Step Five.

I said it before, I'll say it again... Adoption is only for the thick skinned and those who are masters at the 5 steps of coping:

Step 1: Denial
Step 2: Anger
Step 3: Depression
Step 4: Bargaining
Step 5: Acceptance

I'm sorry for not posting recently. It's been a rough week of trying to find out any details from Estonia about what's going on. Diana has been breathing down their necks like crazy and finally heard from Signe via email yesterday the following:

According Estonan Cityzenship Act child can have citizenship if there is clear h ehas no right to some other cityzenship. In our case the children has right to mother’s cityzenship and we have to fallow the Russian demands. Right now the application has been given to Russioan Embassy (in the first week of September) and next step is to give up the Russian citizenship on the reason to have Estonian one.

I will keep you informed about the situation.

So basically they're back to square one because Russia has a claim to their citizenship. At least they're not further behind because they continued the Russian application just in case Estonian naturalization wasn't going to work. Legally it might have been possible to get Estonian citizenship first and bypass the Russian process, but they say that the interpretation of the law is different depending on who you ask. Therefore they would hit roadblocks trying to do it that way. So now they'll go for the Russian citizenship, get it dissolved or signed away by Russia so then they satisfy the Russian requirements to have received that citizenship first, and THEN they will apply for Estonian citizenship. Then they have to get passports, then we have to wait for a court date. Yeah.

We finally have resigned ourselves to the realization that we aren't getting the information and answers we want. We just have to wait, and it will likely be several months from the way it sounds. We're just expecting the worst at this point. We've gone through the whole rants of "I can't handle weeks of not knowing how long it will take, week after week waiting for something to happen!", and that is not going to get us anywhere. What are ya gonna do? So we've just decided to expect it to take forever and then if it does, that's what we were planning for.

Don't know what we're gonna do in the meantime. We might go visit them in the winter when we're slow with work. Depends on what happens between now and then.

The only good thing is that everyone is still adamant about one thing: We will get the kids. That is not in question. It's just a matter of when. We might need to update our dossier. We might need to get an addendum for our home study and a new USCIS approval because Katya will be 13 next June and if there's a risk of it taking that long we need a new approval because currently we're only approved up to age 12. But that's only an issue if it takes until next year to get this done. So we'll see. It's all just paperwork, not anything failure-related. Unless you consider the longest ever Estonian adoption to be a failure! But MAYBE it won't be. (Oh wait, that's step 1... Oops.)

So that's the latest. I didn't want to talk about it all week, so forgive me for being in hiding. I wanted to hear something better before I updated everyone.

To answer other questions: We've not heard from the kids at all in 2 weeks. They haven't been on the computer at all, I assume because of school. I know they haven't been on the computer because Katya hasn't logged into her limpa.ru account (that social networking site like myspace.com), which I know she would have done had she accessed a computer at all!

I'll keep you all posted. Hang in there with me, all you emotionally invested blog obsessed readers! ;)

Love,
Molly

The pot's still not boiling.

No recent news really. The relative joy of the good news last Monday quickly went away later in the week as the feeling returned that nothing has really changed for all intents and purposes. We still don't know how long this is going to take and whether it will be pretty simple and trouble-free. I guess we can't be told the latter, but the former we would like at least a guess! Diana is working on getting the Estonians to find out a general range so we have a basic idea.

Meanwhile, Jason has trouble maintaining confidence that we will EVER get the kids, despite what we are told. So the battle to stay positive is a constantly fought one. It's just a tough situation to be in... hands tied, no kids, waiting waiting, waiting. We did get into this for the purpose of adopting a child, not to be committed to unavailable kids. But that's what we are.

Well... technically they're not "unavailable." They are just suffering the same delay we suffer, but probably with even less knowledge and maybe with less worry than we have. Their emails lately have been pretty much the same. They told us in one that they can write us a letter to send in the mail if they can write it in Russian. We told them they can write it in Russian and we'll get it translated here. I kind of think that that's why we haven't gotten anything else in the mail from them - maybe no one has been around to translate the letter for them like the first one was. I think we might be getting pictures in the mail from them soon, though. One of their emails said something like that.

