Hey everyone!
Well first of all I made Jason promise to upload the camera onto the computer this week so I can appease you all. I don't have any recent pictures on the computer because 1) our computer broke and we just got a new one and 2) the camera memory card holds like 150,000,000,000,000 pictures so sometimes Jason doesn't bother uploading them. And honestly, I don't mess with his fancy camera much so I don't know the way he wants it done. Never come between a man and his Nikon. Sheesh.
Update on everything:
I keep forgetting what I wrote before and what you already know because things change so often. I can't even write all the details. But basically the lawyer (Liina, who is Rutt's partner - Rutt was on vacation last week) found out that a guy she needs to speak to at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who needs to weigh-in on the legal questions, has been out of town. So he's back this week and the lawyer plans to talk to him asap. As I mentioned in my last post, Kersti is supposedly under the impression that the Russian Embassy will not give the kids travel documents after their adoption. She told the lawyers the reason is they will know they are traveling for adoption because their last name will be changed (to ours). Sooooo naturally we came up with a brilliant idea that NO ONE could have EVER thought of in a MILLION years... Why not just NOT CHANGE THEIR NAMES?! Duh. So Kersti said that since no adoptive families ever decide to leave the kids bio names in place, she didn't know if it's possible. Liina explained that the law does not require us to change their names. (Clearly indicated in the "Names" act, of all places.) Liina told me that while Kersti is open minded about some things, she's not so much open minded about what the laws allow. Just because it doesn't say "The family may choose to leave the child's name the same," she's not sure if we're allowed. It just says that we "may" change their first and last names. We don't have to. So to be sure, Kersti is checking with the birth certificate office and the court to make sure that is acceptable.
So today we got an email from Kersti, through Diana, saying that there are other issues with the Embassy. The email wasn't really understandable, but it seems like Kersti has heard from another person somewhere that the Russian Embassy isn't allowing ANY adoptions of Russian children in Estonia without consent from Russia, even if a new husband wants to adopt his wife's child in Estonia. I don't know how that's possible, since that means that the Russian Embassy would be going against all the laws of Estonia to take that kind of authority. Kersti said she doesn't have anything official from the Embassy about all this, though, so it's likely not true or at least that's not all there is to it.
Liina told me today that she also received an email from Kersti that she didn't really understand, so she's going to speak to her tomorrow.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice will soon (as they say) be investigating the laws and replying to the attorney about how the Russian-Estonia bilateral agreement should or should not be applied. I try not to worry about that because the agreement is pretty clear. I don't know how they could misinterpret it also, if they just read it. Hopefully once that is cleared up, then it won't matter whether the Russian Embassy is imposing ridiculous restrictions on the travel and/or adoption of Russian children.
Lots of craziness and frustration and finger pointing going on, and a lot more detail (all of which has already been researched and is very understood by us and the lawyers, so don't worry about telling us all the reasons why Kersti's concerns are totally without any sense at all), but that's basically the deal.
This week we will hopefully hear something from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and hopefully also clear up what in the world is really going on at the Russian Embassy.
Now for Anna news! Anna's doing really well in school, although she occasionally gets in trouble for being silly (talking during class, etc.). Her English is more and more coherent and her sentences are becoming more complete and correct.
She has bad days here and there where she is disrespectful or argumentative, but not often. She bounces out of it with a little help (consequence!) and talking to her about it. She also occasionally white-lies. Like that her teacher told her that we can just TELL her the answers to her math homework. Or she can use a calculator and that's ok too.
