Our Road to Riley Ann

Update and prayer request!

2012-02-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

Great news! We got all of our documents that we will need to send to Russia to get a court date. The lady at the appraisal district signed the letter that we needed. This has been a battle that has been going on for many weeks now. Praise the Lord that she finally did what we needed her to do! I got to pick up one more letter from our social worker on Monday.

I will then take all documents to the Secretary of State's office in order to have an apostille placed on each one. They will be closed on Monday for President's Day, so I will have to be there bright and early on Tuesday. We will then overnight everything to our agency and from there they will send it to Russia to be translated.

We need prayer! Please pray for a speedy court date. We want to go back as soon as possible!

I never dreamed that it would be this hard to be away from her. This has been a very difficult week for us! We know the Lord is control and His timing is perfect.

We are home.

2012-02-13T03:53:00.000-08:00

I titled the blog ending it with an exclamation point and then retyped it ending in a period. It is such a bittersweet time. We are thankful to be home where it is familiar but are so sad that we are home without her.

On Saturday, we checked out of our hotel at noon and were picked up by Natasha. We drove to the Hermitage museum for a tour. Words or pictures cannot even begin to describe this place. With a large part of the items in storage and not even displayed, it would still take 7 years to spend one minute at each exhibit. This should give you some idea of the size. Paintings, sculptures, etc. from all over the world.....including the famous one "The Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt. We basically just walked through the place with our mouths wide open trying to take in what we were seeing. If you ever get a chance to go to St. Pete, this place is a must see!

Now here are the details of our last meeting. It was a Saturday, so there was not a whole lot going on at the baby home. They brought her to us and she was as cute as ever. I felt like we had such a great amount of time to play with her. She had on about 4 layers and the room was extremely hot. They like to keep the babies warm there. We noticed so much that really encouraged our hearts about her. In just 3 visits and those few hours of one on one attention, we saw many positive changes with her. I am blown away by this and can't wait to see how far she comes when she gets to be with her forever family! After about 2 hours came the time we were not looking forward to....the time for them to take her away. We sadly told her bye and the caregiver took her along with all the items that we left with her. I felt like someone had kicked me in the gut at this point. I soon after had the urgent desire to get home so we could get everything done to get back here as soon as possible. I talked with Natasha about how hard it was to leave her and she agreed it was the most difficult part of the process. She too wished that we could have taken her. We then drove to the airport and were thankful that we were able to end the trip with one last visit with her.

I wanted to call each and every one of you to tell you that we were home, but I feel asleep around 8:00 pm. We had quite the day(s) of travel to get home. We left St. Pete at 8:30 P.M their time and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at 8:45 P.M. It looks as though our flight was 15 minutes, but no there is a 3 hour time change in there. This was our first gain of 3 hours. We arrived in Germany and spent the night in the recliners at the airport to be able to catch our flight the next morning at 8:10 German time. We left Germany and flew for 8 hours to land in Chicago at 10:00 central time (another time change). We caught our next flight in Chicago at 12:10 and arrived in Houston around 3:00 PM. We were laughing because we basically experienced Sunday two times! We left Houston around 5:30 and drove back to Buda.

I know you all are excited for me to post pictures, but I am sad to say that I cannot. She is in our hearts "ours", but legally she won't be until after court. We are being over the top careful until then. I wish I could sit down with each of you and show you the pictures and the video that we have. I think I have watched the videos three times and can't even tell you how many times I have looked at the pictures. We are in awe of her and can't believe that she will soon be home with us.

I know you are wondering what is next. Well, it is a bit complicated and frustrating. We now have to wait for our court date. Natasha is thinking this will take 2 months if everyone involved cooperates and does what is right. Here is where the prayer request comes. Please pray that the judge that we are assigned will move forward quickly and give us a court date. There is a adoption treaty between the US and Russia that was signed last summer. It was signed by both sides, but Russia has not ratified it yet. Natasha's team heard it should be ratified in a month. Some judges are unaffected by this and are continuing to assign court dates. Others are holding off on assigning court dates until the treaty is officially ratified. Pray our judge is one that will go ahead and give our date.

