Waiting.
We have one more piece of paper. One more precious piece.
Our accountant is doing our taxes and writing the letter.
He's promised me that the agency will have it by Friday.
It doesn't make the wait this week easier.
Dangit.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Positive Adoption Story
I was just channel surfing. DH had to work all day today -- and won't be home for another few hours. I don't usually surf channel by channel (you know, those pesky up and down keys), but I was bored enough to do just that.
As I reached VH1, which I habitually just jump over, the word "Adoption" flashed on the screen.
Of course, me, being me, had to stop.
And I am SO glad I did. DMC from the hip-hop group Run DMC found out at the age of 35 that he was adopted at birth. This was a documentary of his journey to understand, accept, and find his birth mother.
What an amazing story. You can find it at VH1 under ROCK DOCS. I'm sure they're going to replay it a million times, and they really need to.
I won't spill the beans and spoil it, but I will say that this was a journey that will raise the awareness of adoption quite a few notches.
Also, be sure to watch the video/listen to the song he recored with Sarah McLaughlin. They re-made "Cats in the Cradle", and its got a whole new meaning.
Thank you, Darryl. Your story is precious.
As I reached VH1, which I habitually just jump over, the word "Adoption" flashed on the screen.
Of course, me, being me, had to stop.
And I am SO glad I did. DMC from the hip-hop group Run DMC found out at the age of 35 that he was adopted at birth. This was a documentary of his journey to understand, accept, and find his birth mother.
What an amazing story. You can find it at VH1 under ROCK DOCS. I'm sure they're going to replay it a million times, and they really need to.
I won't spill the beans and spoil it, but I will say that this was a journey that will raise the awareness of adoption quite a few notches.
Also, be sure to watch the video/listen to the song he recored with Sarah McLaughlin. They re-made "Cats in the Cradle", and its got a whole new meaning.
Thank you, Darryl. Your story is precious.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
HELP, etc.
I need to redo the design of the HTML on this site.
Anyone know of a good site with some templates I can look at?
I'm desprately in need of a re-design!
*mucho thanks*
Anyone know of a good site with some templates I can look at?
I'm desprately in need of a re-design!
*mucho thanks*
Monday, February 20, 2006
It doesn't rain ...
... it pours. BUCKETS. Buckets of stress, that is.
I tell you, my life is not dull, to say the least. First, I get this great new opportunity of employment. You've read the blog, you know the story. Now, its just not clicking. First three weeks were great.
Right now, its a disaster. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but let me tell you, it must have been a DOOZY. Someone out there must really have a voodoo curse on me.
So this week, I'm having a meeting with my contracting company and telling them that its not working out. That they need to do something.
The BIGGEST issue is that I'm working 50 plus hours a week (good thing) with mandatory weekend work (VERY BAD thing). First thing, they never told me I'd have to work extra hours. Second thing, there was no hint of weekend work other than the odd ad-hoc support call.
I'm miserable.
To top it all off, we sent out our taxes to our tax guy to do, and we can't get through to him via phone or an answer via email. DH played good cop last week. This week, well, I get to kick some heads all the way down in Texas to get some answers.
Grrr.
I tell you, my life is not dull, to say the least. First, I get this great new opportunity of employment. You've read the blog, you know the story. Now, its just not clicking. First three weeks were great.
Right now, its a disaster. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but let me tell you, it must have been a DOOZY. Someone out there must really have a voodoo curse on me.
So this week, I'm having a meeting with my contracting company and telling them that its not working out. That they need to do something.
The BIGGEST issue is that I'm working 50 plus hours a week (good thing) with mandatory weekend work (VERY BAD thing). First thing, they never told me I'd have to work extra hours. Second thing, there was no hint of weekend work other than the odd ad-hoc support call.
I'm miserable.
To top it all off, we sent out our taxes to our tax guy to do, and we can't get through to him via phone or an answer via email. DH played good cop last week. This week, well, I get to kick some heads all the way down in Texas to get some answers.
Grrr.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Winter!
So winter this year in New Englad has been pretty wimpy. We had one of the warmest Januarys on record. We had days in the 50's and even hit the 60's one day!
