Our next fundraiser while we wait for a signature.

It's now been over a month since our court case was disposed. We are technically, legally his parents. But because the courts there closed for vacation days after our case, the judge went on vacation before he could sign the written order. That is the document needed to move forward. We are optimistic that it will be signed soon and that we can possibly travel by the end of the month.

In the meantime, we are still about halfway to our fundraising goal. So I am launching our next item - glass tile necklaces. For a $15 donation to our FSP, I can make a necklace for you with the country of your choice as the flag.

http://reecesrainbow.org/79495/sponsorobrien

Calling all sweet tooths!

I'm here again with another step out of my comfort zone, to prove there's not much I won't do to get us to fully funded. 

A dear friend of mine gave me a crash course in molded chocolate making. And now I'm here to sell it. 

smile emotic

The elephants are 3.5 ounces of gourmet white chocolate. The starfish are 3 ounces of your choice of either peanut butter or salted caramel favors. 

We are asking for a donation to our FSP of $15, and in return we will mail you your choice of 4 pieces. 

http://reecesrainbow.org/79495/sponsorobrien

Update

It's come to my attention that if I do my very best to keep our blog up to date, it will increase our chances of being successful with our fundraising efforts. And since there's not much I won't do to get little A home, here I am stepping out of my comfort zone. I vow to be better about this from here on out. Even when there's nothing to really talk about, I'll come up with something. :)

So here's my update........

On March 24th, the world stopped spinning for a moment. After stalking the court website for a while, it finally produced what I THOUGHT I had wanted to see. We had been registered and given a court date. But it wasn't until JUNE 9th. I was heartbroken. I was furious. Basically, I was a mess. Due to all the delays in getting the corrected NOC issued, we were pushed back to June due to the courts closing for most of the month of May for summer vacation. It was horrible, but we tried to make peace with it.

Soon after, we learned that a fellow adoptive family had completed their journey, and would be traveling to the SAME CITY that little A lives in. Their daughter resided in another orphanage, in the same city. On a whim, I asked her if she'd be willing to stop by and give little A some drawings from Cece and a note letting him know we hadn't forgotten about him. Well this dear friend did so much more than that. Turns out that her agency's in-country representative is friends with people at little A's orphanage, so the visit was approved. Mere hours after taking custody of their daughter, she went and spent over an hour with little A. She showered him with love. She told him that mommy, daddy and didi (big sister in hindi) are coming just as soon as possible. She did something for him and for us that I can never properly thank her for. And if that wasn't enough, she sent us many photos and some much-treasured videos of little A.

Again, while we aren't permitted to share them publicly, there's one video in particular that's become my favorite to watch. Little A watches as the photos and drawings are handed over. He looks at them with some interest. They then tell him they are from didi (big sister). He appears to understand. But when they say her name, he gets it and gets THE BIGGEST smile on his face. I'm eager to watch their love bloom.

But with that visit came news of just how severe his scoliosis is, among other things. This new info fueled our urges to get him home sooner. We reached out to our pediatrician and a specialist in the treatment of scoliosis. Both wrote letters on our behalf. They were presented to the judge on April 17 when he was hearing the cases of two domestic families adopting from the same orphanage. They pleaded with the judge to move up our hearing due to his condition.

That day a miracle happened. While he could not squeeze in our case on April 17, our June 9th hearing was moved up to April 24th. This was HUGE!!!! As far as we know, this has NEVER happened before. We basked in the glow of our victory.

I was a nervous wreck last Friday, refreshing the court website more often than was logical. I equated it to a woman checking every movement to determine if it was the beginning of labor. At 11:52 am, it finally updated. 

We have another court date, tomorrow, Saturday May 2nd. The orphanage people involved with our court case are rather confident that this will be our last hearing. They are also very optimistic that the judge will sign the written order before the summer vacation starts. That part is key, as if he does, we can move onto the final steps (getting his new birth certificate issued as well as a passport for his flight home). AND with that, we could possibly travel to get him as early as June!!! If this does not happen, we will be stuck waiting out the summer vacation.

So PLEASE join us in prayer that tomorrow our judge will find in our favor and sign the written decree before leaving for summer vacation. Truly hoping I can be back really soon with happy news!

So much time has passed, so little progress........

I find myself thinking I need to update the blog on an almost weekly basis. But when there's little happy news to talk of, it's hard to find the motivation.