After court, we return home to wait the official 30 days before we go back to get her (trip 3). As you can only imagine this is a hard waiting time for us. Pray for us!

I am going to try to keep this blog going in between trips. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions about the process. We love to share about our journey.

Thank you for praying for us. We have seen so much of the Lord's favor with this little girl's life and with us on trip one. What an amazing testimony she has and will be able to share one day!

Love,
David and Amy

Time with our little girl

2012-02-10T04:19:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

We went to the baby home this morning to see Riley Ann! We had so much fun together. I have some great pictures of her interaction with Amy. At one point she was saying, "Mummumumum". We are not sure whether she is trying to say "mom" or not. Amy was the one holding her. She did not say it when I was holding her. After a while, she did reach for me. At that time I happily took her from Amy and began to play.

Ok. We did over stimulate her a little bit with the toys we brought, and we had a good time doing it.

She did enjoy it when I picked her up in the air from the floor by the waist and put her back down over and over again. She did get a little over heated after our playing and we had to remove one of her layers of clothing. I think there were four. She was much happier after we did this. We offered her a cheese rabbit that Amy likes to eat and after showing her how to eat it. She was happy to do so.

We had a great time with her today. We were given permission to spend time with her tomorrow before we go to the airport for our flight home.

Please pray that we can get the letter we need from the Appraisal District and notarized documents from my doctor, so we can get our next set of documents to Russia. We want to bring her home soon!

David

Our meeting!

2012-02-09T04:26:00.001-08:00

We are excited to say that we met her and she is adorable!

We arrived at the baby home and remained in the waiting area until they brought her to us. We began interacting with her on the sofas in the waiting area until we were able to move to the music room. Here we were able to sit in the floor and just play. We brought a set of stacking bowls that she seemed to like. Her absolute favorite toy was one that another family in the same room had brought for their little girl. They kindly gave the toy to Riley Ann. We spent probably an hour with her. She is extremely energetic. We each had time with her and we were able to gather lots of pictures. Our visit was right after lunch, so she grew sleepy towards the end of our visit. I think she probably would have curled up in my arms and fallen asleep. David had her in his arms when the caregiver came to take her. She was hesitant to go with her and acted as she wanted to stay with him. The caregiver even made a comment about how she seemed to want to stay with "daddy". Of course she said it in Russian!

We can't wait to go back tomorrow to see her. We also get to see her on Saturday since we had a change in schedule due to the second doctor visit that was required.

Speaking of the doctor visit, we had our 8 doctor medical visit. Normally we would have done this on trip 2 for court. Since David needed his complete check for this trip, I went ahead and had mine too. We started early in the morning and ended around 10:30. The Lord gave us favor with the doctors because they were all there bright and early with just less than a day's notice of the appointment. They were so delightful to work with and we grew so attached to the hospital administrator. She was so hospitable to us. She had us in her office and gave us many cups of tea and goodies in between doctors. We saw a neurologist, oncologist, psychologist, cardiologist, dermatologist, pulmonologist, infectious disease doctor, and a general practice doctor. We also had full panel of blood work done. The great news is that we checked out just fine! They all signed off and this is exactly what the adoption committee needed.

It is currently 5:30 pm (we are ten hours ahead) and it has been a full day. It has been so great for us to see this side of the adoption process and how hard the staff here works.

I will post again tomorrow after our visit to the baby home and our trip to Paul and Peter's fortress.

Love,

David and Amy

Day 3

2012-02-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Today was a jammed packed day. We went to the adoption committee this morning and found out that we need one more piece of information before we can officially be invited to meet our little girl. It is something that is very easy to gather and we can get it all taken care of tomorrow morning.

The committee had David go see a doctor yesterday because of something in our home study. That checked out. This morning we found out he must complete the rest of the medical examination. We were assured by the committee that everything is ok.

We will write again tomorrow with an update.

Love,

David and Amy

Day 2

2012-02-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

Today started off at 6:00 with breakfast and Natasha picking us up from the hotel lobby at 7:50. We had a nice breakfast and we were off to do one adoption related item. This whole process was extremely smooth and put us on track for tomorrow's visit.