She tests us in a new and exciting way sometimes. The other night she completely lost her mind because she had left her bedside lamp on and that meant that she couldn't have her lamp that night. She sometimes sleeps with no light (by choice) and has once before lost her lamp for forgetting to turn it off in the morning. We imposed this rule, by the way, after reminding her a million times and her already burning out a bulb from not turning it off. But this night she went nuts wailing about being afraid of the dark. So we told her (not wanting her to be legitimately terrified) that while we could not give back her night lamp just because she was crying (which would only teach her to wail when she doesn't get her way, whether she's really scared next time or not), that she could leave her ceiling light on that night if she was really scared. She didn't want to do that, because it wasn't the same as the lamp. Which told me that she was only checking to see if she freaks out, if we'll give in. Otherwise she would have jumped at the chance to have ANY light on. After a few minutes, she gave up and agreed to sleep with the ceiling light on, which was off before morning. Naturally she's not forgotten to turn off her lamp since then, and doesn't try crying hysterically to get her way. But you want to know why she tried it? Because there was one time where I let her have one more chance with the lamp instead of making her sleep without it when she was supposed to. She even said "But mom said if I forget two times, then no lamp for one night!" Noooo I did not. But guess what - kids DO, in fact, keep score! LOL
Rest assured, she was not traumatized in the slightest from the experience!
She is slightly traumatized, however, about her beloved Chloe the Hamster, who spontaneously died on Saturday. :( Sad news. For you hamster-experienced people: no, she did not have wet-tail. We don't know what happened to her. Although Jason was tempted to tell her that it was because of having too much light at night. (*Trying not to chuckle*)
That's all the news for now. More soon I hope!
Love,
Molly
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
"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
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
Monday, April 6, 2009
Rutt
So I think we've officially chosen an attorney. We are going with the lady who was the first one to tell us (and the one to tell us in the most detail) about how the bilateral agreement doesn't apply to this adoption. We got an email from her today with an engagement letter we have to sign, along with the amount they'll be charging us. Cheaper than some US attorneys I guess - $220/hour, but we have to prepay 10 hours for a retainer. We're of course happy to do it as long as it works! We feel pretty comfortable with this firm. The attorney we have direct contact with is nice enough, and seems to be very knowledgeable and thorough. Her English is perfect, too. And even though she's the primary contact for the case, it will be her, another attorney and the top partner of the firm who will be working on the case. It's a huge firm - 6 or 7 partners and about 80 attorneys. So it seems like our attorney (who has the nice Estonian first name "Rutt", and looks like she was recruited to law school from a modeling agency, along with all of the other female lawyers in Estonia) has a good amount of support even for things she won't know herself.
Once we can get the payment to them then they will get started, first of all by contacting the MSA. The MSA has a heads up and has promised to give the laywers whatever info they need.
That's all we have on that today... More tomorrow we hope!
Sunday morning we got an email from Katya saying that she was very upset because Roman said he didn't want to go to America anymore. Judging from the tone and content of her email, I told Jason it sounded to me like they got in a fight and Roman just said that to make Katya upset. So we called Katya just to make sure everything was ok and find out what in the world would possess Roman to say that. I was right - they were fighting and Katya was hysterical. Roman said what he thought would get the most reaction out of Katya, and it worked! She was freaking out. So we calmed her down, talked to Roman, who confirmed that he did in fact still want to come. We told them to stop fighting and told Roman not to say that again. Anna was a big help talking to them, too, to help us find out what was happening. She told us after we got off the phone that Roman was mad at Katya and said it only to make her cry. It's sweet, though, that the thing that makes her the most upset is anything having to do with not coming here.
Everything is fine now. Katya's emails this morning say that they are getting along again and Roman agrees to go to America again. LOL In the meantime, it seemed that she understood everything Jason said to her on the phone in English. She was answering him and not being bashful the way she usually is with English. So we exchanged a few emails this morning in English to test her out. She understands and writes English a lot more than she let on. But if you recall, this isn't the first time we caught her knowing more English than she seemed to. :)
We took some more pictures of Anna yesterday that I'll post up asap. She's tall and cute! Everyone comments on her never-ending legs. She's almost 5 feet tall and she's only 9 1/2! Like me, I guess. But she's all legs, for sure.
All for now!
Love,
Molly
Once we can get the payment to them then they will get started, first of all by contacting the MSA. The MSA has a heads up and has promised to give the laywers whatever info they need.
That's all we have on that today... More tomorrow we hope!