We received our Article 5 waaay back on August 21, 2014. That was the last step we had control over, the ball has been in Indi@'s court ever since. As time went by, we learned of 4 other families that were waiting for the first approval from Indi@ (ARC approval) in the same state as us (Maharashtra). We had been waiting the longest. Months went by and nothing happened. Our agency kept checking with our orphanage, who in turn kept checking with the committee that issued the ARC approval. We kept hearing to be patient. :( On December 2nd, the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time for ARC announced in our Facebook group that they had received ARC. I told myself that if they got it, surely we did too if we had been waiting 3 months more than them. But alas, no. Over the course of the next few weeks, 3 of the four families had not only ARC, but received NOC too (the last approval needed) and were moving on to court. We still waited....... To say that I was devastated was an understatement. I came up with a theory that the ARC committee started a pile with our info. Then as the other families got their Article 5 approvals, their paperwork was put on top of ours. So when they finally sat down to issue approvals, they started with the paperwork on the top of the pile - the family that had been waiting the shortest amount of time. And then they "ran out of steam" before getting to ours at the bottom of the pile.

On December 26, as Cece and I sat around playing with her new Christmas toys, I received an email. We FINALLY had ARC. While I was breathing a sigh of relief, I was frustrated. The others had moved on to court and we were now 2 steps behind them. About a week and a half later, when I was expecting to receive our NOC (the others had gotten theirs days after ARC) the first family to pass us had passed court and was talking about gotcha. I wanted to crawl in a hole and not come out. But for the sake of my family, I put on my big girl panties and made the best of every passing day.

A month went by and no news of NOC. I was becoming downright bitter. Our agency called CAR@ to ask why there was a delay in the issuing of our NOC. Turns out that half our paperwork was placed on one person's desk.  The other half, along with our ARC (NOC cannot be issued until ARC is received) was on another desk. Apparently neither person thought to ask around to see if anyone else had the other necessary paperwork. So even though it was their mistake, they told us to be patient and they would issue our NOC in the 15 business day timeframe. Indi@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I left a meeting on Thursday, February 12th, my phone rang. It was our agency with another episode of "good news/bad news". The good news was that our NOC had been issued. The bad news was that it had spelling mistakes galore. So this meant that until a new NOC was issued with everything correct on it, we can not be filed in court.

Here we are ushering in March, and we still have not been filed in court (I have become quite good at navigating/stalking the court's website). The family that passed court in January is now home with their little girl. On Friday, another family passed court and is talking of travel soon. And the last 2 families have court dates soon.

I just want our boy home. At this point he will most likely celebrate his half birthday before we can go get him. I fear that his scoliosis is progressing in irreversible ways. And what must he think of us? He's known since July that we're coming for him. Yet we haven't come yet. Does he think we don't care for him or want him?

Hopefully the next time you hear from me it's a case of good news only.

Stuck

We are approaching the two year anniversary of the day Putin put a stop to adoptions from Russia. While we were affected by this, we had at least not had a referral or met a child we had hoped to adopt when this happened. We were crushed nonetheless, but others had already met children they planned to call their own.

This is Natasha. Natasha was only 6 years old when a loving family met her and agreed to adopt her. She has spent an extra 2 1/2 years in an orphanage because of the adoption ban and most likely will spend the rest of her life without ever knowing the love of a family if changes are not made.


In honor of Natasha's 9th birthday and the 2 year anniversary of the adoption ban please join together with us to get 10,000 likes on the Parents United for Russian Orphans FB page by the end of the year.
https://www.facebook.com/parentsunitedforrussianorphans
Our goal is for people around the world to come together to help the children stuck in Russian orphanages by providing information and supporting groups that help the children have better lives. We are begging the Russian government to bring about change for the better and continue to ask them to work with our government to allow the remaining pipeline children to come home. If this is not possible, we pray the children will speedily find loving homes in Russia and that the government will provide the necessary support system for them.






And the link to our blog and this beautifully written article by Russian journalist and volunteer for Downside Up Julia Kolesnickenko that has links to our documentary that will be shown in Russia on December 13th.

http://parentsunitedforrussianorphans.blogspot.com/

And the link to the documentary FB page. https://www.facebook.com/childrenofthestate

No news does not mean good news in the adoption world

This is a post that has been in the back of my mind for a few months now and I just never get around to posting. Well, after hitting an all-time low today, I feel it's time to post.

