My thoughts

Thanks for letting me vent yesterday! Today I’m in a much better place. I’ve thought about a few things and Carey’s post helped calm me down. :-) We learned a bit more yesterday about how the process is going to work in Iz. Unfortunately, we still have some more questions – the main one being “how many dossiers can CHI submit to Iz at a time?”. I’m not one to make bets, but if I had to, I would say 1 at a time.

I’m not quite sure where we fall in line within CHI. I know we’re #2 or #3. Either way, we have a while to wait. I’ve spent quite a bit of time emailing someone who has adopted from Izhevsk through a different agency and she has convinced me that, regardless of the wait, Iz is a great place to be waiting. (Thanks, Kristine!!) They move quickly, efficiently and are adoption friendly. So, okay… it’s another hiccup, but as I’ve said SO many times on this blog – this is international adoption – nothing is ever for certain until it truly happens.

Some of the more positive things I’ve been thinking are (yes, I have positive thoughts – I know it is SO hard to believe!):

- We’d still be waiting in Krasnoyarsk, had we not decided to move to Iz. A wait is a wait and our wait in Kras would most likely be longer.

- It’s an adoption friendly region! I’d much rather that then a quick trip to a more difficult region. Less stress when you’re in the thick of it.

- We might not have to go to Russia in the dead of winter! While I’m from New York and have dealt with lots of snow in my lifetime, it’s not my favorite!

- Carey mentioned on her blog that you make it harder on yourself when you have a date in your head when it comes to getting the call. Inevitably, that date will come and go. Unfortunately, we all do that no matter how hard we try not to. Back in March 2007, when we started this, the date in my head (that wording makes me sound like a mental case…) was July of this year. It’s not July – not even close. Now, for sanity’s sake I hope it’s before May since that’s when all my docs expire!

- The further into the year the adoption goes, the closer I’ll be to the end of the year, thus not having to go too long without vacation when I come back to work. Did you follow that? In order to take time off, I have to use all of my vacation first and then un-paid leave. No more vacation until January of next year.

- If I’m off during the summer I’ll be able to spend more time with Alex and the Peanut outside on the lake or just doing fun things.

Okay – that’s as much positiveness (not a word, but consider it now a word) I can muster today. I guess maybe I’m just tired of being sad, mad and blech about something I can’t change. That doesn’t mean I won’t have my moments BUT there is nothing I can do about it. Yes, I could do something – mostly complicated and costly - but we won’t get into that here. I’m just not ready for that yet.

I hope and pray it is soon. And I promise to try to be more positive!

Maybe we’ll have some history lessons on this blog soon. I haven’t told you much about Iz or the Udmurtia Republic yet and I know I have a lot to learn before we go! Or maybe we’ll have some Russian language lessons, which I have yet to feel comfortable with.

Can you tell that my glass of wine and the hot tub worked wonders??

In other good news, I finally got the contact info for the family that was with CHI and completed the first Iz adoption! I’m going to hopefully be touching base with her this weekend and should have lots of goodies to post!

I’m done rambling… I have my review in 8 minutes. Wish me luck!