My Clearance !

Yesterday, I got my clearance letter in the mail. I was so excited.
Now we need to get 3 more papers: employment letter for Sergey, house description letter, and our I171. And after that hopefully we are all done, and ready to go.
We are so thankful to our God, that we have this opportunity to go through this journey. All the feelings we have for our child, and all the feeling we go through with every step of this journey it's amazing experience! I am ready to see what God has for us in Ukraine, and I am ready to take it!
Did I tell you guys, that I can't wait for the moment to bring our child/ren home?!?! :))))
I think I did:)))

How good is our GOD!!!

Let me tell you how good is our GOD!!!!
Ok, are you ready!!??? Our home study and Power of Attorney are already on their way to Ukraine!!!
Let start in the beginning. Like I said, Yesterday we got our final draft of our Home Study in the e-mail, and also we send one e-mail with our Home study attached to our facilitator in Ukraine. He is on vacation this week, and I wasn't sure if he is checking his e-mail. So this morning I was surprised to see his e-mail, with all the corrections already made to our Home Study draft.
I e-mail our home study agency, and asked them when our home study will be ready since our facilitator already read and made all the corrections, and they said it should be ready today, and they will FedEx overnight so we would get it tomorrow. Wow! Now they are really working :)))
Also I decided to ask them if it's ok for us to come and pick it up so we would have our home study today. My husband drove all the way to Walnut Creek (1hour and 30 minute drive), to pick it up. My husband's supervisor is so nice and understanding, God bless her, she let him go earlier. He was in our home study agency around 2:00pm, it was ready.
We decided, that on his way back he will stop by Secretary of State office to get apostle for our Home Study, and I drove from home to bring Power of Attorney, so we can get apostle the same time and have it ready to send it to Ukraine. We left the office around 4:30pm, and one of the locations, where they do FedEx, is open till 5:00 pm. I decided to give a try, and tried to make it to the post office. I did make it , it was 4:55pm when I open their door.
We are so happy and we are ready for next step!!! Praise the Lord!
I was thinking we should have it done by next Wednesday. And now it should be in Ukraine in 1-4 days!

Thank you for all your prayers!!! God is a good God!!!

Great News!!!

Today we got an e-mail from our home study agency.......and guess what?! Yes, they finally did get a result of my Child Abuse Index clearance! We are so happy!

So now, we have to wait for our facilitator to make all the correction on the final copy of our home study. It's probably fine, but we just want to be sure that it's perfect, so we don't have to make all the corrections after it's already finalized, and notarized. So if everything is perfect, and our facilitator will be able to make all the corrections today (I don't think so, as far as we know he is on vacation this week), but by Monday we hope to have everything done, and have our home study in our hands by next Wednesday.
After we have it, we will take it to apostle and the same day send it to Ukraine.............wow.... I can't believe that this day is getting closer and closer!!!!!!

Thank you so much for everyone prayers!!! God Bless you All, and all your families!!!!

Same........no new!

I was not blogging for few days. Nothing new. We been calling to our home study agency and they still have no clearance on me. The lady, that my husband talked to , said, that she been calling and e-mailing them requests and they are no result yet. We are still praying and waiting and we know that God's time is perfect.

This weekend was busy, Saturday my husband was trying to do all the electrical wires for the new bedroom in house. Sunday we went for a 1 hour and a half drive to San Fransisco. 3 of us wend there just to took some pictures, and walked on the beach. It was nice time for 3 of us. I was trying to imaging how different would be and how much more fun we would have if we have our Ukrainian child/ren with us. I am always thinking about our child/ren, I really want them to be home and us start to live as one family.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers! God Bless you

Medical in our hands!

Yesterday got our medical forms from our doctor. So happy! Our doctor is so nice. He is understanding and so helpful.

My husband still has problems to get his employment verification. Hopefully it will be done soon. He probably will wait until we have a submission date, to go and get most current letter, and when Sergey will go, he will try to talk to a supervisor.

Thursday my husband got his police clearance letter, and his was a correct one. I called Bureau of Criminal identification and information, yesterday, and they said they will send my letter the same day. Also, while I was on the phone with them I notice it that my last name was misspelled, good I notice it .

Letter for our house, is done, should be in our hands in the beginning of next week.

