Dossier Physical...Check!

I had my dossier physical today. You know from my previous gripes how much I don't like our clinic we have to go to. I took Melissa's advice and used my ob/gyn for my physical. I was warned ahead of time by Jodi that our clinic refuses to provide the doctor's medical license but she gave me an "easy" way to get the copy. Now y'all know that there is never anything "easy" when it comes to IA so I was a little skeptical at first. I called the state medical board yesterday and got the copies from them, they certified them, notarized them and already mailed them out today for us. The agency told me they require ten business days to complete the request but she understood we needed them to be apostilled by next week and did them while I was on the phone with her. She's even trusting enough to send us the bill for the service along with all the copies we asked for instead of waiting for payment first. I couldn't believe it! I told the lady at the state office that nothing is ever easy in IA and I thanked her over and over again for helping us so quickly. What a blessing!

Well I must have used up all my easiness points for the day because it all changed for my physical. First off, no notary at the small clinic I had to go to. So I went door to door in the office complex while I waited to be called back for my appointment and asked for a notary at every office. One lady across the hall was a notary but she didn't have her stuff with her. Another guy was a notary but he wasn't willing to leave his office and notarize the doctor's signature. My doctor had a roomful of patients so I knew he wouldn't be leaving to get something notarized for me. I ran all over the place looking for a notary. When I got back to the office several of the nurses said they didn't think my doctor would even be willing to complete the medical form for me and would probably send me to my PCP. Great. In the end my doctor was awesome and filled out the paperwork for me and we figured out that I would beg a lady that I work with that is a notary to go with me after school tomorrow and notarize the form for me. She's a great lady and I'm thinking I can bribe her with chocolate. Monday is Randy's physical and he's at the main clinic and I know there is a notary there so he should be okay. Knock on wood.

I also called the Secretary of State's office today to re-re-reconfirm that they will still apostille hand carried items and that they would be done that day and they put me at ease that they would indeed do that. Our home study is done and is available for pickup by Friday. After Randy's appt on Monday, we'll drive the hour drive to Austin on Tuesday and get our dossier apostilled and then overnight it to our agency the next day. Woohoo!!

The sooner we get our dossier to our agency, the sooner we travel. Right now they are hoping to have us in Russia by end of January instead of February. That would be great!

Cha-Ching!

Do you remember how afraid I was to buy baby stuff because I was afraid it would "jinx" us in getting our child?? Um, well yea, that's gone. I've been hunting for a car seat online and found a great deal last night! I bought the Britax Roundabout for $179, no tax and no shipping. I even got it in the tan I wanted so it would match the interior of my car. Babies R Us has it for $220 but I'd have to pay tax, which around here is 8%, so the online price I found is better than anything in the stores.

If anyone is in need of a car seat, here's where I bought our seat. Maybe someone else can get the deal as well.

Baby Steen's First Gift

We spent Thanksgiving at our friends Mike and Wanda's house. We always have a good time when we are with them and this event was no different. It was really cold outside, I think 47 was the high, so the guys went outside to deep fry the turkey while the ladies stayed inside the kitchen getting everything ready.



Mike and Wanda got a new lab puppy a few weeks ago so our dog Bella had some canine companionship. Mike and Wanda have two great kids that adore Bella and smother her with affection whenever we go over. The dogs were wore out at the end of the day and this is what we saw:




Baby Steen got their first present yesterday and it was AWESOME! Mike and Wanda bought our child a Little Tykes Airplane. What do you expect one pilot's wife to buy another pilot's wife for their child's gift??? It's a riding toy that is remote controlled by mom or dad when they are younger and can be steered and powered by the child when they get old enough. It has all these lights on it and makes airplane noises. We are so excited for "junior" to ride on it.


We received news from Immigration Services today. They sent us a receipt for our I600A along with a reference packet about submitting our home study. The letter stated that as soon as we send in our home study they will send us an appointment to get finger printed. We were happy to see a notice from them so we know they received our I600A and it didn't get lost in the mail anywhere. We should have our home study by the end of this coming week and we'll get it sent off to San Antonio.

Russia In the Dead of Winter??

Randy was born and raised in Florida. I was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ. We love the warm climates and we like to be in the sun, on the lake, doing water sports. Both of us HATE cold weather and will never live anywhere that requires us owning a snow shovel. So isn't it a bit ironic that two people who cannot stand cold weather will be sent to Russia in the dead of winter to meet their child? God does have a sense of humor doesn't He? We heard from our agency today and it looks like we will travel the end of January to mid-February for our first trip. I don't care if I have to pack suitcase after suitcase of long johns, we'll travel ANY time of the year to meet our child!!

Anyone have a website for electric socks??

Adoption Tee Shirts

I'm always on the lookout for cute shirts or bibs regarding our Russian adoption. I found this site a long time ago and just came back to it this week. I was going on the site to order this helicopter shirt for our little one and decided to search Russian adoption items. I found some really cute and funny sayings that I think I'm going to have made. This one would be cute on a tee shirt. I'm thinking this one for a bib. I'm not sure what I would put this one on, maybe a tee shirt, but I love it!!

The Wait Begins

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." -Dolly Parton

This week begins our wait for our coveted 171H. Our I600A has been mailed and I'm sure we'll check the mail right away every day waiting for news on our fingerprinting appointment. We have a separate FBI fingerprinting appointment this Thursday for our home study FBI check. One would think the Immigration services folks could use the same fingerprints. But as I've been told before, "Suspend logic, both here and in Russia".

While we make progress towards our rainbow in Russia, we'll deal with the rain back here in the states.