Sunday morning we got an email from Katya saying that she was very upset because Roman said he didn't want to go to America anymore. Judging from the tone and content of her email, I told Jason it sounded to me like they got in a fight and Roman just said that to make Katya upset. So we called Katya just to make sure everything was ok and find out what in the world would possess Roman to say that. I was right - they were fighting and Katya was hysterical. Roman said what he thought would get the most reaction out of Katya, and it worked! She was freaking out. So we calmed her down, talked to Roman, who confirmed that he did in fact still want to come. We told them to stop fighting and told Roman not to say that again. Anna was a big help talking to them, too, to help us find out what was happening. She told us after we got off the phone that Roman was mad at Katya and said it only to make her cry. It's sweet, though, that the thing that makes her the most upset is anything having to do with not coming here.
Everything is fine now. Katya's emails this morning say that they are getting along again and Roman agrees to go to America again. LOL In the meantime, it seemed that she understood everything Jason said to her on the phone in English. She was answering him and not being bashful the way she usually is with English. So we exchanged a few emails this morning in English to test her out. She understands and writes English a lot more than she let on. But if you recall, this isn't the first time we caught her knowing more English than she seemed to. :)
We took some more pictures of Anna yesterday that I'll post up asap. She's tall and cute! Everyone comments on her never-ending legs. She's almost 5 feet tall and she's only 9 1/2! Like me, I guess. But she's all legs, for sure.
All for now!
Love,
Molly
Friday, April 3, 2009
And now to Mister Interpret.
Step 1: Success!! The MSA is convinced that we are right. The info from the attorneys has made them believe that our adoption is legal. Diana says that everyone there is totally behind us, wants the adoption to happen, and they will support us. (!!!)
The only obstacle left is the following...
According to the MSA, the judge is the one who said (all those months ago) that Russia needs to provide consent for their adoption. Apparently this is only because of misunderstanding the bilateral agreement. But they believe that if an attorney presented the accurate application of the bilateral agreement to a judge, it has more weight than the MSA presenting it.
So it stands to reason that if several attorneys and the MSA now believe, based on clear law, that the adoption IS legal and the bilateral doesn't apply to us, then maybe just a meeting between an attorney and the judge would fix this all.
There's also a possibility that the case could go to a new judge, who would be presented with the legality of the adoption.
Then there's the possibility that whatever judge is presented with the legal information could still say no, for some unknown reason. In which case the attorney can "absolutely" (according to Diana) help find a judge who would allow the adoption.
So everyone's recommendation is that we have the attorney we choose take care of this situation with "the" and/or "a" judge. A lawyer can hopefully get somewhere quicker, and more effectively, than everyone else.
See, if they just told us what the problem was all along, we could have done this months ago! But it's impossible to get any questions answered. Once we found out that they believed that 1) the Hague was requiring this craziness, and then 2) that the bilateral agreement is requiring this craziness, it took us just a few days to find out that there really is no problem.
I regret being another one to make reference to television shows, I guess Dr. House is correct: If something doesn't make sense, then one of your assumptions must be wrong.
We're just so glad that the problem is NOT whether or not the Hague supersedes the bilateral, or something even more complex. It is simple: The bilateral agreement "might" require consent from Russia, but it does not apply anyway to adoptions where the adoptive parents are not citizens of the contracting parties - Russia and Estonia.
More on Monday, when we speak to the attorneys again... But for now, be excited with us! This amount of progress usually takes months! Now we just have to jitter all weekend until we can continue.
:))))
Molly
The only obstacle left is the following...
According to the MSA, the judge is the one who said (all those months ago) that Russia needs to provide consent for their adoption. Apparently this is only because of misunderstanding the bilateral agreement. But they believe that if an attorney presented the accurate application of the bilateral agreement to a judge, it has more weight than the MSA presenting it.
So it stands to reason that if several attorneys and the MSA now believe, based on clear law, that the adoption IS legal and the bilateral doesn't apply to us, then maybe just a meeting between an attorney and the judge would fix this all.
There's also a possibility that the case could go to a new judge, who would be presented with the legality of the adoption.
Then there's the possibility that whatever judge is presented with the legal information could still say no, for some unknown reason. In which case the attorney can "absolutely" (according to Diana) help find a judge who would allow the adoption.
So everyone's recommendation is that we have the attorney we choose take care of this situation with "the" and/or "a" judge. A lawyer can hopefully get somewhere quicker, and more effectively, than everyone else.