HOME STUDY...............still nothing. I really hope that we will get our home study soon. They said that they can't do nothing, because they still didn't get my clearance. I want to believe them, and be understanding, but its' hard. We started this process with their agency in February,and they still don't have child abuse clearance on me????

Please pray for this part of our journey. ... maybe God is testing us, or our child/ren are not ready for us yet........I don't know.....but it's so hard to wait.....please pray!!!

No news!

Nothing on Home Study yet. My husband will call them today again.
I will go to a doctor's office tomorrow to get our forms. Hopefully doctor can make it, I made an appointment with our notary and she will be there at 12:00pm.
My police clearance letter came yesterday, but I think this is not what we need.
I thought it going to be in a letter format, and this one that we got just a little record, or maybe this is how it should look?! Will scan today and send it to our facilitator in Ukraine, hope this is exactly what we need.

Please keep us in your prayers!

Sergey talked to HS agency again!

Sergey, called Home Study agency again today. He was really serious, and was trying to really figure our what's going on. The lady on the phone(the BIG manager), did apologized a lot and she tried to explain, and was saying that they will finalized when they get my child abuse Clearance, they are still waiting on it.
Sergey tried to get the phone number to the place where my child abuse clearance should come from, and she said that she can't not give it to him, because they are not aloud to share any information.

I really hope that this will get done soon, and we will have our home study in our hands. I still, really want to go and bring our kids home by Christmas. I miss them so much!!!!
Please pray so our clearance will come this week and we have our home study soon!
Thank you so much for reading and following our journey with us! God Bless you!!!

Home Study is not in the mail yet...........

Sergey called our agency, and they told him that home study is ready but still there.........
Why did they tell us that did mail it to us already. I don't understand.
So today, Sergey, did talk to service manager, and he did ask her, "Why it's taking so long?" and she told him, that they didn't receive my "child abuse clearance"! I don't even know what to think. To be honest I don't even believe it. They aproved already, we did get our Home Study draft two weeks ago, and they told us that we should have it in our hands in 2-3 days. Then week later they are telling us that it's already in the mail, and now that it's done , but they dont' have a clearance on me so it makes it not to be ready. I don't understand....probably God knows why..........and He has His perfect timing.

Did any of you guys had something like that happend to you? Is it possible. It's just hard to believe that they are know what they are talking about. I will be calling them again tomorrow, or maybe my husband will call them. Please pray for us!

No news yet!

No home study yet. I am starting to think that when our social worker told us that they had mail our home study to us, they never did. We are still waiting, and my husband will call them today to find out what's going on.

I am thinking a lot about this delay, and I know that Gods time is perfect. My sister is getting married this year and she will have an engagement party September 19, I really want to be there for her. And engagement party will be in our house, it will be hard to prepare for party and for our travel, because Ukraine is getting submission days really quickly now. If someone has a submission date this week, they will probably travel in middle of September and for us it's too early. I think the perfect time for us to travel would be October, but again God has a perfect time for us!

Please keep us in your prayers!

Updates!

Here we are!
Home Study it's in the mail!!!!! Yes it's in the mail, so we should get in any day now! I really hoping that we will get it tomorrow. Than Monday, we will go to get apostle for Home Study and Power of Attorney, and send it to our facilitator the same day.
Medical forms are done, and they are ready to pick up. So now I just have to take our mobile notary and show up at doctor's office any day around 12:00 pm, and doctor will sign, and notary will put her stamp on it, and our form will be in my hands, ready for apostle!!!
Employment letter -my husband will get it Monday or Tuesday
Rental letter-is in the process, hope will be done next week
Clearance letters-I talk to them today, and they said that it will take them 2 days to process it and we should get it in a week or so! Hopefully we will get it by the end of next week!

Yesterday we did notarized our three form: Power of Attorney, Letter of Obligation and Petition to Adopt. So those forms are done, and ready for Apostle.

I am hoping that everything will go smooth, and we will travel soon to bring our child/ren home!

Nothing much!

Didn't do much today. Just few e-mails with questions about adoption, and few phone calls.
Tomorrow Sergey will have to go to get his TB check, and after that we will wait for our doctor, and when he will be ready we will go to meet our doctor, at the same time we have to bring our notary with us, to get all the forms notarize.

