A Dad's Journey Through International Adoption: Hotline update...still just waiting

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Hotline update...still just waiting

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

The hotline update from our agency's Russia program director did not shed any new information about decree 268 but you could tell from her voice that she was getting quite frustrated. As I've said many times before they are pretty conservative in all their communication in terms of timing of just about everything. And I think all the upbeat information they were getting (from MOE officials, from the JCICS visit, other agencies, etc.) led her to become more optimistic than normal.

The consensus does point to an imminent finalization of 268 which would mean reaccreditation would start flowing very soon. However, that has not come to pass and it's causing some obvious frustration for them (and I'm sure others).

For me I'm not all that worried about it. Much like the NGO situation it was just a matter of time until everything fell into line and got rolling. The proof is all the adoption agencies that now have NGO registration. For a good month or two all the agencies kept submitting documents and waiting and then resubmitting documents and waiting. Then once a few of them started to get "passed" as NGOs, you had the dam break and a plethora of agencies shot past that hurdle.

It's certain that 268 will get fixed and I'm about 100% sure it's not going to take six months for it to occur. So it may take a few more days or weeks but all of the sudden it will be done. We had only thought that under the best case scenario we might be traveling during this calendar year and that would have required literally all the planets to align. I'm fairly certain that sometime in the first part of 2007 we'll get the call to head to Omsk. And most likely (since Stef and I are not cold weather people) it will happen early in '07 when it's very very very cold.

We would be just fine traveling in April or even May thank you very much. And since that's what we want, I'm pretty sure we'll be there in February.

posted by Steveg @ 8:17 AM

5 Comments:

At 12:37 PM, Suz said…

Aw, I was hoping the Bat-Phone would produce better news than this. Unlike you two, we are hoping every minute and time is of the essence for us since we've already waited 8 months for the court date.

Thanks, though, for posting your Bat-news each week! Every Wednesday I'm here - same Bat Channel, same Bat Time!
At 1:27 PM, Steveg said…

Suz-

I had thought I heard that the accreditation was not holding up court dates but that may be (like so many other things) a region by region decision.

Regardless, it's important to always keep in mind that these things always get done, it may take more time than we like, but they always get done.
At 12:53 PM, Anonymous said…

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the Hague Treaty and how it will affect International Adoptions. (Page 1 of the Personal Journal) I'd be curious if you have an opinion on this matter.

Ryan
At 6:53 PM, Suz said…

Yes, Steve, it's region by region. Although the Federal law says that families who had made their first trip before accreditation lapsed could complete the adoption w/o re-accreditation, the judge in our region says "nyet - no accreditation, no court date." So we wait.
At 9:41 PM, Steveg said…

That is definitely a bummer Suz.

I don't mind judges interpreting the law (that's actually their job), but out in out ignoring it just plain sucks.

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I'm Steve and this is my wife Stefanie. This is our story, mostly seen through my eyes, of the journey to create our family by adopting a child from Russia.

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