For a more detailed reading of our news, click the Blogger picture below...

Matt and Patti's blog- click here ---->     

For a summarized view of our news read below...

July 2008
We have decided to discontinue updating this site since its purpose was to document our adoption and that is now complete.  There may be further updates on our blog but this site will no longer be updated.  Thanks!

April 2008
We are settling in and trying to find the new normal.  Adjusting is proving to be difficult but it gets easier little by little.  We still have some paperwork to finish and we are both sooooo sick of it.  We will be registering Alex with the Russian government, applying for a MN birth certificate and a U.S. passport.

March 2008
We spent this month in Astrakhan Russia.  Basically it was travel to Astrakhan, visit Alexander once, have court, wait 10 days without Alexander, pick up Alexander and wait another 7 days for his passport, travel to Moscow for 5 days, return home.  We've never been so glad to be back on US soil.

February 2008
We returned from our first trip and were notified only a few weeks later to prepare to travel again for our court date of March 3rd.  We were busy preparing since this trip would be a month long and we were leaving our 6 year old behind with relatives so there was a lot to do.

January 2008
We traveled on our first trip.  Please see our blog for details.

December 2007
This is the month we received a surprise referral to a child in Astrakhan Russia.  We were pleasantly surprised.  Our agency also received its accreditation which should help us out somewhat. 

November 2007
We visited a local Russian Art Museum (http://www.tmora.org/).  The art was very...interesting.  We spent a long time in their gift shop which was really quite impressive.

October 2007
We brought online a book store to help us raise funds for the adoption.  Other than that this month was fairly slow.

September 2007:
Milestone month - our dossier is complete and submitted to our agency CHI.  They reviewed it and found that it was all in order which was a bit of a shock to us.  Patti did a great job putting this all together.  Next the dossier is sent to Russia and will be translated.  This takes 4-6 weeks.  It's interesting to note that after translation the dossier will be several hundred pages long!  After the translation we officially go on the waiting list.  We are expecting a max wait time of 12-14 months but are hoping for much less.

August 2007:
August was a good month for us.  Our 171h form arrived granting us approval from the federal government to adopt internationally.  This is a big step because this is needed prior to submitting or Dossier.  We were excited when it arrived.  We also attended a local CHI picnic and met several other couples either doing or who have done what we are.  We made a couple of good connections and enjoyed our time.  We also got our dossier apostilled at the state of MN.  That's the process where the state verifies all of the notaries and puts a rather formal cover sheet on all or our notarized documents.  Patti had fun making a couple trips to the Capitol for that task.

July 2007:
July has been a somewhat down month for us.  There really wasn't anything much for us to do other than wait for our I600A to be process by the federal government.  We estimate about 1 more month before it's here and then we can finish up our dossier and send it to CHI for review.  Russia formally granted accreditation to several agencies but unfortunately ours wasn't one of them.  We think that receiving accreditation would be a good thing for us but we don't really know what that means for sure in terms of the speed at which things are moving.   Please continue to read our blog and stay tuned we're confident there is much excitement in the future.

June 2007:
Not as much happened this month.  However some things are noteworthy.  First, our homestudy was completed and sent off to the government so that the I600A form can be processed.  Currently there is quite a backlog so we're not expecting it to be completed for a couple of months.  The I600A basically grants us permission to adopt internationally.  We need this before our paperwork can be sent to Russia.  The other item of note is that Russia has begun to formally accredit U.S. agencies.  Our agency hasn't been accredited yet but that doesn't mean our adoption is on hold.  Our agency can still facilitate adoptions even without being accredited.  We're not exactly sure how that works.  We're hopeful that with Russia starting to issue accreditation that it will in some way speed up our adoption but again, we really don't know how it will affect us.  Aside from that we've got a few more forms to notarize and that's about it.  June has offered a little relief from the stress of getting paperwork done for our homestudy.  Thanks for all your notes of encouragement.  Please keep them coming.

May 2007:
Well alot happened in the month of May.  We made good progress on several fronts.   We finished our home study application which was a ton of paperwork - much of which needed to be notarized.  We also got our home study visits completed.  These consisted of 2 visits of about 2 hours each to tell us about the process and give us some teaching as well as to learn more about our family and whether or not adoption is a good fit for us.  We are now awaiting the report from the home study agency.  This should be done this week.  We also both got our doctor appointments completed.  This was a big relief.  Again the medical forms were a little rough but we both had good doctors that had dealt with these before.  In addition we both completed our formal training materials (training never really ends does it) and we both passed our tests for these training materials - Yay!  We also visited the federal immigration processing center in St. Paul to get fingerprinted as part of our application to adopt internationally.  This experience reminded me of getting your driver's license renewed.  We also watched a touching documentary on Dateline about Russian adoption of 6 kids.  Perhaps you've seen it.  Next steps include finalizing a few more forms and getting them notarized, finalizing our homestudy report, and continue our training.  Please see our blog for more detailed news and thanks for visiting our site  :-)

April 2007:
After submitting our formal application to CHI we receive notice that we are accepted into the program.  Shortly thereafter we receive the overwhelming packet of information and forms to be filled out.  Did I mention overwhelming.  We are currently working on filling out paperwork.  Some of the next steps are renewing our passports because our passport number is needed on other forms, applying for permission from the US government to adopt (i600a form), and getting birth, marriage, and medical records.  Often times this means contacting other agencies and ordering certified copies. In addition we're preparing for our home study which will be done by Summit Adoption Home Studies. Soon we will receive another packet from CHI which includes education material.  We will be required to take at least 10 hours of education.  In addition we will be studying up on the Russian language.  Matt has been to Kiev before and knows a few words and a little about the Russian culture which will help.  April ended with the receipt of Matt's passport and a trip to the local p.d. for fingerprints.  Who would have thought a year ago we'd be in the p.d. getting prints?

March 2007:
Before we can formally apply we need to decide on the country, age, and sex of the child.  This was a difficult process but after much back and forth and ups and downs we decide on the program (Russia) and the sex (boy) and the age (under 4).  We establish contact with Children's Hope International and formalize our request to work with them.

February 2007:
After pouring through different agencies marketing material, scouring the internet, talking to other adoptive parents and attending two different local presentations we decide to partner with Children's  Hope International as our adoption agency.  We are impressed with there presence locally and abroad and seem to care as much for the adoptive children as they do their clients.

January 2007:
After many months of searching and praying we believe it is God's will for us to pursue adoption.  We feel as though the skies are clearing - Yay!  We are cautiously excited but also a bit scared as to what the future holds.  This is an exciting place to be - we are glad to be here because we know the reward will be great!