- 1/14/2008 10:34:42 PMExcitement and AnticipationSo there we were at home, waiting for "the call". The phone rings and my wife answers it and sure enough it is the adoption coordinator - Val. I didn't speak with her but I'll try to summarize what she said.
- this is not "the call"
- she expects to give us "the call" any day now
- current estimates put our travel some time around the last week of January or first week of February. This means that if the court date is in January, then we leave for Moscow next week.
- Marina (from the Lighthouse Project), whom we were planning on staying with in Moscow is not available due to other business issues and we should consider developing a "Plan B" - meaning staying in a flat or apartment. This is something we had not even considered and had done very little research on.
~~~ panic sets in ~~~
Mr. Chase (from the Adoption Chase) called to let me know that he and his family are praying for us and Yuri, the trip... What incredible timing. I told him that we were in the middle of stressing out about the trip. What a comfort it was to speak with him. We had a very nice chat and I was very encouraged by the time we hung up.
...Val calls back
- this is still not "the call"
- there is another home stay available in Moscow but not for the entire time if we have to stay an additional 10 days
Whew! That was a close one!
We were originally thinking that if we had to stay an additional 10 days (based on the judge's decision), then we might head to St. Petersburg. As it looks right now, the cost of the train tickets up there may be too much. That being the case, if the 10 day stay is not waived then we will stay in Yuri's region at a different home stay while we wait. Then when we return to Moscow, we'll be at the home where we previously stayed and we can process our visa paperwork.
There is a certain kind of feeling when you plan for something so long and you get to the point where it is going to happen. Our first thought was, "we're going to Russia". This may sound stupid because it is what we've been planning all along - yet at the same time, the realization of going there, going to a very different culture and being isolated from familiar things is both exciting and scarry.
