USCIS Approval

We recieved our I-171H form today from the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). This form officially approves both of us as adoptive parents (in the eyes of the U.S. Government).

This form completes our dossier that will be sent to the Russian Government!

Update...

We got a call today from the agency and they had some updates to give us:

He is currenly 16.5 lbs and 27 inches long

He is playing with toys, babbling, eating with a spoon, drinking from a cup, sitting, crawling, standing and walking while holding onto a railing!

We are very excited as he seems to be doing so well...after all, he is only 9 1/2 months old and was born 5 weeks early!!

Acceptance

We accepted our referral today (with our Agency). We need to appear in Russia to officially "accept" him though.

We cannot wait to travel and meet him but before we know our travel dates we need to be officially invited or sponsored by someone in Russia (we are thinking we will travel sometime in December).

St. Petersburg, Russia in December? We can only imagine......

Conference Call with Doctor

We had a conference call with the doctor today to discuss the medical information. Everything went very well and there was nothing that she was concerned about....she made a point of commenting on how cute he is.

Doctor review

We dropped off all of the information we received on the child at a doctor who specializes in international adoption so that she can review the medical information and the video. She is is a local physician (in the Pittsburgh area) and was highly recommended to us, her name is Dr. Sarah Springer at Pediatric Alliance

The Video...

After a VERY long day at work, we came home to find pictures and a video of a little boy waiting for us.

I think there are only 4 words to describe the viewing - LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!

BIG NEWS!!!!!

We got some great news today! Our agency called us and told us that they have a referral for us. This means they have matched us with a child in Russia (this is not a phone call we expected today - everything has happened so quickly)! After 3 years of disappointment, we FINALLY have good news!

Now to the part everyone has been waiting for -- It is a BOY! He was born on December 25, 2008 and he is in St. Petersburg, Russia. In case you didn't pick up on the date, yes! he was born on Christmas! (don't feel bad, a lot of people didn't pick up on the date first time either).

We will be receiving a video and medical information on the child tomorrow......

USCIS Fingerprint

We went for our fingerprints today which will be filed with the I-600 form for the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)

The I-600 is a petition to classify an orphan as an immediate relative.

HomeStudy Report

Our social worker has completed her homestudy report and has sent it to the agency! Our russian dossier is almost complete!

HomeStudy #2

We completed our second HomeStudy visit today. This was the final meeting with the social worker until after our child comes home, when a series of follow-up reports need to be completed and sent to Russia.

Now we have to wait for her report to be completed and submitted to our agency...

Visit with Psychologist

Today we met with a psychologist for a brief interview and then we both had to take a psychological examination.

The psychological examination is know as the Minnesota Mulitphasic Personality Inventory Test (MMPI-2). It is a 567 question true/false test (that is taken with a #2 pencil). We, however, only needed to complete 408 questions - lucky us!

Overall the appointment went well, but it was a very "interesting" experience.

HomeStudy #1

We have completed our first HomeStudy visit with our social worker, Rita. She took a tour of our house and talked with us for almost 2 hours.

Paperwork...

We are now in the process of completing our paperwork which consists of:

• State Criminal Background Checks
• State Child Abuse Checks
• FBI Background check
• Fingerprints
• Medical examination by our doctor
• Examination by pyschologist and MMPI-2 test
• HomeStudy
• Employer Letters
• Township Letters
• I-600A completion for USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)

Adoption Process Started

We have completed and mailed in our application to Adopt-A-Child, Inc. We are very excited and eager to start this process....

Agency Meeting

We had our first meeting today with Adopt-A-Child, Inc. - a local agency in the Pittsburgh Area who specializes in international adoption from Russia.

Adopt-A-Child, Inc