See, if they just told us what the problem was all along, we could have done this months ago! But it's impossible to get any questions answered. Once we found out that they believed that 1) the Hague was requiring this craziness, and then 2) that the bilateral agreement is requiring this craziness, it took us just a few days to find out that there really is no problem.
I regret being another one to make reference to television shows, I guess Dr. House is correct: If something doesn't make sense, then one of your assumptions must be wrong.
We're just so glad that the problem is NOT whether or not the Hague supersedes the bilateral, or something even more complex. It is simple: The bilateral agreement "might" require consent from Russia, but it does not apply anyway to adoptions where the adoptive parents are not citizens of the contracting parties - Russia and Estonia.
More on Monday, when we speak to the attorneys again... But for now, be excited with us! This amount of progress usually takes months! Now we just have to jitter all weekend until we can continue.
:))))
Molly
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Miss Interpret works in Estonia.
OK Peanuts! Here is the latest, with even a little breaking news as of a couple hours ago. So none of you have to be the last-person-who-hears-everything!
Where do I begin...
Who spends their spare time reading through the HAGUE CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AND CO-OPERATION IN RESPECT OF INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION? Well, Jason sat down and read the whole thing. Guess what he found? Nothing. Well actually it was lots of pages of stuff, but nothing that requires Estonia to ask consent from Russia for the kids to be adopted. There was one tiny section that we thought might be misunderstood to make the MSA think they needed consent from Russia, but if you look at the context of two or three sentences together, it is talking about getting consent from people in Estonia, like biological parents, etc. In fact the entire convention says nothing about citizenship or consent from any other country. It always refers to children as "habitual residents" of a country, not citizens. Probably because the thing was written in the first place in order to protect children, knowing that there would be times where a child technically has citizenship of one country, but RESIDES in another. And the countries may not be friends. So to allow for these children to still have families, the convention allows for their adoption AS IS.
Yet the MSA wrote to the MOE (Russia) saying they needed their consent based on the regulations of the Hague convention. Why would they do that when 1) the Hague doesn't require it and 2) Russian's NOT EVEN A HAGUE CONVENTION COUNTRY!!!??? The only answer is that they misinterpreted the convention.
So we sent all of our research to Diana (about 4 pages worth) of excerpts from the convention, proving that the adoption is allowed under it. Diana called me and said she completely agreed, that the research we did was totally solid, and she forwarded it to Kersti (at the MSA) for a response.
A week later (after noise from us still, don't worry!) Kersti wrote back to Diana saying basically that the MSA legal department was looking into it and said that they aren't sure if the adoption should be processed under the Hague or under this other bilateral agreement between Estonia and Russia. They believe that this other agreement has more authority than the Hague. So I guess that means that they agree that the Hague allows the adoption, but that this bilateral agreement requires consent from Russia to adopt their citizens through Estonia.
In the meantime, we were witnesses of at least two other examples of the MSA grossly misapplying articles in the Hague convention. So why wouldn't they also be misunderstanding this other bilateral agreement? On top of that, why would ANYTHING supersede the Hague convention, when its sole purpose is to regulate international adoption and prevent countries from allowing things that the convention forbids? At the very least, the two international treaties would have equal weight in Estonia, since they signed them both. The bilateral would not have more authority than the Hague. But only one should apply to this, if they contradict, right? And if this bilateral agreement was so much more important than the Hague convention, why wasn't THAT the authority cited in the letter to the MOE instead of the Hague?
The research continued. We started contacting attorneys in Estonia. (Note: we have been told lots of times (not by Diana) that when dealing with Estonia that the best thing to do is to keep quiet and not ask questions. Obviously that doesn't work for us, so a small amount of aggression is now required.)
During this research we've talked directly to several attorneys, more than one person at the DOS in Washington regarding the Hague vs. the bilateral agreement, and other people. We've also used Kathy (who I'm sure you all are familiar with as one of the loudest peanuts on the comments section! Thanks Kathy! ;) ) as a human version of a Google search bar to help us research certain things on the internet.