All for now. If anything is new I'll post it here right away. But in the meantime, try not to worry and try not to be so anxious.

We have a distraction for now, though - a close friend is going through stress and heartbreak of a different kind, of similar severity. So tears and hugs all around!

Love,
Molly

Breaking news!

We got an email from Diana about a half hour ago. It says:

Molly,
It looks like they are moving towards getting the kids their Estonian citizenship! I don't know what exactly prompted this, your research, my hounding, or maybe a bit of both. I am sure they did their own research as well. I will keep you posted but today is a good day.
Diana

I called Diana after getting her email. She answered "I was expecting to hear from you any minute!" Probably because I always call her right after she sends me an interesting email. LOL

She said she is so happy that they are doing this because it's so much easier and more potential to be fast than the other way. Her exact words were "Thank GOD!"

Hopefully we'll know more later this week about time line. In addition to the websites that Kathy found (thanks again Kathy!!), we also found the official Estonian citizenship gov't website. It said the same things that the other websites said, including the official process for stateless kids under 15, with forms and everything. It did say that it can take up to 3 months for the application to be reviewed. But maybe it'll be faster having another gov't agency getting it done instead of just some other random Estonian citizen applying for them.

So, I'll take that as good news. We needed some!

Love,
Molly

"The things seen are temporary..."

OK Sorry! We have been hearing things all week, but really very little has changed. Diana has been staying on top of everyone in Estonia, so she's keeping the fire hot underneath them.

Here's the deal for now:
Diana has told us that she is 100% sure that this adoption WILL happen, and not to worry that this is a potential failure type thing. This is just another piece of paperwork and a delay.

The Estonian citizenship by naturalization IS a possibility. Apparently, based on the official Estonian and Russian gov't websites, they are entitled to either citizenship. Problem is, which one is quicker to get??? It might be that the Russian citizenship and being released from it might be quicker than the Estonian. With the Estonian process, they would have to apply through their guardianship authority (orphanage/the state), and it takes approximately 3 months for the application to be processed and approved or denied. Ugh.

So currently Signe is investigating the options and finding out which is the quickest and easiest way. Also involved, possibly, are any diplomatic concerns... So inevitably whatever keeps people from getting mad is also going to be what is done... But it will be done one way or the other.

We are still unclear on what exactly the problem is. The main reason is because the problem is stupid. We're not even sure if the problem is based on an actual law. There is no law, that we can find, that says that a stateless child cannot be adopted. Diana thinks that the problem may be that after their adoption, they can't get immigration stuff done at the US Embassy without a current passport, which they can't get without a citizenship.

Correction: They CAN get an alien passport as a stateless person.
Correction: They CAN'T get an alien passport, because they can possibly obtain travel documents through acquisition of citizenship through a country.

So who knows what is actually the real issue. Bottom line, a citizenship will take care of the problem.

Diana also explained that in the culture, laws are not all there is... For instance, the US is bound by the Hague convention, and so is Estonia. Which means any Hague accredited agency CAN have an adoption program in Estonia... But just because it's legal, doesn't mean Estonia will allow it or will give that agency any children to place. They don't have to do it just because it's legal. It's about connections, trust, social relations... Not just if there is a law that prohibits something or not.

So at this point there is no need for us to hire an attorney over there or anything like that. Even if we find out that there is no legal requirement for any of this. Doesn't matter - this is what they feel needs to be done in order to prevent... something... I don't know what.

Don't try to understand ridiculous un-understandableness. It doesn't work.

But for now, at least we know (or at least are repeatedly assured), this is temporary and will be fixed, if it's the last thing we all do!

In the meantime, we sent a package to the kids with gifts and letters. The letter we had professionally translated to make sure it's completely accurate because we explained the delay in more detail and told them not to worry.