After we were dropped off at the hotel, we walked across the street to a beautiful cemetery. This is where many of the people who are considered masters of the arts are buried. Pytor Tchaikovsky is here. We have lots of pictures and video of our visit!

After the cemetery, we had a nice lunch at a little cafe close to the hotel. We then came back to the room to rest a bit.

We are currently in the room. I am on the computer. David is reading the St. Pete tour guide book and watching Russian TV. The focus of the program seems to be popular music.

The weather is cold. The good news is that it is not windy and it is sunny. These two factors make it pretty tolerable for short periods if you are layered and dressed properly.

Tomorrow is our biggest day for sure. We are meeting Natasha at 9:30 in the lobby and going to meet the adoption committee to receive official permission to meet our little one in the baby home. We found out that our meeting with the committee consist of us with one person. In our minds, we thought many more people would be involved. This was great news for us to hear.

Afterwards, we head to the baby home. What an amazing thought and I really can't believe that it is happening tomorrow!

I loved talking with Natasha today about our little daughter. It is so fun to meet someone who have actually met and interacted with her. She talked about how cute she is and gave us some more insight about her. Natasha is so precious and you can tell that she thoroughly cares for the children. She just leads us and we follow! For all the worriers out there, she is taking great care of us. We know exactly what to expect every second we are with her. We are growing very attached to her!

It is almost 7 in the evening here. We are about to go down for dinner and visit the shops down the street.

Thank you all for praying for us. We feel very safe and thrilled to be here! We will update tomorrow evening (morning for you) after we return from our visit to the baby home.

Love,

David and Amy

2012-02-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Praise the LORD we made it to Saint Petersburg!

We are in our hotel room right now about to go to bed. It is 8:32 p.m. here.

Natasha picked us up from the airport. She is a sweet lady and we look forward to our time here with her.

Y'all should see this hotel! It resides in a huge building with many shops, restuarants, and a supermarket.

Amy and I went to the supermarket to get some water tonight. Also, we walked over to McDonald's for a Big Mac. I had one. Amy wasn't hungry.

We are looking forward to our day tomorrow to explore Saint Petersburg, but Wednesday is the big day!!

David

One week from today!

2012-02-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

One week from today we will meet our little girl! I wish the time would go faster, but we need every minute of it!

Getting ready!

2012-01-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

We are at work here in the Davidson house getting ready to go! It is hard to believe that one week from today we will be on our way to meet our little daughter. This past week has been so busy....balancing between getting ready for the trip and getting the paperwork finished that we will need to move forward with court as soon as we return. We are trying to get ahead of the game!

Yesterday was a fun day. We bought some interactive toys that we will use to play with her during our first few visits. We got one of those old school toddler size pianos that make all kinds of noise. We are guessing that she like most children will get a kick out of anything that is musical. We also got her a stacking toy that is great for fine motor skill development! Next on our list is finger puppets...these tend to be a hit with little ones.

I checked the weather in St. Pete today and it was -2 degrees. We are planning to layer our clothes because we have been told that it very cold outside and very warm on the inside. Layering is the key to winters in Russia!

It is hard to believe that it is actually here. Nearly 3 years of waiting and now it is becoming a reality. We are so blessed to have had so many cheerleaders along the way that have prayed for us and encouraged us. It is amazing to look at certain events in this child's life and see how strategic our God is with His children. For example, I calculated the month that our paperwork was registered in Russia and it was the same month that this little one was conceived. So to think that she has literally been lifted up in prayer since conception is so awesome! The weekend she was born, our pastor in Houston taught on infertility and adoption. This encourages our hearts and just confirms to us that the Lord has been in this adoption every step of the way since day one!

We are heading to St. Petersburg, Russia!

2012-01-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

It has been a long road, but the Lord is faithful! We are so thrilled to announced that on February 5, 2012 we are leaving out of Houston to meet our 20 month old little girl.

I am sorry that I have not been very good about updating this blog. I am going to try to be better.

2011-08-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

I received an email from our case manager this afternoon. She said our updated paperwork is on its way to Russia.

