Kicking it into overdrive!?!

There was lots of big news in the land of PBC this past week. Here’s all the poop, fit to scoop:

Our Home Study has been completed! This phase included lots of financial, family, and personal details, reviewed when a state approved social worker interviewed us at home. We also had our first round of physicals (we will each have at least two more) and we got reference letters from a small group of our friends and co-workers. It was very humbling and gratifying to hear the kind words that people wrote.

We are now officially on our agency’s ‘Waiting for Adoption Referral’ list! The head of our agency told Kathy that he received 7 referrals this week. He encouraged us to get our paperwork done as soon as possible. With the downturn in the economy, there are apparently fewer couples adopting at this time. This means that there is a very strong possibility we will be receiving a referral soon after we complete our Dossier.

Through all of the stages of adoption so far, we have been advised that the Dossier will be the most time-intensive, frustrating portion of the process. But even with all of the warnings, once you actually get the document checklist, it is a bit of a shock. The list contains forty (!) documents from different agencies and sources. Each parent needs to fill out, print, and sign two copies (four total). Each of these (total of 160) are notarized and apostilled.

Not sure what apostilled means? Neither were we, before starting this process. Microsoft Word doesn’t even have the word in their dictionary!
Having a document apostilled is the international equivalent of notarization. A notarized document must be brought to an apostille (US State Department employee), whom adds their stamp to certify the legality of the document. All documents that will be sent out of the country (in our case, to Russia) must be apostilled.

Adoption Tax Credit expires in 2011

Hi there, PBC followers.

I wanted to share a quick piece of information and call to action regarding the Adoption Tax Credit.

The Adoption Tax Credit covers some (or all) of the expenses related to adopting a child. The credit has been at its current level ($10,000 plus inflation adjustment) for the past 10 years. Unfortunately, this credit is scheduled to expire in 2011.

There is legislation in both the House (H.R. 213, the Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee of 2009) and Senate (S.2816) to extend this credit. Unfortunately, all of the current political upheaval has stalled many bills that are supported by both sides of the aisle.

If you can, we at PBC would ask you to call your senator and/or representative, and ask them to support the extension of the Adoption Tax Credit. If we all ask nicely, maybe they can get something done out there :)

House of Representatives Link:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Senate Link:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

-- The PBC Team

Agency? Check! Country? Check!

When Alan proposed marriage to me, having children was one of the topics we discussed as we started planning our life together. We both agreed that we wanted to experience parenthood. We also agreed that we were open to how it happened. If we were unable to have our own children, it meant there was another child in the world that was meant to have us as his/her parents.

We are excited to share that we have formally started the process to adopt a child from Russia. Since we have indicated we are open to either gender, it is very likely we will be adopting a little boy. As the majority of families specify they would like an infant girl, the wait times for girls are much longer. We are excited to start our family and think it would be wonderful to do that with a little boy.

We are about half-way through the first step in the process, which is a home study. We have also chosen the agency we will use, Adoption Options based in San Diego, CA. As it is very expensive to operate in Russia, most agencies only operate in a small number of regions. Adoption Options operates in about 25 regions in Russia, so they have access to a larger number of children. This means the wait times for the families is shorter, and the children referred for adoption are slightly younger. Right now, a lot of families who adopt little boys are able to complete the adoption in less than a year.

Interesting Fact: The children in Russia must be on the national registry for “children without parents” for 8 months. Therefore most children are 9-11 months before their prospective adoptive parents are invited to Russia to meet them.

-- Kathy Carda