Hammer & Sickle

No, this is not where I publish my manifesto for the people. Bear with me.

I didn't sleep well while we were in Russia. Between the time changes, nervousness, and stress it just didn't happen very easily for me. Despite help from a little friend called Ambien. One night while I was lying awake, I thought about all that we had been through to get us to Russia. I realized you really need a sledgehammer to crack through all the red-tape -- in the United States and in Russia -- to complete an adoption.

Then it hit me...

Remember this old symbol? I took this picture while we were in a metro station.


The hammer and sickle was the symbol of the old USSR. It symbolized some worker/peasant hogwash. Whatever it meant, they SHOULD NOT have gotten rid of it. You still need a sledgehammer to pound through the bureaucracy and a sickle to cut through the red tape. It really is true, especially if you are trying to adopt.

So, we adopted those symbols for the rest of our trip but with our own personal meaning. Hopefully in a few weeks we can put down our hammer and sickle for a while when we are done with this process and Jason Alexei is home safe with us.

This is what we expect to happen over the next few weeks. In 4-5 weeks we should travel for court. Our notice for this trip is expected to be short. Approximately a week. The judges for adoption cases are civil judges who work the adoption proceedings into their schedule. Therefore the exact court date won't be known until we get there. We'll only know that sometime during a week we'll have court. Meanwhile, while we wait for that court date our agency in Russia is preparing a lot of paperwork for us. I hope they get it done fast!

Once court is done, the adoption in Russia is completed and Jason Alexei is officially our son. The next step is completing Jason's immigration status. He'll need to get his Russian passport so that he can leave the country with us. Completing this step is taking longer in Moscow than it used to, therefore, we will have to come home for a couple weeks until that is done. Jason Alexei will remain in Russia during that time. Remember the hammer and sickle? I would love to use them on this part of the process.

So after we have been home for a couple weeks, we'll travel again to Russia for the third time. It should be a quick trip. We'll go to the US Embassy to complete the US paperchase and we'll finally get to come home with Jason. When the plane lands in the US, Jason Alexei gets his US citizenship. He'll maintain dual citizenship until he's 18.

It would be REALLY nice if we can get all this done by Mother's Day...

Until we get some news, I would expect that blogging on the site will be light...There just won't be much to say until then!!!

So Kathy...you'll only have to check it once a day...har har har...

Seriously, thanks for keeping up with us! It's nice to know people are out there reading up on us and following along...