Also I found a local notary, and he can do a notary for $5 per page, I think it's really cheap. Because notary usually charge $10.

Still no Home Study. I been checking my e-mail and my mail(poor mail box), and still nothing. I don't even know why it's taking so long. God has a perfect timing for everything, and he knows when our child will be ready for us ,and when we will be ready for our child. We just have to trust God!

Lately I was even thinking , maybe one of the reason why we don't have our home study yet, it's because we don't have enough money to bring home our child/ren?!!!

Sergey made it to his TB test! Now we have to wait for our doctor, and he will let us know what he wants us to do.

Medical almost done!

Yesterday, we went to do our medical tests. I needed to do lab work , and chest X-ray, and for Sergey lab work, and TB test. We was able to do almost everything. I did everything what I was suppose to do, but for Sergey's TB test, they were doing TB only until 4:00 pm. Sergey is working until 3:30 pm, and to get to the hospital it took him about 40-50 minutes, so he was late to do his TB. But he will go back today if he can get out from his work 30 minutes earlier.
To the hospital, I drove from my work with Daniel, so by the time Sergey came we did my lab test, it was fun holding Daniel, and trying not to move because lady was taking my blood, and huge needle was in my body, but we survived that. After that we went to X-ray section, and I had to wait for Sergey to come, because they did let Daniel to go with me, I understand that. So when Sergey came, I went to do myX-ray , and my little man with his daddy went to do Sergey's lab work. By 5:00 pm we were done with everything.

still nothing on our home study:(((((

Medical!

Today, me and Sergey, will have to go to get our medical done again. It had been almost 6 month after our last check up, and now we need new blood test and physicals done again.
Hopefully we can get done with everything today, because we will go there after work and they are open only until 5:00pm.

And I am checking my e-mail and my mail 100 times a day :))) for our home study! I am slowly going crazy:)))) I wish it would be here by Wednesday, so we can send it to Valentin, our facilitator this week.
For now, we have to send him only Home Study and Power of Attorney, so he can translate, and get a submission date for us. And by our submission day, we will have to have the rest of paperwork done, and send it to Ukraine. Power of Attorney we have it already and the last thing is our HOME STUDY!!!! We are praying for our home study!

Please pray!!!

We went to church today and service was awesome. We feel much better now, even we still don't have our home study, and still have to get a lot of paperwork together, but I feel so calm, and peaceful , I know God know the perfect time for everything! We are praying a lot about all the paperwork, and I know that God is here, and HE is with us on this not easy journey!
Please keep us in your prayers!

Now I am thinking more and more, about bonding time with our child/ren. I worry so much about that. I want to be a perfect mother for them, and teach them everything that I know, and even more so they can be more successful in their life. We have no experience dealing with 7-10 year old (except cousins, or relatives...etc) but this is going to be different, this is going to be our own kids, and we will have to raise them. Please pray for our bonding, and growing together as a family!

Also, as your know to do adoption is not free. It is actually will cost us around $25,000.00, only paperwork, airfare, facilitator, travel expenses. It's a lot of money especially for us with one income. We talked with our facilitator in Ukraine, and he said that we probably will travel in the next 3 month! We are so excited, but at the same time it's so scary, because we still don't even have the half of amount we need it. I am not talking and counting money that we need for child/ren bedrooms, beds, cloth and also now we are adding one more bedroom to our house, for remodeling. Our child/ren will come with out anything, and they will need a lot of stuff to start their new life. Please pray for our finances! We are doing a lot to make more money, saving as much as we can. Please pray so God will open up people hearts to help orphans, maybe they can help us financially. Please pray for us! We want to bring our child/ren home!

Much better now...:)

We were very disappointed today, I didn't even want to write anything in my blog. But now I feel much better. Spending time with my family, playing with my baby son, and see my husband smile, and get few hugs from helped me a lot. Also talking to my friend Carol, made me smile a lot! Thank you Carol for being with us, talking to me, and thank you again for all your help with our paperwork. I don't know what would I do with out you...........seriously! Big THANK YOU! God Bless you and your family!

Now little bit about our day.............