So we're snowbound.
As far as I'm concerned, these are the days we moved back here for. As far as my husband is concerned, we should move back to Texas tomorrow! HA!
By the time this is over, we're supposed to have over 18" of snow on the ground. The wind is blowing so hard that I don't think we'll end up with that much ... although it started to snow at 2AM last night, and its supposed to go until 10PM. So theres a good chance we'll get significant accumulation without taking the wind into account.
I'm going to go curl up and work on the baby blanket I'm crocheting. :)
So we're snowbound.
As far as I'm concerned, these are the days we moved back here for. As far as my husband is concerned, we should move back to Texas tomorrow! HA!
By the time this is over, we're supposed to have over 18" of snow on the ground. The wind is blowing so hard that I don't think we'll end up with that much ... although it started to snow at 2AM last night, and its supposed to go until 10PM. So theres a good chance we'll get significant accumulation without taking the wind into account.
I'm going to go curl up and work on the baby blanket I'm crocheting. :)
Monday, February 06, 2006
A girl adopted, a sister waiting
The frail-looking girl with sad blue eyes didn't speak a word of English. She had lived most of her 12 years in a Russian orphanage after being removed from her home and an abusive mother, according to an adoption agency file. And, the file said, she had epilepsy.
Yet when Keri Cahill gazed at the picture of the girl as it slowly loaded on her e-mail, she knew her destiny. The Marblehead teacher who longed to be a mom would travel thousands of miles to Siberia and spend nearly $30,000 to adopt Anastasia, nicknamed ''Nastia," and bring her home.
The road from Boston's North Shore to Siberia and back again wasn't easy. Cahill, 40, had saved for five years and still needed financial help from her family for the eight-month adoption process, which required two trips to Russia.
But Nastia's arrival last May is just the beginning of the story. The newcomer kept speaking of a faint memory she had of an older sister. When Cahill first met Nastia months earlier in Siberia, Cahill thought the girl had merely dreamed and wished so hard for a sister to rescue her from the orphanage that she was confused. But on the day the adoption became official in a Siberian courtroom, Russian officials handed Cahill records that indicated that Nastia did, indeed, have an older sister, named Anya, born in August 1991. It did not, however, provide any information on her whereabouts.
Now Cahill, well known in the region for teaching theater to youngsters in her Rebel Shakespeare Company, is in the midst of a real-life international drama of her own. She hopes it will culminate with a reunion of the two sisters, who were separated when both were removed from their home about 12 years ago. Cahill aims to adopt Anya, now 14, but the clock is ticking. US immigration laws mandate that petitions to adopt a former orphan's sibling be filed before that sibling turns 18. After that, Russian officials often don't grant exit visas, specialists said.
If Anya doesn't get out, ''her chance for any kind of normal life is zero," said Cahill, who has started the paperwork and has been squirreling away cash.
But Cahill is worried time will run out before she has amassed enough money, roughly $25,000, to complete the adoption process.
Life for Russian orphans can be grim, with many relegated to a lifelong underclass in their country and afforded few opportunities after leaving government care, according to a 1998 report by Human Rights Watch. Little has changed in Russian orphanages since the group's report, and prospects for young women who ''graduate" from the facilities remain especially bleak, said Diederik Lohman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
''What you see frequently are children coming out of orphanages who are unable to find jobs and turn to the street, and that obviously involves prostitution for young women," Lohman said. ''There is a lot of drug use and homelessness."
For Cahill, getting Anya out has become pivotal. Just finding her was the stuff of high drama.
Shortly after Nastia's adoption, Cahill scoured Internet chat rooms, trying to learn whether other parents managed to adopt Russian siblings. Through the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of cyberspace, Cahill eventually found a private investigator who specializes in tracking down siblings of Russian orphans. Cahill also connected with a woman in Virginia who had adopted a boy from the same Siberian orphanage where Nastia was raised. The woman offered to fund the detective's work, which has cost about $1,000, Cahill said.
The investigator started by locating Nastia's and Anya's birth mother in a remote Siberian prison.