We finally found out during our research what this bilateral agreement was called and got a hold of it. The Estonian to English translation is terrible and very hard to understand. There are two things interesting about it though. One is that the internet says it was terminated in 2005. So is it even still in force? We can't get an answer to that one yet. The other thing is that it seems (in reading the bad translation over and over) that in the adoption sections, that it only applies to domestic adoption within Estonia or Russia, not international where the kids are going outside Estonia or Russia. But what do I know?
So this morning we got an email from another attorney. Some attorneys write and say basically "We'd be glad to help, this is how you send us money." Others write and give their opinion right away. This is what this one said:
"The constitution of Estonia states that if laws or other legislation of Estonia are in conflict with international treaties ratified by the Estonian parliament, then the provisions of the international treaty shall apply.
However, the text of the bilateral agreement with Russia refers to a situation where the child is the citizen of one of the parties to the agreement (Estonia or Russia) and the adopter is the citizen of the other party (correspondingly Russia or Estonia). In the present case (as I understand) the adopters are citizens of a third party country."
I called this attorney right away to clarify that this means that in our adoption, the Hague convention would apply to us, and the bilateral would not. Reason being that the kids are not being adopted to Estonian citizens, so this is an international matter not covered by the bilateral and would therefore fall under the HAGUE!!!
One other note on top of that... The bilateral doesn't say they need consent from the other country. It says that if their family law requires it, then they need consent. Who knows if Russia's family law even requires it?
So the bottom line is that there is plenty of evidence that the Estonians can, should, and are protected by the Hague enough to allow this adoption, and that the Russians won't come blow them up for it.
Now do you see why I've had no time to write? Between reading two international treaties in three languages and talking to attorneys who speak five languages, and proving a government authority wrong, I'm swamped!
I'll keep you posted on their responses. Might take awhile. They "look into things" usually for at least several days. The good news is that there have been other times where Estonia insisted on something and then suddenly changed their mind when they got new information. We shall seeeeee....
Love,
Molly
PS- Katya and Roman's spirits are more up lately. Anna Valentina says that they carry pictures around of us to show to people, and that other kids are envious of their great parents. LOL We all want to be together so badly. Soon, we hope.
Where do I begin...
Who spends their spare time reading through the HAGUE CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AND CO-OPERATION IN RESPECT OF INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION? Well, Jason sat down and read the whole thing. Guess what he found? Nothing. Well actually it was lots of pages of stuff, but nothing that requires Estonia to ask consent from Russia for the kids to be adopted. There was one tiny section that we thought might be misunderstood to make the MSA think they needed consent from Russia, but if you look at the context of two or three sentences together, it is talking about getting consent from people in Estonia, like biological parents, etc. In fact the entire convention says nothing about citizenship or consent from any other country. It always refers to children as "habitual residents" of a country, not citizens. Probably because the thing was written in the first place in order to protect children, knowing that there would be times where a child technically has citizenship of one country, but RESIDES in another. And the countries may not be friends. So to allow for these children to still have families, the convention allows for their adoption AS IS.
Yet the MSA wrote to the MOE (Russia) saying they needed their consent based on the regulations of the Hague convention. Why would they do that when 1) the Hague doesn't require it and 2) Russian's NOT EVEN A HAGUE CONVENTION COUNTRY!!!??? The only answer is that they misinterpreted the convention.
So we sent all of our research to Diana (about 4 pages worth) of excerpts from the convention, proving that the adoption is allowed under it. Diana called me and said she completely agreed, that the research we did was totally solid, and she forwarded it to Kersti (at the MSA) for a response.
A week later (after noise from us still, don't worry!) Kersti wrote back to Diana saying basically that the MSA legal department was looking into it and said that they aren't sure if the adoption should be processed under the Hague or under this other bilateral agreement between Estonia and Russia. They believe that this other agreement has more authority than the Hague. So I guess that means that they agree that the Hague allows the adoption, but that this bilateral agreement requires consent from Russia to adopt their citizens through Estonia.
