Introduction

Now that I have more time to write, I will give a quick summary of where we are at in our adoption process. The good news is that we have completed our Home Study, received BCIS approval, and our documents have been sent to the region of Kemerovo. Kemerovo is about a 4-5 hour flight from Moscow in Siberia. If anyone is interested in learning more about this region, I have found RussiaTrek.com very informative as you can get more general information on the different regions of Russia.
The bad news is that we are caught up in delays with re-accreditation with our agency. Russia has implemented a new law that all adoptions agencies must register as a NGO (non-governmental organization) before they can renew their accreditation. The problem is that while they have passed this new requirement, they have not set up the policies and procedures for agencies to comply with it! Our adoption agencies accreditation came up for renewal on 6/9/06 - right after this new policy was passed. Therefore our agency (and many other well known agencies) are "in limbo" preparing to get NGO registration so that they may then get re-accreditation. We have been told this should take anywhere from 1 -3 months. It has now been 1 month and everything is still pending.
Unfortunately, our documents did not get registered in Kemerovo before their accreditation expired (it was sent over about 10 days before the 6/9 expiration date). For families with paperwork already registered in their regions, they have the option of continuing with their adoptions independently or waiting for their agency's accreditation to be renewed.
So, now we wait - wait for this "glich" to get straightened out and then our paperwork can be registered and begin our wait for a referral.
For those who do not already know, we are waiting for a child younger than age 2 (boy or girl), and have told our agency that we would be willing to consider a child with a minor medical need. Many simple corrective procedures that are easily obtained in the USA are not readily available in Russia, and we would love to be able to help a child with a special need.
Next posts I will give a bit more detail about our "next steps" and probably ventilate a few frustrations!
Steph