We had a very interesting day. Our doctor appointment.........didn't happen. My doctor e-mailed me today in the morning and he told me that we don't need an appointment we can just come to his office when he is ready. So I had to cancel our appointment with notary lady, and I had to tell her that we will make another appointment with her.

So, doctor is still want to take a look at our forms first and then he will let us know when and how he will fill them out and a notary can come to do her part! Wish to get this done tomorrow.

Home study not here yet. I been talking to our social worker, and director of the whole company, and they are promising to get it done in a couple of days. Hopefully it will not take too long...

Also there was other little things, now there is no point to talk about them........

We are happy, that God is with us, and HE know the perfet timing for everything!!!

Again medical forms!

We didn't know that our doctor's signature has to be notarised at the time he signs it. So now we have to re-do it our medical forms. Also our facilitator send us a different/updated form for our medical. I am so happy, I was able to find a mobile notary service, and they can come to our doctor's office!

Tomorrow we have our appointment for our medical to be done(hopefully, the last and correct way)

We have almost all paperwork done, or at least they are in the process. I will probably relax, when we send them to Ukraine and will have a travel date...or maybe I will even more nervous.....life is interesting. We are always about something, and we are done with one thing, and there is nothing to worry about anymore, we find something else to worry about.

Please keep us in your prayers, about all paperwork process and also financial part of this journey! So God will opens heart of a person who will register our dossier, and hearts of some people to help us financially. We know and believe that God will provide, he will find a way.

Monday, 8-03-2009 we went to local police office and did our card fingerprints. The next day it already was in the mail to FBI department. Hope that they will process it fast and we will get our police clearance letter soon.
It's so hard to wait with out doing anything. Now we are waiting for our home study to be finalized, notarize and send back to us. Hopefully it will not take a long time. Praying.
We know that Gods time is perfect, and the is reason for everything!

Petition for adoption, power of attorney, and letter of obligation, are done. Ready to be notarize and apostle.

Our facilitator said that we can send him only home study and Power of Attorney, and he can start the process and register, to get a submission day, with only those 2 document, and by our submission day he will have to get the rest of the paperwork. Did anyone went with this process? How did it go?

HS Draft!!!

We are so excited! We are almost done with our home study. It was very long process for us. I think I haven't share yet. Ok.... We were ready to do our home study, but at the same time we were thinking to do loan modification on our house. So we started our adoption process, and on our first visit we told our social worker that we are thinking to do loan modification. And after that our home study agency put a stop our home study process, until we are finalized with all home related paperwork. So, to do loan modification for our house was a long process, almost 6 month...........wow it is really long. We could do nothing with our paperwork, so basically only one month ago our process started to getting some speed.

First we were very disappointed, because we really wanted to bring our child/children home as soon as possible, and we wanted for them to be home by New Year. But I guess God had a different plan for us, now we see why it's better.

After loan modification, our house payment is almost half what we had to pay before
So it looks much better on financial statement. We already were not making enough money, and our home study agency wasn't sure if we can handle this adoption financially, and after loan mod, it took care of this problem.

We had this 6 month, we got some money for traveling. It's still not enough, but at least we can take care of some thing not going deep in dept.

I think it's enough for today, time to go to sleep.....

It's really long post, when I nervous I talk, and now I know that I write a lot also( I got nervous after I saw our Home study draft in my e-mail).

I think this moment to see my own kids are getting closer and closer.......

Updates

Home Study:
I really hope to get our home study draft today! Our social worker leaving on vacation tomorrow, and if she leaves then we will have to wait another week or so just to get our draft.

Police Clearance:
We also thinking if everything good, we will go today and get our police clearance letters done, at least to get them started by getting done with live scan.

Other forms:
I got examples of Letter of Obligation, Power of attorney , and Petition for adoption from our facilitator, so I will work on those today.

Employment letter for my husband:
hope to get done, and have it by the end of this week

Marriage Certificates:
Done!!!!

Medical Letters:
Done!!!

and there is little ones, that I just have to make copies! Easy...!!!

I am very exited! I really want to know how our kid(s) looks like? How old are they? And I have many more questions in my head.........only God and my husband know!!!

Hope to have home study draft tomorrow!

Yesterday, late at night, I got e-mail from our social worker. She needed more information on some stuff, but she said this is it, and we should have our home study draft by tomorrow.
We are so exited!