''There aren't even roads where she is," Cahill said. ''And there is no phone."
The woman said she thought Anya was in an orphanage known as Detsky Dom number six in Kemerovo, Siberia -- the same region where Cahill attended court to finalize Nastia's adoption last May. Cahill again scoured the Internet and found a phone number for that orphanage. On the day before Thanksgiving, Nastia dialed the number, but the news wasn't good. The person who answered said Detsky Dom number six had closed years ago.
''Nastia sobbed," Cahill said.
Undeterred, Cahill went back online and found a listing of all the orphanages in Kemerovo. There were about 20, Cahill said. Nastia dialed, and on the very first try, the voice on the other end said yes, Anya lived there, but she was out. Call again, the voice instructed. A few hours later, around midnight on Thanksgiving Day, Nastia dialed back and Anya answered.
''The first thing she said to Anya on the phone is, 'I have a nice mother and she can be your mother, too,' " Cahill said.
Since that call, the two sisters have spoken several times.
''I tell her people no punch her," said Nastia, now 13. She is still learning English but has already discovered that the scary American society she saw portrayed on Russian TV is not the life she now knows in Marblehead. The little girl who once owned few clothes and shared shoes with other children in the orphanage now has her own Cinderella-themed room -- a sea of pink crammed with clothes, books, DVDs, a cellphone, a cat named Puck, and a sheltie, Henry.
''Anastasia is very lucky she got adopted. There are so many people who want to adopt young, healthy children, but with older kids, it's tough," said Elina Filippova, president of Adoption Ark, the California agency that Cahill used to adopt Nastia.
Filippova was happy to hear that the once-frail child Russian authorities diagnosed as having epilepsy has shown no signs of the disorder since her adoption. Russia can be ''very secretive" and its healthcare system very isolated, making it difficult to get reliable information about each child, Filippova said.
Yet there are thousands of Russian orphans who remain in limbo as Russian nationalist politicians argue against international adoptions, fearing that the movement will drain the country of its future, said Lohman, the Human Rights Watch researcher.
''You have thousands of children who are completely abandoned, whom the state is not taking care of properly and who have a much better future if they could come to loving parents in the US," Lohman said. ''It's a bizarre kind of situation."
As the debate continues, one mom in Marblehead is working feverishly to alter the course for one Russian orphan. A girl named Anya.
To read more about Anastasia, Anya and other Russian orphans : http://www.russianfamilysearch.com/ (click on 'Anya' under Featured Stories) Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com
Yet when Keri Cahill gazed at the picture of the girl as it slowly loaded on her e-mail, she knew her destiny. The Marblehead teacher who longed to be a mom would travel thousands of miles to Siberia and spend nearly $30,000 to adopt Anastasia, nicknamed ''Nastia," and bring her home.
The road from Boston's North Shore to Siberia and back again wasn't easy. Cahill, 40, had saved for five years and still needed financial help from her family for the eight-month adoption process, which required two trips to Russia.
But Nastia's arrival last May is just the beginning of the story. The newcomer kept speaking of a faint memory she had of an older sister. When Cahill first met Nastia months earlier in Siberia, Cahill thought the girl had merely dreamed and wished so hard for a sister to rescue her from the orphanage that she was confused. But on the day the adoption became official in a Siberian courtroom, Russian officials handed Cahill records that indicated that Nastia did, indeed, have an older sister, named Anya, born in August 1991. It did not, however, provide any information on her whereabouts.
Now Cahill, well known in the region for teaching theater to youngsters in her Rebel Shakespeare Company, is in the midst of a real-life international drama of her own. She hopes it will culminate with a reunion of the two sisters, who were separated when both were removed from their home about 12 years ago. Cahill aims to adopt Anya, now 14, but the clock is ticking. US immigration laws mandate that petitions to adopt a former orphan's sibling be filed before that sibling turns 18. After that, Russian officials often don't grant exit visas, specialists said.
If Anya doesn't get out, ''her chance for any kind of normal life is zero," said Cahill, who has started the paperwork and has been squirreling away cash.
But Cahill is worried time will run out before she has amassed enough money, roughly $25,000, to complete the adoption process.