In the meantime, we were witnesses of at least two other examples of the MSA grossly misapplying articles in the Hague convention. So why wouldn't they also be misunderstanding this other bilateral agreement? On top of that, why would ANYTHING supersede the Hague convention, when its sole purpose is to regulate international adoption and prevent countries from allowing things that the convention forbids? At the very least, the two international treaties would have equal weight in Estonia, since they signed them both. The bilateral would not have more authority than the Hague. But only one should apply to this, if they contradict, right? And if this bilateral agreement was so much more important than the Hague convention, why wasn't THAT the authority cited in the letter to the MOE instead of the Hague?
The research continued. We started contacting attorneys in Estonia. (Note: we have been told lots of times (not by Diana) that when dealing with Estonia that the best thing to do is to keep quiet and not ask questions. Obviously that doesn't work for us, so a small amount of aggression is now required.)
During this research we've talked directly to several attorneys, more than one person at the DOS in Washington regarding the Hague vs. the bilateral agreement, and other people. We've also used Kathy (who I'm sure you all are familiar with as one of the loudest peanuts on the comments section! Thanks Kathy! ;) ) as a human version of a Google search bar to help us research certain things on the internet.
We finally found out during our research what this bilateral agreement was called and got a hold of it. The Estonian to English translation is terrible and very hard to understand. There are two things interesting about it though. One is that the internet says it was terminated in 2005. So is it even still in force? We can't get an answer to that one yet. The other thing is that it seems (in reading the bad translation over and over) that in the adoption sections, that it only applies to domestic adoption within Estonia or Russia, not international where the kids are going outside Estonia or Russia. But what do I know?
So this morning we got an email from another attorney. Some attorneys write and say basically "We'd be glad to help, this is how you send us money." Others write and give their opinion right away. This is what this one said:
"The constitution of Estonia states that if laws or other legislation of Estonia are in conflict with international treaties ratified by the Estonian parliament, then the provisions of the international treaty shall apply.
However, the text of the bilateral agreement with Russia refers to a situation where the child is the citizen of one of the parties to the agreement (Estonia or Russia) and the adopter is the citizen of the other party (correspondingly Russia or Estonia). In the present case (as I understand) the adopters are citizens of a third party country."
I called this attorney right away to clarify that this means that in our adoption, the Hague convention would apply to us, and the bilateral would not. Reason being that the kids are not being adopted to Estonian citizens, so this is an international matter not covered by the bilateral and would therefore fall under the HAGUE!!!
One other note on top of that... The bilateral doesn't say they need consent from the other country. It says that if their family law requires it, then they need consent. Who knows if Russia's family law even requires it?
So the bottom line is that there is plenty of evidence that the Estonians can, should, and are protected by the Hague enough to allow this adoption, and that the Russians won't come blow them up for it.
Now do you see why I've had no time to write? Between reading two international treaties in three languages and talking to attorneys who speak five languages, and proving a government authority wrong, I'm swamped!
I'll keep you posted on their responses. Might take awhile. They "look into things" usually for at least several days. The good news is that there have been other times where Estonia insisted on something and then suddenly changed their mind when they got new information. We shall seeeeee....
Love,
Molly
PS- Katya and Roman's spirits are more up lately. Anna Valentina says that they carry pictures around of us to show to people, and that other kids are envious of their great parents. LOL We all want to be together so badly. Soon, we hope.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ego boost from the Peanut Gallery
I don't recall ever seeing the Peanut Gallery on tv personally, so I guess I am too young for that. In fact my brother, who is 10 years my senior, told me on a couple of occasions when we were younger that I was, in fact, the peanut gallery. It was he who first tried to convince me of its existence. But now I can see that it does, in fact, exist in the comments section of this blog! Evidence at last!! :)
Thank you, though, to all you PG participants, for making me feel needed and demanded once again. I'm thoroughly apologetic that I have neglected you all for nearly a month! I can't hardly believe it. Time has just flown the last few weeks.
This is our busiest time of year with work, on top of the relatively smooth adjustments with Anna (which is what I'll try to remember to call her from here on out since we are the only ones who call her Nastja and only at home). She is doing really well, learns more English all the time, and really loves it here. She has a lot of friends and is very social. We went to a party for a family member of Jason's in NJ so all of Jason's Dad's side of the family got to meet Anna. Everyone was enamored with her and she went all over the room showing everyone pictures of her with DogDog, and Katya and Roman. She loves attention, and is actually very easily made jealous. So we have to frequently talk to her about that.
