Oh, my...what a difference a day makes!
Thursday night I got home to find 2 messages on my answering machine. One was from Wednesday (when I got in too late and was too tired to bother checking messages) and another from Thursday during the day. By the time I got home to check them, it was 8:15 p.m. Both messages were from Sergey's advocate at WACAP (which is in Seattle--the time difference is important here) saying she needed to talk to me. I immediately started stressing, because this woman and I have been in constant contact by e-mail, and she KNOWS that's the best way to get hold of me. If she's leaving messages on my phone without saying what it's about, it's bad news. I figured one of two things: 1) Sergey was no longer available for adoption, or 2) Russia turned me down.
I was 15 minutes too late to catch her at work (time difference), so I had all night to stress about it. And stress I did. And all the next morning--again, because of the time difference, I couldn't reach her until nearly noon. Actually, she got me first (because I had left the work phone number on her voice mail).
The way things work in Russia, when a child is cleared for international adoption, s/he has to start off on the national adoption registry and be on that in a waiting status for a certain amount of time to see if any kind Russian citizens will adopt domestically before moving on to international possibilities. Makes sense.
But someone screwed up 4 years ago when Sergey's paperwork was given to WACAP--the folks in the Russian system never listed him on the registry after turning over his paperwork. Now all of a sudden, WACAP is contacting them saying "Rejoice--we found a family for this child" and Russia says "Huh? International? He's not on the registry yet...." The lady at WACAP is really upset about this. Russia is getting him on the registry this week (supposedly), but he still has to go through the waiting period (no way around that one--this is Russia, after all, and there are rules and by God, we're going to stick to them). So Sergey will not be available for adoption until sometime next year.
But the lady at WACAP remembered that I had inquired several months ago about another child (one who was in China) in hopes of adopting both children. (I really wanted Sergey to have a deaf "sibling" so he didn't feel like the isolated deafie in a house full of hearies.) Found out it's also against the rules to adopt from two different countries at once, so that was out, and the child I was inquiring about was being adopted by a deaf family anyway. (That's the perfect scenario for him!) So I gave up on that idea for a while, and kinda kept in the back of my mind that after Sergey was in and settled, I would probably go and adopt another child from somewhere before my home study expired. Hadn't really discussed this with anyone except my son, who was in favor of it for a lot of reasons. But this lady remembered.....and it just so happened there was another deaf child in China.....right age range.....
Her suggestion was just to reverse the order. Adopt this child now, settle him in, and by the time we're done with that, it'll be time to start the process for Sergey. Thank God Sergey still knows nothing about having a family yet--Russia won't tell him until he's available and I'm actually approved. So he won't feel the loss of the extra time (like I am!). Same end result, though.
Meet Xiao Tian. He is the same age as Sergey (12), actually six months older since his birthday is in July and Sergey's is in December. I don't have a great deal of information on him yet, other than that he is perfectly healthy, has sensorineural deafness, and likes to draw, ride bikes, and play ball. They're sending me what information they have on him (only medical at this point) and will forward the personality stuff once they get the rest of it.
The interesting thing for me is how this works out. By the time I finish adopting Xiao Tian, I can submit for the tax credits for reimbursement of those expenses, and then use those for Sergey's process. So I'll never be totally in the poor house. For the China adoption, it only involves one trip, not two. It's a 12-day trip, and he comes home with me at the end of it.
On the downside, I've been learning Russian sign language and lurking on a group list for people adopting from Russia. Now I've got to join a China list and find some Chinese sign language resources! (Assuming that he signs already, which I don't even know for sure yet.) How many versions of sign am I gonna know by the time this is all over?
But it turns out that switching countries at this stage really isn't complicated at all. Just need the social worker to change a few lines in the home study (already talked to her, and she's cool with it), and need to write a letter to the INS to get location changed on the I-600a (the form to bring an orphan into the country as a relative).
I did have a good cry after hanging up from talking with the lady from WACAP--part disappointment for Sergey's situation, but also part relief that she wasn't telling me I couldn't adopt him at all. It's just delayed a while, and these things happen when you're working with under-developed countries who don't have very good systems for tracking these things.
Wow, huh?
