"Just because."

Well we had to get our taxes done and we've been crazy busy with lots of stuff, so I'm sorry I haven't been able to again keep you guys updated about the craziness.

Here's a rundown... At some point in the last couple weeks we found out that the MSA is, in fact, still thinking they need consent from Russia after all. They decided that because Russia-Estonia relations are bad, they should avoid disapproval and get the consent anyway. Just because they want it. Apparently a judge was never asked and was never involved in this decision to get consent from Russia, or at the very least a judge was only asked in general terms off the record, unofficially. The case never went to court at all. The MSA is the one who decided to impose this requirement of consent from Russia, not a judge. It's nice to finally start learning the truth, now that someone listens to our questions and actually gets answers.

Since then we've been arguing the ridiculousness of their notion - since the consent doesn't seem to be possible, especially since there is no legal basis for Russia providing it. Secondly, singling out kids with Russian citizenship as the only ones who need these stringent paperwork requirements (and thereby preventing their adoption when stateless and Estonian kids can be adopted just fine) is discrimination. THAT is likely to cause more Russian disapproval than their not getting unnecessary consent.

These reasons, along with all of the laws explaining the Hague convention and the bilateral agreement, were put down in a very well written letter from Rutt to the MSA and copying the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The letter was written last week, with suggestions being made by us and by Rutt, and should be at the MSA soon if it isn't already.

In the meantime, today we got forwarded an email from Kersti saying that they are waiting for this letter from Rutt explaining why the bilateral agreement doesn't apply to this adoption, but even so - there are problems with figuring out immigration procedures without consent from Russia. They think that the Russian embassy will not give the kids travel documents, after their adoption hearing, without Russia's consent. I think that's just senseless speculation, as the issuing of a travel document has nothing to do with where they are going and why. It's just a document to leave the country, which they have the right to do. Anna's travel document was a non-Estonian citizen one-time temporary travel document, with an immigrant visa from the US embassy inside. So immigration to the US is the US EMBASSY'S decision, not Russia's. And as Russian citizens, they have the right to get a passport.

So we told Diana to ask Kersti that if the letter from the attorney proves the adoption is legal (which it does) AND we can find out how they can leave the country (which we will), will they let the adoption go to court. We'll see what she says. It seems like they are grasping at straws to justify needing consent from Russia. They are being paranoid. Especially after lots of kids have gotten out on Russian passports in the past. Diana says she still has never gotten a straight answer about WHY they think they really need consent from Russia at all. No one can figure it out. None of it makes any sense.

There were many many good points Rutt wrote in the letter. I can't list them all, but the letter was very convincing that he adoption not only is legal, but they absolutely SHOULD proceed with it.

On the one hand, it's good that the hold up IS the MSA after all. I think they are easier to convince than a faceless judge. The judges, according to Rutt, don't know the international adoption laws. They just know what documents are needed for the actual hearing. The MSA is supposed to do the rest. So when it comes down to it, I'm sure we'll play it safe and have Rutt there in the court room with us.

If the MSA continues to argue, they really have no justifiable reason for waiting for the consent. I think they will back down, especially if they start to realize that if they don't want trouble, they are messing with the wrong family.

On the other hand, it's so infuriating that they said they'd be cooperative, that they want the adoption to happen, and that they want us to hire an attorney so they can get help to resolve this. I really don't know if they are just stupid or if they are also intentional liars.

Anyway, we'll try to keep you posted. The story keeps changing all the time, so it's hard to keep everyone updated.

On other subjects, Anna is still doing great. She has a day here and there where she'll get in big trouble for something with us, but it's usually pretty mild compared to what a lot of people deal with, with older adopted children especially. She gets in trouble for things like pouting, arguing, small temper tantrums like a small stomp on the floor when we say no about something, being a tiny bit disrespectful, etc. That's mostly about it. She's really an awesome girl. She really responds well to our consistently allowing or not allowing certain things.

Some of you have asked how she's doing with learning the Bible. (My answer will make sense to most of you, but to those of you who don't know what I'm talking about here in parts of this paragraph, just filter it in your brain accordingly!) She's doing really well. She understands what we teach her from reading together (in Russian and in English) the "Learn from the Great Teacher" book and the Bible Stories book. She answers at every meeting, too. She asks good questions and I think comprehends a lot for never having learned anything. She didn't know who Adam and Eve were, for example.

Lately we've had more clues from her to her past, and interesting indications of her the way she views things. For example, the reason why her bio family's house was so bad wasn't because it was small and dirty, etc., it was because there was a mean cat who would scratch her. But it also had mice and ghosts apparently (no kidding).

To give you an idea of how she thinks about things, she asked me the other day if we have any other kids. I asked her if she sees them anywhere, and her answer was that hey might be in an orphanage somewhere. She also told me a different day that the reason she was in the orphanage was because their house was small and her mom had too many children, they didn't all fit. So she had to live somewhere else. So to her it's normal to be displaced to another house when you get more kids. I told her that's not true of all families. I told her that even if we had no money, too many kids, and a small house or no house, she would always be our daughter and she wouldn't be sent anywhere else ever. I think after we explained that, she started to act a little bit differently. I think she's starting to feel more secure. That was nice, after a rough couple of days where it seemed like she was comparing us to her bio parents unfairly. She stopped talking about them since then. She told me she was sorry, that she had one or two days where she was not so good (a little sad).

Lately there have been some funny sayings from her trying to get the English sentence structure and the right words. She says "Papa you now food my french fries" (which means she wants him to finish eating her french fries) and "Mama, we get food number 1 this one white and upstairs sauce?" Which means are we getting an appetizer, something white with sauce on top. She's really cute! :) Jason takes advantage and sometimes tells her the wrong word for something to just hear her say something funny. He always tells her, in the end, how to say it correctly. After she yells at him for joking around with her.

OK so I REALLY WILL get pictures on here as soon as I can. :) I gotta run for now. More soon.

Love,
Molly