We got emails from them earlier this week. Their response to our email briefly letting them know that there is a delay with their documents and not to worry was "OK We love". Then they asked about their friend "Masha", who was adopted by a family in Texas last June. We told them how she is doing. Katya wrote back "I would like to see her, Masha was my best friend." How cute. :)

Oh also Katya tells us her ears are pierced now. So we sent her earrings. Cute little flower ones. :) And in the letter we told Roman to make sure he doesn't get his ears pierced too!

All for now, I'll keep you posted when we learn more.

Love,
Molly

This crazy mess.

Hi everyone. I'm going to stab at answering your questions. First of all, thanks very much for all your help, research, support, calls and emails. It's great to have so many people looking out for us!!

We know that someone is going to tell the kids what's going on and not to worry. We don't know anything more than that. We will be sending them letters the encourage them also. We bought them some goodies today to send to them along with letters.

I don't know if the kids can get the citizenship by naturalization because of being stateless and parentless, as mentioned in Kathy's posts. That very well may be the rule that recently changed. The problem is that the mother's citizenship is KNOWN, which under the current rules, may mean that the kids technically aren't stateless, which would mean that they have to finalize their would-be Russian citizenship before they can be adopted. As for why they have to get a citizenship and then relinquish it or get permission to be released from it, I don't know. It makes no sense. I hope to find out more details on Monday.

The Estonian constitution says that any person (not citizen. Person.) has the right to leave Estonia. Fine, but then how do they get into another country? They need a passport or something, yes?

So if the kids are indeed considered stateless under current rules (parents being dead/removed of parental rights), then maybe they can be given Estonian citizenship. We have to find out. Additionally, if it can be found out that the birth father was an Estonian citizen, then they have Estonian citizenship that way. Both scenarios may not be possible.

The other thing we know is that, in addition to people over there being slow, they don't really want to have to deal with the Russians. So Diana said that if they don't want to deal with the Russians themselves, she will do it. She has high-up Russian friends and can get the people at the Russian embassy to release their citizenship. Diana said she would do absolutely whatever it takes to get this taken care of as quickly as possible, even go over there herself. After all, not wanting to deal with the Russians is not a good enough reason to not put pressure on them to release their citizenship, once they acquire it. This isn't just a minor thing - this is about the lives of two innocent kids.

We're so glad to have Diana. What would we do if we were going through just about any other agency? We'd hear "So we have this delay... We have to wait till they settle it over there. Sorry." But not with Diana. Diana is a real force... She adopted from the Soviet Union when she was in her 20's! She's a tough lady. And she's determined. And she understands how we feel. So what Melonie said in the comments on the last post is true. Diana will stop at nothing.

So on Monday, Diana has a lot of questions for Signe. Exactly how long will it take to get their citizenship (Signe currently says "Should be by the end of Sept.")? Once that's done, how long will it take for the kids to relinquish their citizenship, pending their American adoption and citizenship, or alternatively how long will it take for the Russian Embassy in Estonia to release them? Then how long after that will everything be completely final so we can have our court hearing?

Hopefully she'll find out the answers on Monday. But we're all prepared for an "I don't know, let me find out and I'll get back to you..." and no news every day for who knows how long.

Anyway, as far as how we're doing, we're holding on! We're not giving up, no matter what it takes. The kids deserve to come here and we promised them that we would come back for them no matter what. I told Diana that if we weren't so attached to the kids, we'd give up. It's just too difficult. But we are attached to them, so we will go as far as we have to to get them. We'll hire a lawyer. We'll write to the Estonian president (after all he seems like a really endearing man. He looks like a high school principal. And to listen to him speak English, you'd swear he was American. Not even an accent.). We'll get on the O'Reilly Factor!! LOL

So we're surviving, though bound to uncertainty and fierce determination.

What a mess.

Talk to you all soon.
Love,
Molly

D is for Disaster.

You know that saying "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"? Well, I used to the be the kind of person who would say things like that. If you ever wondered what kind of event could possibly make a terminally positive and optimistic person suddenly feel like it's pointless... well, wonder no more! And also know that if you're trying to do something to make a difference in someone's life, you're going to be stopped at every step by some unfair, evil technicality.