Back on August 21st we received word that our Article 5 has been approved - that's the last step on the US side of the adoption (and basically the last step we had any control over). It had a few spelling mistakes on it, but we brought it to the attention of the Embassy and they fixed it immediately. Since that day, the ball has been in India's court so to speak. The steps needed from there to bring "little brother" home are ARC (state level approval), NOC (national approval), court and finally passport. Each step cannot happen before the step before. Since August 21, I have started each week with the thought "this is our week to get ARC". At the end of each week, I'd feel defeated. But with each new Monday I'd get a renewed sense of hope. At first, we still had hope to have him home by the end of the year. But the weeks and months went by and it became painfully clear that it most likely will be spring before we have gotcha.

In November, "little brother" celebrated his 5th birthday. FIVE YEARS of not knowing the love of a family. At our begging, the orphanage threw him a small birthday party. When they brought out cake and sang to him, he was confused. Apparently this is the first time they've "celebrated" him. He didn't understand what a birthday was, and it breaks my heart. I pray it was his last one there.

In the meantime, families waiting for ARC in the state of M@h@r@shtr@ were "piling" up (as many as 4 that we know of). Last week, two of the four families we know of to be waiting, got ARC - the two that had been waiting the least amount of time, the two that were at the top of the stack so to speak. So of course I got excited and emailed our caseworker to find out if we too got ARC (I mean, we should, right? How could that committee meet, give out approvals to some and not to others? Oh wait, this is Ind!a.....). As of today, we are still waiting to hear what our status is regarding our ARC approval. And the 2 families that got ARC? In the meantime they have also gotten NOC and are now waiting to be filed in court. While I WANT to be happy for these families, it's.so.hard! Why them and not us? Why does our guy have to wait a day longer than he already has?

So anyway, our caseworker will be calling our orphanage tonight (Ind!a is 10 and a half hours ahead of us) to try and get some answers. Did we get ARC? If so, great, file whatever paperwork that is necessary so that we can get NOC soon. If not, why the heck not?? It's been confirmed in the past that the committee did not see any other paperwork was needed from us to issue ARC, so what's the holdup?

In the meantime, please pray for our situation, and as always, pray for "little brother". I pray that he knows we are doing everything we can to get him home as soon as possible! Please pray we have good news soon!

~paula

Start of a new adventure...

So, it’s been 5 years now since Cecelia has been home and a major part of our lives. Through the last few years we decided that she shouldn't be the only child. Thus began our adventure to expand our family again. 

At first we thought we would be going back to Kazakhstan but they had already closed their adoption program down for reform (which never really opened back up since). Then we thought we would go to Russia. The thought being that Cece's sibling would have a stronger tie to her since they would be both Russian. Nice thought, but then Putin decided to be an a-hole and close the adoption program down for Americans. So be it. We moved on. We then looked into Bulgaria, got pretty good into it but then fate decided that our child just was not meant to be from Bulgaria. It was then that India was brought to our attention and both Paula and I knew from hat moment that we were destined to go to India for our child.

Now, during all this time, the last four years or so, Cecelia has been crying the blues about being the only child, about being all alone and not having a brother or sister to play with. It hurt her more when our friends would be over and they would have siblings. Cecelia would play nice, be bossy most of the time (like a typical big sister) and then would throw a fit or start to cry when they would leave. "I'm all alone!" was all we would hear for days on end. Currently, all we hear from Cecelia now is "We'll have to teach my brother this!" or "I know what we will need to show him!" Big turn around and makes us, as parents, happy that we can finally create a "whole" family. 

From this point on, we have start getting ourselves prepared to have a new addition to the O'Brien family, get Cecelia more prepared and ready to be a new big sister. A change for her? You betcha. She'll no longer be the center of attention and no longer to be soul grandchild to Grandpa Chuck or Grandma Joanne. That will be the shock we'll be waiting for her once her brother comes home.

It will definitely be a new challenge for Paula and I, I know, but a challenge we accept from day one. This whole experience is different from what we went through with Cecelia, and once we get to travel, that will be a bigger shock than living in Kazakhstan for a month (at least when we were in country, I was able to blend in. India, oh lord, no matter what, we'll be sticking out as "tourists" the moment we arrive!). 

I also want to take this moment in thanking all our family and friends for all your support in this! Without any of you, this would, could, never happen. It makes us more humble in knowing that we are surrounded by such loving and caring family and friends, makes us more blessed! Thank you all from the depths of our hearts!

~Scott