Life for Russian orphans can be grim, with many relegated to a lifelong underclass in their country and afforded few opportunities after leaving government care, according to a 1998 report by Human Rights Watch. Little has changed in Russian orphanages since the group's report, and prospects for young women who ''graduate" from the facilities remain especially bleak, said Diederik Lohman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
''What you see frequently are children coming out of orphanages who are unable to find jobs and turn to the street, and that obviously involves prostitution for young women," Lohman said. ''There is a lot of drug use and homelessness."
For Cahill, getting Anya out has become pivotal. Just finding her was the stuff of high drama.
Shortly after Nastia's adoption, Cahill scoured Internet chat rooms, trying to learn whether other parents managed to adopt Russian siblings. Through the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of cyberspace, Cahill eventually found a private investigator who specializes in tracking down siblings of Russian orphans. Cahill also connected with a woman in Virginia who had adopted a boy from the same Siberian orphanage where Nastia was raised. The woman offered to fund the detective's work, which has cost about $1,000, Cahill said.
The investigator started by locating Nastia's and Anya's birth mother in a remote Siberian prison.
''There aren't even roads where she is," Cahill said. ''And there is no phone."
The woman said she thought Anya was in an orphanage known as Detsky Dom number six in Kemerovo, Siberia -- the same region where Cahill attended court to finalize Nastia's adoption last May. Cahill again scoured the Internet and found a phone number for that orphanage. On the day before Thanksgiving, Nastia dialed the number, but the news wasn't good. The person who answered said Detsky Dom number six had closed years ago.
''Nastia sobbed," Cahill said.
Undeterred, Cahill went back online and found a listing of all the orphanages in Kemerovo. There were about 20, Cahill said. Nastia dialed, and on the very first try, the voice on the other end said yes, Anya lived there, but she was out. Call again, the voice instructed. A few hours later, around midnight on Thanksgiving Day, Nastia dialed back and Anya answered.
''The first thing she said to Anya on the phone is, 'I have a nice mother and she can be your mother, too,' " Cahill said.
Since that call, the two sisters have spoken several times.
''I tell her people no punch her," said Nastia, now 13. She is still learning English but has already discovered that the scary American society she saw portrayed on Russian TV is not the life she now knows in Marblehead. The little girl who once owned few clothes and shared shoes with other children in the orphanage now has her own Cinderella-themed room -- a sea of pink crammed with clothes, books, DVDs, a cellphone, a cat named Puck, and a sheltie, Henry.
''Anastasia is very lucky she got adopted. There are so many people who want to adopt young, healthy children, but with older kids, it's tough," said Elina Filippova, president of Adoption Ark, the California agency that Cahill used to adopt Nastia.
Filippova was happy to hear that the once-frail child Russian authorities diagnosed as having epilepsy has shown no signs of the disorder since her adoption. Russia can be ''very secretive" and its healthcare system very isolated, making it difficult to get reliable information about each child, Filippova said.
Yet there are thousands of Russian orphans who remain in limbo as Russian nationalist politicians argue against international adoptions, fearing that the movement will drain the country of its future, said Lohman, the Human Rights Watch researcher.
''You have thousands of children who are completely abandoned, whom the state is not taking care of properly and who have a much better future if they could come to loving parents in the US," Lohman said. ''It's a bizarre kind of situation."
As the debate continues, one mom in Marblehead is working feverishly to alter the course for one Russian orphan. A girl named Anya.
To read more about Anastasia, Anya and other Russian orphans : http://www.russianfamilysearch.com/ (click on 'Anya' under Featured Stories) Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Celebrate!
Today I went to the mall.
The stores that I traditionally steer WELL clear of, I barged right in. I didn't just walk in, I strolled in.
Janie and Jack. Gymboree. Gap Baby.
A couple hundred bucks later, I have my baby's first outfit. Ok, well, more than just a first outfit. I got cute onesies, jeans, kachis, and OMG SHOES!
Its a boy. We think.
