to try to fit us in on Sunday, February 22, 2009, but that she had to call us back with a time. I was beyond thrilled. I called Mauri and my friend A with the news. Well, as the dr. had promised, she call us back with more information, she will see us from 4:00 – 6:00pm on Sunday, She also gave me the link to download some forms that we needed to fill out from her website so we could bring them to the appointment. I also asked her if we had t bring our Notary Public with us, since all the paperwork has to be notarized, and her response was that it was not necessary since her office manager is a Notary Public, she would notarized everything for us. I would like to thank our Notary Public, MA for willing to travel to Tampa with us; we really appreciate everything you have done for us!!! Thank you….

Well, I went ahead and made a hotel reservation so we could leave Saturday in the early evening and we could come back to Miami after the sessions, late Sunday. I felt that it was going to be too much for Mauri and I to go and come back on the same day, since we have to travel at least 5 hours each day. I will let you know what happens with our Psych evals! God willing everything will go as planed so we could bring little Antonina home.

Ok, now we move from dealing with the Psychiatrist drama to dealing with the judge and the additional paperwork drama. Finally on Tuesday we received news from Tver in regards to the list of documents (additional) the Judge was requesting for court. What was our disappointment, that the judge was not giving willing a court date until we came up with the paperwork? I emailed the Tver staff telling them that they will have ALL the paperwork notarized, apostilled, scanned and in their possession by no later than February 28, 2009, to please try to persuade the judge to give us a court date. Tver answered back saying that the judge wanted to see that we were able to come up with the additional documents before she could give us a court date! I was beyond upset, that would mean to have to wait 2 weeks without any dates and then, we would have to wait and see until when she would schedule a court date. We are concerned not for us, but for or little girl, because the more time she spends in the baby house, the more developmentally delayed she stays. Well, for those of us who know me, you know that I will move heaven and earth (sort of speak) in order to bring Maya Antonina home. Well, I spoke to our social worker and I explained to her that we needed the documents that she was going to provide for us by Friday, February 20th and that we were on a time crunch! In the meantime, the paperwork that I needed to produce was in the works. As soon as I started to receive it and/or produce it, I started emailing it to the Tver staff so they could start translating it for the judge to see our willingness! Granted that some of the paperwork has not been apostilled yet, but the Tver staff said to just email what we had so they could show the Judge that we meant business. We received the paperwork back from our social worker Lori on Friday, as requested, THANK YOU Lori. She has been more than amazing with us, and we have nothing, but good things to say about her and her agency.

I went ahead and scanned all the paperwork to the Tver staff. now, we only need the Psych paperwork and we will be ready for court. I also sent and email to Olga, our translator to ask her if our coordinator had had a chance to meet with the judge. Well, she responded yesterday, Saturday to let us know that they were not able to meet with the judge on Friday and that Monday, February 23, 2009 was Army day in Russia, and therefore a holiday, but that they had made an appointment to see the judge this coming Tuesday to show her the paperwork and hopefully get a court date from her. Please pray for us, that we can get good news on Tuesday with a court date for at least the middle of March. I will keep you posted. Take care and God Bless you All….. Until then!!