Our visit with IAG

Kyle and I drove up to Pittsburgh yesterday to meet with the folks at IAG, our new agency. They were absolutely fabulous and I really believe that we are in good hands. We talked about our desire to adopt a child with Down syndrome and I hope we were able to make them understand how important this is to us ... and why we want to do it.

One of the great things about IAG is that they handle all the notary and apostille right there for you. That saves us a lot of work and we pretty much have all of our paperwork done in order to travel for our first trip. Whew!

I have to admit I have been a little reserved thus far, trying not to get myself too excited in case I'm let down. After yesterday, I am really excited and pray that everything goes smoothly from here on out.

We're going to Pittsburgh

In two days, Kyle and I will drive up to Pittsburgh to meet the folks at our new agency, IAG. They have a requirement that they meet all families they place in person, so we are going to make a day of it. We are also in the process of gathering our dossier so that as soon as we get our USCIS approval, we can mail it off to Russia. Yay!

We're moving on over

If you have been reading our blog, you know that our agency has been suspended out of Russia. We have been given the opportunity to switch to a new agency ... but there has been one hurdle. Our home study, which was completed and approved on 7/10/08, was done by the suspended agency. There was some question as to whether or not the MOE (Ministry of Education in Russia ... this is who governs all Russian adoptions) would accept our home study from an agency that has been suspended. The director of our new agency contacted the MOE and ultimately received confirmation that our home study will be accepted and we are good to go. Yay! This was such a relief, as we don't exactly have another 1K-2K to shell out right now for a new home study. Not to mention the delay it would have caused us.

Next on the list: finish compiling our documents (i.e. dossier) to send to Russia and drive to Pittsburgh to meet with the new agency.

The wheels are turning again!

We are changing agencies

In light of the suspension of our agency, Cradle of Hope, we have pretty much decided to switch to another agency, IAG, that can hopefully get us to Russia quickly. If we stayed with Cradle of Hope, we'd have to wait out the three month suspension, at the end of which we don't even know if it would be lifted. At that point, we would be that much further behind. While we are sad to say goodbye to our agency, we have to keep the best interest of the children waiting in Russia in mind. IAG has also agreed to waive their agency fees in light of our desire to adopt a child with Down syndrome.

One glitch that we are trying to clear up at this point is whether or not the Russian MOE (Ministry of Education), which is in charge of all Russian adoptions, will accept our home study being as though it was done by Cradle of Hope, who is suspended. The director of IAG is trying to communicate with the MOE to see if it will be okay. Please pray that it is! If not, we will have to do another home study, shell out another couple thousand dollars and wait another month or two. This is obviously not ideal.

Our agency

As you may have read in my earlier posts, our agency, Cradle of Hope, has been suspended out of Russia. They have been given three months to remedy things, but we really have no way of knowing what will happen. We have been given the chance to switch over to International Assistance Group, whom I have heard is a very good agency, but I'd still love to hear about your experiences if you have any. We are weighing our options right now about which direction to go, so please pray that we arrive at a sound decision soon and that it doesn't cause us financial and/or timely set backs!

Guess what?!

I have a rough draft of our home study in my hands!! Woo hoo! We would like to thank our social worker so much for her speediness in writing everything up. We will review it this weekend and hopefully move onto the next step. Our agency is still on hold in Russia, but we are praying that things get resolved quickly.

Please pray!

We received news this morning that the Ministry of Education of Russia, which oversees the work of accredited adoption agencies, decided on June 27th to suspend our agency's adoption program, due to alleged violations which must be corrected within three months. I don't know much more than that right now {other than that I'm totally stressed out}, but please just pray that things are resolved quickly!