Seven Years and No Itch

Today is our seven year anniversary! We met in a hotel parking lot in Mesa, AZ. Doesn't that sound like it's right out of a Danielle Steele made-for-TV movie? Randy was in town from GA at the Boeing plant doing some training for the helicopter he flew in the Army. I was with friends heading to Tempe for Octoberfest and we had to pick "someone" up so he could ride with us. Imagine my delight when we drove into the parking lot and I saw him standing there waiting for us. He was cute and definitely worth the extra half hour that picking him up added to our drive that night! Within a few minutes of arriving at Octoberfest, Randy and I had "buddied" up and spent the rest of the evening together, just the two of us, laughing, telling stories, and already finishing each other's sentences. We exchanged numbers (I still have the Dillard's receipt I gave to him with my number on it in our scrapbook) and we went out the next night. I told my mother after the second night that we went out that I would marry Randy. The rest they say, is history. Who would have ever thought we'd travel around the world a few times together, move as much as the Army moved us, and would now be looking to travel to Russia within a few months to bring home our child. Wow, what a great seven years!! Our day has been pretty low-key, we will go out to a nice dinner tonight at a local Italian restaurant. We didn't exchange gifts with each other, instead we sent the US Govt a big, fat check for our I600A! That's better than any ol' blender anyway, right?!

On to baby news; we finished all the documents that were needed for our home study. The home study agency said we would have our report no later than Dec 1st. We found out that CHI, our first agency, sent our entire home study packet that we had with them to our new agency. This was a relief because all our references and criminal background checks were in that packet and now we don't have to redo all of them. On Friday I was able to get Randy a Dec 3rd appointment for his dossier physical; a major accomplishment with our local clinic to get an appointment so soon.

We went to a garage sale yesterday that a co-worker of mine had. She told me about it last week and said that she would be selling all of her son's stuff from when he was younger. She had a pack-n-play that she told me about ahead of time and I sent Melissa, Amy, and Adrienne an email on Friday asking them for advice on whether or not we should buy it. They all agreed that it would be a good investment and when we got to the garage sale we saw it was in great condition. My co-worker had TONS of clothes for sale and it took me a long time to go through everything but I did. We bought lots of clothes for our son. Ralph Lauren sweaters, Polo rugby shirts, Nautica dress shirts, Polo cargo pants, Polo jeans, Nike shoes, OshKosh baby shirts; everything was marked .25 cents!!! The stuff doesn't even look like it has been worn. I ended up buying over 20 shirts, 7 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of shoes, pajamas, and mittens. We decided that whatever doesn't fit him we will donate to the orphanage. We also bought extra shoes and gloves to take to the orphanage. I couldn't pass it up for 25 cents! We also bought a 100 piece Mega Block set for ages 1 and over. I also bought several board books all for .25 cents apiece. Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Mouse Paint, Goodnight Moon, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Barn Dance and 5 books on shapes and colors. We did really well at the garage sale. As I type this, we currently have baby clothes in our washing machine right now being cleaned so they will be ready for our child. I can't believe it; this is so exciting for two people that have tried and waited soooo long to have a child!

I guess on our seven year anniversary we aren't doing any "itching" because we are too busy nesting and getting ready for our child, and my heart feels so good inside right now. This is the kind of happiness that a fancy anniversary gift could never buy, this is the kind of happiness that comes all because two people met and fell in love...

Progress

We were able to check several things off the "to-do" list this week.

We had our fire marshal inspection this week and it went fine. I worried over nothing. The only thing we got dinged on was we didn't have access to our circuit breakers. The panel is in the garage and one of Randy's tall, red Craftsmen tool boxes is in front of it. Apparently you are required to have 36" on each side of it. There wasn't even 36 mm of clearance around it but I told her we would fix it.

I had my TB test this week and it was clear. I had my HIV/Syphilis test today at the county health dept. I was having trouble finding a place to do our Hep B&C test that didn't cost over $150/person. When I was at the lab today I told them about my troubles and asked them if they knew anywhere I could go. Both nurses looked at each other, one nurse closed the door and whispers to me, "Because you are doing a good thing by adopting, I'll do the test for you, but I'm not supposed to since you aren't a regular client here. (Um, thank goodness I'm not a regular client at the Thursday STD clinic!) I do have to charge you the fee though, it's $54.50." I stuck out an arm and told her to stick me. I had $53.00 in cash on me and they only take cash. I ran to the ATM next door and paid them the rest of the money. At lunch I called Randy and told him to go there and tell them who he is and see if they would do it for him too and they did!! All our results will be back in two weeks.

You know we've had lots of problems with getting physicals and I decided to take Melissa's advice and have my ob/gyn do my dossier physical. He's the nicest guy and was always asking if we needed any help back when we were trying for a bio baby. I have the last appt of the day on Nov 28th so all my lab work will be back in time and he can complete the dossier physical. Now we just need to get a physical for Randy but I've got a plan up my sleeve to get him a physical sooner rather than later.

Our toys from Constructive Playthings arrived today! Didn't I order those just a few days ago? The push in go caterpillar and giraffe are ADORABLE and they are already out of the package and being played with. The photo album is really cute and the picture openings are nice and big so we can put bigger pictures in them but yet the album is still compact. Does that even make sense? I recommend that website, their prices were good and I only paid for standard shipping and it got here fast.

At dinner tonight we talked names, finally! Randy told me tonight, "We really need to start coming up with names." So I seized the moment and we took the baby name book to dinner. We are down to two but are throwing a million middle names into the mix. We will probably leave the middle name open until we find out their Russian name and see if it works.

Progress!