She has gotten good at accepting discipline and counsel from us. If she gets the impression that we're really upset with her, more than usual, she will get a panicked look on her face and start apologizing. That is a big change from the beginning, when she acted like she didn't care too much if she was in trouble. She does tend to hide her emotions somewhat, though. We're glad to see signs of that changing. Sometimes she gets upset missing her sister and Katya and Roman, and it's nice to see her show those feelings sometimes, so that she's not bottling them up.
She talks to Anja every week on the phone and tells her about all the dogs we've had here for training, all the fun she's having and the new food she's tried, and the new English she's learned. I hear her sometimes say English words instead of Russian accidentally in conversation. Once when she called Katya, the person who answered spoke Estonian and English, not Russian. So she had to say "Please can I speak to Katya?" It was cute.
We have been taking lots of pictures of her. I'll post some soon.
It's still very tough not having Katya and Roman here. The family is just not complete yet. Katya sent us an email yesterday that basically said that she is very sad sometimes that she's not with us, and that she was crying a lot. She said Roman tried to calm her down, and everyone was saying "don't cry, don't cry", but she couldn't stop because she isn't with us. She ended by saying that she doesn't want us to be sad, though. It was a very sweet but heart wrenching email. We feel so bad for them, they don't deserve to have to wait anymore! They have a great attitude and they never give up, though. We get long emails from them almost every day. It's amazing how communication with them has changed over the months. They used to often send very short emails and not always this often. Now they are more detailed and long, and constant.
We haven't heard anything new, other than that the MOE promised they'd write the letter but they just "need more time." In the meantime, the documents from their file (birth certs, etc.) were translated into Russian and sent to Dmitry, just in case the Russians later want them we don't have to wait longer to get those translated. Dmitry was to take those in to the MOE this week and "check on movement." We have thought of and asked about and tried everything that can possibly be thought of and asked about and tried to make this go faster. But apparently that's just not the way it works there. They'll do it when they feel like it, and they'll ask for money when they feel like it. I don't know if Dmitry is trying to get them to mention $ amounts or not, and if he isn't, why not. Diana says he knows how the system works and he will do what is the most likely thing to work. So we just have to wait. Diana is checking in with Dmitry constantly, so unfortunately we're still just stuck here waiting, and the kids are stuck waiting. As long as they get here, though, that's all that really matters.
So now I think you're all pretty much up to date. I'll do my best to write more often again so you guys don't get all up-in-arms. :) Thanks for the shoves, though!! We're off to a roller skating party.
Love,
Molly
Thank you, though, to all you PG participants, for making me feel needed and demanded once again. I'm thoroughly apologetic that I have neglected you all for nearly a month! I can't hardly believe it. Time has just flown the last few weeks.
This is our busiest time of year with work, on top of the relatively smooth adjustments with Anna (which is what I'll try to remember to call her from here on out since we are the only ones who call her Nastja and only at home). She is doing really well, learns more English all the time, and really loves it here. She has a lot of friends and is very social. We went to a party for a family member of Jason's in NJ so all of Jason's Dad's side of the family got to meet Anna. Everyone was enamored with her and she went all over the room showing everyone pictures of her with DogDog, and Katya and Roman. She loves attention, and is actually very easily made jealous. So we have to frequently talk to her about that.
She has gotten good at accepting discipline and counsel from us. If she gets the impression that we're really upset with her, more than usual, she will get a panicked look on her face and start apologizing. That is a big change from the beginning, when she acted like she didn't care too much if she was in trouble. She does tend to hide her emotions somewhat, though. We're glad to see signs of that changing. Sometimes she gets upset missing her sister and Katya and Roman, and it's nice to see her show those feelings sometimes, so that she's not bottling them up.
She talks to Anja every week on the phone and tells her about all the dogs we've had here for training, all the fun she's having and the new food she's tried, and the new English she's learned. I hear her sometimes say English words instead of Russian accidentally in conversation. Once when she called Katya, the person who answered spoke Estonian and English, not Russian. So she had to say "Please can I speak to Katya?" It was cute.
We have been taking lots of pictures of her. I'll post some soon.