We asked for a baby. Either gender. Under 14 months. Personally, I'm hoping for under a year. I'd love to be able to celebrate his first birthday. Chances are it will be a boy. And I'm thrilled. I'd be thrilled with a girl, too, but its all good. I'm starting to find cute boy clothes.
Cute baby loafers. Black leather.
OMG CUTE!
The stores that I traditionally steer WELL clear of, I barged right in. I didn't just walk in, I strolled in.
Janie and Jack. Gymboree. Gap Baby.
A couple hundred bucks later, I have my baby's first outfit. Ok, well, more than just a first outfit. I got cute onesies, jeans, kachis, and OMG SHOES!
Its a boy. We think.
We asked for a baby. Either gender. Under 14 months. Personally, I'm hoping for under a year. I'd love to be able to celebrate his first birthday. Chances are it will be a boy. And I'm thrilled. I'd be thrilled with a girl, too, but its all good. I'm starting to find cute boy clothes.
Cute baby loafers. Black leather.
OMG CUTE!
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
The Great Debate
So my current debate within myself is the following:
To be a stay at home mom or not.
Pretty simple, where, in Texas, it was a very simple answer. I retire, become the Stay at Home Mom I'd always wanted to be and that was it.
HOWEVER ...
I'm now making what I'm worth (in salary).
The company I'm about to go full time at has on site day care.
I can have lunches and snacks with him/her.
We have on site day care in our apartment complex.
DH goes to work later than I do, can drop off late, and I can pick up early.
So I have alot to think about. Just the fact that my office has on site day care makes me take pause.
In a "OMG I can't believe it, I REALLY married the right guy" move, my DH has left the decision completely up to me. There's really no question that I will be taking maternity leave. However, what comes next is up to me.
HOW COOL IS THAT?!
----------------------
In other news:
We have five documents left to put together.
1. New INS document. The INS messed up our original approval. On everything they've seen it says two children, they approved for one. We sicc'd our homestudy agency on them, so they corrected it and are resending the approval for two. We realize that we will probably welcome only one into our family this time, but want to make sure we are available to take two home if the situation allows. UPDATE: DONE. Came in tonight's mail.
2. Pictures. Not Done. Need to clean house like a mad-woman tonite so we can take pictures tomorrow night. These also need to be notarized.
3. Housing Verification. DONE. I just have to pick these up at the rental office.
4. Passport photocopies. DONE. Just need to be notarized.
5. Letter from our accountant verifying my income for 2005. (I was a contractor for most of the year, which is considered "self-employed" for this process.)
We should have 1-4 complete by the end of the week, and the last one in the next couple of weeks.
PHEW
To be a stay at home mom or not.
Pretty simple, where, in Texas, it was a very simple answer. I retire, become the Stay at Home Mom I'd always wanted to be and that was it.
HOWEVER ...
I'm now making what I'm worth (in salary).
The company I'm about to go full time at has on site day care.
I can have lunches and snacks with him/her.
We have on site day care in our apartment complex.
DH goes to work later than I do, can drop off late, and I can pick up early.
So I have alot to think about. Just the fact that my office has on site day care makes me take pause.
In a "OMG I can't believe it, I REALLY married the right guy" move, my DH has left the decision completely up to me. There's really no question that I will be taking maternity leave. However, what comes next is up to me.
HOW COOL IS THAT?!
----------------------
In other news:
We have five documents left to put together.
1. New INS document. The INS messed up our original approval. On everything they've seen it says two children, they approved for one. We sicc'd our homestudy agency on them, so they corrected it and are resending the approval for two. We realize that we will probably welcome only one into our family this time, but want to make sure we are available to take two home if the situation allows. UPDATE: DONE. Came in tonight's mail.
2. Pictures. Not Done. Need to clean house like a mad-woman tonite so we can take pictures tomorrow night. These also need to be notarized.
3. Housing Verification. DONE. I just have to pick these up at the rental office.
4. Passport photocopies. DONE. Just need to be notarized.
5. Letter from our accountant verifying my income for 2005. (I was a contractor for most of the year, which is considered "self-employed" for this process.)
We should have 1-4 complete by the end of the week, and the last one in the next couple of weeks.
PHEW
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