Different Feeling of Excitement

It moved faster than I thought! I was under the impression we had to wait for the letter from immigration before we could have our files sent over to Russia - nope! We can forward that letter later! It's all ready to go!!!!!

 Mike just mailed our first half of the Russian fees to CHOC! Last night a new feeling of excitement hit me. It's like I know I'm pregnant and waiting for the ultrasound where I can first see the baby and find out the sex! Oh wow, I'm tearing up again right now LOL!

 The following is an excerpt from the CHOC timeline documents. I thought I'd include it so you can see what we see. HOLY MOLY! Next week we hit step nine!!!!!!

 step 8) 6 to 8 weeks CHOC assembles dossiers (one set is assembled for initial submission/application to the regional MoE offices; another is assembled for submission to the local court. Dossiers include the homestudy and supporting documents from parents and government agencies). CHOC notarizes the dossiers, couriers them to CMFA and Russian Consulate for authentication and legalization, and sends legalized packages by international courier to CHOC in Moscow.

 step 9) ~6 weeks CHOC in Moscow has the English dossiers translated to Russian, has the translations certified and notarized, and couriers them along with the original English versions to the CHOC regional representative for initial submission/application to the regional office of Ministry of Education (MoE) and in/for future submission to court.

 step 10) 12 to 52+ weeks The regional CHOC representative walks the dossier into the regional office of the MoE and drops it off at the desk of the MoE regional officer. The regional officer will decide when to register the dossier as having been submitted (it may sit on his/her desk for an unspecified period of time before s/he gets around to registering it. Sometimes, the officer may ask for additional documents or clarification of a document or additional medical information on the family, etc, before accepting and registering the dossier). When a child becomes available (that is, a ward of state that has fulfilled a minimum of 2 months' time on the local or regional data bank and a further 6 months' time on the federal data bank and is now available for international adoption, having had no Russian nationals express interest in adopting the child or taking the child into a guardianship program, and furthermore, providing it is now the parents' turn and the child fulfils the parents' criteria), the MoE regional adoption officer will pass on to the CHOC rep, either an oral or a written invitation to the family for an appointment with the MoE or, along with this invitation, s/he may also pass along some preliminary information about the proposed child.

Again, HOLY MOLY!