Today we found out, instead of hearing about a court date, that we're in for a delay of completely unknown length because of yet another thing that "has never happened before." The kids' mother chose to have Russian citizenship, so the kids don't have Estonian citizenship, but they also don't have Russian citizenship because they were born in Estonia. Recently (of course) there has become an issue with kids with no citizenship to any country being adopted. Which means, now that they know this and now that it's a problem, the kids have to apply for Russian citizenship and then turn around and renounce it, or get released by Russia to be adopted through Estonia.

Sparing you some of the grueling details... When Diana found this out, she demanded that this be taken care of immediately with no dragging of feet because we've already previewed and waited 4 months to bring them home, and the kids are expecting to come home soon. So it's not like they can just start working on it, being diplomatic because of tension between Estonia and Russia, because it's just not acceptable to do this to them. Or to us for that matter - we deserve for something to go right and on-time for a change!!! Diana said she would do whatever it takes to get this taken care of. She assures us that this does not mean that the adoption will not go through. Of course now at this point, with all of the things that have gone wrong, that we kind of feel obligated to prepare for anything. But at this point we don't know how long it's going to take. A month? 10 months? Don't know. We should know more next week.

I asked why they couldn't have taken care of this years ago... The answer: it was never an issue until RECENTLY. Signe (the main lady at the Ministry of Social Affairs in Tallinn) said she just found out about this within the last few days.

What's weird is I was all positive and optimistic that things would work out fine, we'd get a court date in September, etc.... But then, all of a sudden a few days ago like I hit a brick wall, all that changed. I suddenly got a bad feeling, started crying all the time, saying that who knows when we'll be going, no one over there cares about the kids, we're just names on paper, everything goes wrong for us with the adoption processes, it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair... Bitter, angry, frustrated, sick, depressed... Nothing like my normal personality. I've never been that way for more than 10 seconds at a time in my whole life. Strangely this started right when Diana and Signe started becoming aware of a possible problem. But I didn't know about the problem. All I knew is that we hadn't received our court-generated document yet, and that's unusual. And this must be why. The kids have no citizenship and suddenly need one in order to be adopted!! Doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense. They have to have a citizenship so they can get rid of it immediately. Stupid rules and paperwork crap!

So finding out all this today basically made me feel justified in all the emotions I've been having, which means I'm only a little bit more distraught than I was to start with this week. I was almost expecting something like this, and Jason was too. I could just feel something going wrong.

Diana says that she really doesn't think it's going to be that long before this is resolved. Signe said they should have their Russian citizenship this month (I don't know why THAT part works fast supposedly but it takes 4 stinking months, or more, to schedule a stinking court date!!!), but we don't know how long it will take for Russia to release them or for them to renounce their citizenship officially.

We're considering going to visit the kids if we find out it's going to take a long time. If it's only going to be a month or two, we'll just wait I guess. But we can't go much longer than that without seeing them. Even though we'll all have to deal with the pain of leaving again, it's just too unbearable to be separated much longer.

I can only recall feeling this way ever before when it preceded a great sigh of relief, realizing it was just a bad dream.

Pray for our sanity and the kids to hang in there when they find out. God, they are going to be so upset.

Love,
Molly

When is my due date again?

We sent an email back to the kids saying that now that it's September hopefully things will start happening and we hope we will be there this month to come get them. They wrote back and said "We will wait for you, but hurry, we are waiting you." (Or as Diana translated it into conversational English: "Just hurry, we are waiting for you.") :) We feel bad that they are disappointed and unhappy that they aren't there, but we're glad that it's still important to them. It's tough for all of us to be patient! I hope they understand that it's not us being slow!

At this point we're not getting a Sept. date if we don't hear by I guess the end of next week. So it seems like a long shot now that we're getting close and nothing has happened. Melonie compared it to being past your due date with pregnancy. I guess it's like that - don't know when it's going to happen, seems like it never will, but you know it has to. Can't stay the same forever!

In the meantime, I'm having weird mood swings, not feeling well, tired and weird food cravings... Hmm...

Just trying to scare you. Ha hahahahaha!

Love,
Molly