Paperwork update

2011-08-10T06:41:00.001-07:00

The bulk of our documents are apostilled and on the way to our case manager. From there they will be sent to Russia to be translated. We are so thankful that the Secretary of State's office is about 15 miles from our house and just blocks from David's office. This is where all adoption documents for the state of Texas need to go in order to be apostilled before heading to Russia. Another benefit to living in Austin. We are one step closer to having everything updated in Russia!

We are waiting on copies of two more documents. After that, paperwork is finished for a bit.

Pictures of our house

2011-08-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Baby room

kitchen

master bedroom

living room

front of our house

I'm back!

2011-08-05T07:55:00.001-07:00

I know it has been well over a year since I last posted. Much has changed since last April. Last November, David was offered a new position as a network administrator with his law firm. He was offered the job on November 9th and was to start on November 15th. After much prayer, he eagerly accepted it! This is the job that he has wanted for 4 years. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the job was in Austin. We immediately packed a bag for him and drove him to Round Rock on November 12th. He began his stay in Round Rock at our aunt and uncle's house while I finished out the semester at my school. I resigned in December and was able to join him in Round Rock. We lived in Round Rock until about 6 weeks ago and then we were able to move to our house in Buda, TX (15 miles south of Austin). We love it here....you get the small town feel with Austin only 15 miles away!

In adoption news...... since we moved we were required to redo all of our paperwork for Russia. About 3 weeks ago, our new social worker came to the house to update our home study. It went really well. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with her. She lives close by and will be the social worker that will be working with us for our post adoption visits. Right now we have all of our paperwork updated and notarized. We are waiting on a few others to send us their reports and we can go the Secretary of State's office to get them apostilled (certified). From there the documents will go to Russia to be translated. Our paperwork has remained registered in Russia, but it needs to be updated before we can accept a referral. We have not lost our place in line!

This September, our paperwork has been in Russia for two years. We are trusting in God's timing for this process. Since David received a new job, I am now able to stay at home with our little one when she comes home. This has been our prayer all along and the Lord has answered!

Information regarding Russian adoption

2010-04-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

You may have heard in the news that Russian adoptions are suspended. The halt of adoption was never issued from President Medvedev or the Minister of Education and Science, so the news from all the different outlets saying that adoption is halted is false. Adoption is under the authority of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no jurisdiction. Praise God for this news. We are trusting in the Lord and know that He is charge of everything!

Stepping forward in faith

2010-03-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

I chose this title for today's post because this is exactly what we are doing! Today is a very exciting day because the painters are here to paint Riley's room. I can't wait to see the final product. The walls are going to be antiguan blue (which is a teal color). I will try to post some picture later. We are thrilled to see when the Lord brings her home to us.

This is my Spring Break and it is off to a great start!!

2010-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

On Monday, we received an email asking us to redo the portion of our paperwork that is needed for us to be registered in the different regions. David and I worked diligently on this that same day and were able to submit them for review to our case manager that same evening. The next day (Tuesday) we got another email telling us that Russia has changed the forms again and that we needed to redo them. Thankfully, this part of the paperwork does not take much time. It is just filling in some personal info (passport numbers, birthdate, etc). We completed the second revision and that is where we are as of right now. David took all the new paperwork to be notarized today. I am heading back to Austin tomorrow to get the documents apostilled. The silver lining to this is that we will soon be registered in 7 regions. This should shorten the wait time even more because we are going from 3 regions to 7 regions.

Latest news

2009-11-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

I took all the notarized documents to Austin on Wednesday to have them apostilled. I sent them to our case manager. She received the documents today and proceeded to put them in the mail to go to Russia TODAY!! Praise the Lord- we will soon have our name in at least 3 regions in Russia. We are so excited to see what the Lord is going to do- when He will bring our little one home to us.

Thanksgiving was a blast. On Thursday, we went to Lake Livingston to spend the day and that night. We froze in the lake house because we forgot to turn the heat on. Not one person was able to brave the cold temp to get out of bed to check the heater. So cold, but so much fun. On Friday, we returned to Houston to celebrate with the other side of the family. I ate so much but that is what happens on Thanksgiving.