It's still very tough not having Katya and Roman here. The family is just not complete yet. Katya sent us an email yesterday that basically said that she is very sad sometimes that she's not with us, and that she was crying a lot. She said Roman tried to calm her down, and everyone was saying "don't cry, don't cry", but she couldn't stop because she isn't with us. She ended by saying that she doesn't want us to be sad, though. It was a very sweet but heart wrenching email. We feel so bad for them, they don't deserve to have to wait anymore! They have a great attitude and they never give up, though. We get long emails from them almost every day. It's amazing how communication with them has changed over the months. They used to often send very short emails and not always this often. Now they are more detailed and long, and constant.
We haven't heard anything new, other than that the MOE promised they'd write the letter but they just "need more time." In the meantime, the documents from their file (birth certs, etc.) were translated into Russian and sent to Dmitry, just in case the Russians later want them we don't have to wait longer to get those translated. Dmitry was to take those in to the MOE this week and "check on movement." We have thought of and asked about and tried everything that can possibly be thought of and asked about and tried to make this go faster. But apparently that's just not the way it works there. They'll do it when they feel like it, and they'll ask for money when they feel like it. I don't know if Dmitry is trying to get them to mention $ amounts or not, and if he isn't, why not. Diana says he knows how the system works and he will do what is the most likely thing to work. So we just have to wait. Diana is checking in with Dmitry constantly, so unfortunately we're still just stuck here waiting, and the kids are stuck waiting. As long as they get here, though, that's all that really matters.
So now I think you're all pretty much up to date. I'll do my best to write more often again so you guys don't get all up-in-arms. :) Thanks for the shoves, though!! We're off to a roller skating party.
Love,
Molly
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Can't think of a good title. Sorry!
Hi! No real news to report. Nastja (Anna) is doing well. She is doing great in school and seems to really like it. She's learning English quickly and responds well to direction and guidance from us on misbehavior. :) She's a sweet girl! Today we had her spend 20 minutes writing down all the things she has to be grateful for because of being here and having been adopted, things that she would go without if she were still in Estonia. We did that because she gave us a hard time about sending Katya and Roman coloring books and a bag of candy without also buying her something during that same trip to the store. She didn't seem to understand at first that she has a lot more than they do, even though we are sending them a big bag of candy. I think she understands now, after we were able to explain in more detail and have her write the paper. I have to get it translated, but it looks like it's nice, with a lot of "love" and smilies on it.
Only news we have on Katya and Roman came from Diana on Saturday. She's furiously annoyed also that the letter from Russia has not been done yet, though she's not that surprised. She's getting really frustrated and basically let her sentiments be known to Dmitry. He said that the MOE has "promised" that they will do it, they just haven't had a chance yet. I hope those were actually their words. It's something at least. He said he would follow up with them again this week. So unfortunately, as much as all the go-getters in the family hate to do, we can do nothing but continue waiting.
In the meantime we talked to the kids on Saturday, still receive constant emails from them, and Nastja talked to them on the phone yesterday also. Katya said she has been reading a book about Jesus that we gave her, called "Learn from the Great Teacher." :)) She really does seem to truly appreciate everything we give her, it's so sweet.
Anyway, Katya and Roman once again send their love and greetings to everyone.
More soon I hope!
Love,
Molly
Only news we have on Katya and Roman came from Diana on Saturday. She's furiously annoyed also that the letter from Russia has not been done yet, though she's not that surprised. She's getting really frustrated and basically let her sentiments be known to Dmitry. He said that the MOE has "promised" that they will do it, they just haven't had a chance yet. I hope those were actually their words. It's something at least. He said he would follow up with them again this week. So unfortunately, as much as all the go-getters in the family hate to do, we can do nothing but continue waiting.
In the meantime we talked to the kids on Saturday, still receive constant emails from them, and Nastja talked to them on the phone yesterday also. Katya said she has been reading a book about Jesus that we gave her, called "Learn from the Great Teacher." :)) She really does seem to truly appreciate everything we give her, it's so sweet.
Anyway, Katya and Roman once again send their love and greetings to everyone.
More soon I hope!
Love,
Molly
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