We are so busy right now. This weekend, we are heading to San Antonio to see our cousin, Jared, get married. We are so blessed to have so much time with family.

Next Thursday, I leave to go to NY to have a girl's weekend with my mom, sister, niece, two cousins, and two aunts. We are going to see the play "Wicked" while we are there. I am preparing to really experience the cold weather.

2009-11-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

Great News! We received word today from our case manager that Buckner is now working with 2 additional regions in Russia. Also, as of today Russia is now allowing families to register their dossier in more than one region. She told us that this should shorten our wait time!!!

I received this news late this afternoon and I am almost finished printing everything we need to add our dossier to another region. It is mostly printing additional copies of what we have already sent in.

Update!

2009-10-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

We received an email in response to a question that I sent to our case manager. Her answer clarified something that we have been confused about regarding our dossier. It turns out that the dossier is registered once a referral is received. So the step of having our dossier translated a few weeks ago was the big milestone in becoming a waiting family. This is great news!!!

Update from our case manager

2009-09-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

Our case manager called yesterday to inform us that our paperwork has been translated and is in the process of being registered! We are happy to hear this because this is much sooner than what I expected. This is important news because we are now one step closer to being a waiting family!!

Good news!

2009-08-28T18:52:00.001-07:00

We received word from our case manager that our dossier left to go to Russia today. After 3 business days of travel, it will then be translated. Translation takes about 2 weeks. This is excellent news to begin our weekend!
Our students came back this week and I am pretty tired. I love being out of the classroom and being able to assist where I am needed.

We have company coming in this weekend so that will be lots of fun. Plus, this is our week to work with the 15-18 month olds at church. Jammed pack weekend!

Another milestone in our process

2009-08-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

We received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security that our I-600A immigration form was approved!

In other news, I officially started back to school on Monday. It has been a very busy week! I have helped with the inservice trainings and I am very tired.

Where are you at in the process?

2009-07-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

This is a common question that is asked in the world of adoption.

I have started this blog as a way of keeping everyone informed of what is going on and as a journal of our life changing journey.

Since this is my first entry and we are many months into our adoption process, I will give an overview of what has happened so far. This will be written in timeline form to bring you up to speed.

November 2007- discovered that adoption was more than likely God's plan to grow our family

June 2008-December 2008 began filling out paperwork and attending classes with an adoption agency that works with CPS

November 6-15, 2008- went to Russia with our church to work in orphanages

December 2008- made the decision to adopt from Russia instead of through CPS

December 21, 2008- submitted our preliminary application to our agency that handles international adoption

February 13, 2009- attended a two day orientation workshop for international adoption

February 25, 2009- submitted our formal application (11 days later), this application included doctor's report, financial reports, references, life insurance, etc.)

March 19th& 20th- attended 2 day seminar given by our agency

March 21st-continued reading 1 of our books for our required reading.

The remainder of March and part of April was spent preparing our house for our home visit.

April 10, 2009- Home visit from our social worker

April 21, 2009- Had a psychological evaluation (required by Russia)

April 21-June 5th- Waited on all documents to be turned in to make our file complete so the home study report could be written, reviewed, and approved.

June 5, 2009- Received the news that our home study was approved to adopt up to 2 children(ages 1-3 years of age).

June 11, 2009- Mailed USCIS our I600A form

June 12, 2009 -Assigned a dossier coordinator and began working on part I of our dossier for St Petersberg. A dossier is the paperwork that is sent to Russia.

June 14,2009- completed our part of the dossier (application, passport copies, 5 photo books of our family and home,etc.)

June 26, 2009- Sent a copy of our picture book to our social worker so she could verify the info, sign off, and have it notarized.

July 15, 2009- Received our agency's part of the dossier

July 20, 2009- Got our part of the dossier documents notarized

July 22,2009- Drove to Austin to spend the night so we could be at the office of the Sec. of State early the next morning

July 23, 2009- Took all documents to Secretary of State's office to apostilled (certified). Quickly sent them by overnight mail to our agency

July 27, 2009- We are now waiting for our agency to send all the apostilled documents to Russia. This will make us a waiting family in Russia!!