August 22

Our little angel (or the one we are praying is our little angel) rolls off the Russian-only registry on August 22nd.  We are praying that no Russians step in and express interest in her so we can travel over to Moscow and meet her sometime after Labor Day.  Everything is going so smoothly ever since we switched that I am waiting for something terrible to happen.  Is that bad?  I think that I am trying to guard my heart, but so much of me wants this little girl to be ours.  Please pray that there are no barriers and that things continue on this course.  God has definitely had His hand all over this path and I am so thankful!

I don't know much more about our little angel.  As I may or may not have discussed on here, another one of the differences in going with Moscow is that the referral is "blind."  That means that we travel over to Russia without any real information or a picture.  Once we get there and meet her, we get her entire medical file (as well as any other information they may have on her such as information about her birth parents, circumstances of her abandonment, etc.)  At first this whole blind referral was a little scary to me, but I have so much peace and so much less anxiety than I had before that it does not bother me at all anymore.  I feel confident that this agency would not refer a child that we could not handle.  They have a Russian pediatrician in Moscow who refers the children from them - a woman who has been in the orphanages and has been evaluating these children since the day they came into the orphanage.  They have not had a referral rejected from this pediatrician in over 3 years.  Pretty good in the adoption world.

So that is where we starnd right now.  On August 22, our Russian adoption team will put in a DOE for her on our behalf, telling the Russian government of our intent to adopt her.  At that point, we will get our travel dates shortly thereafter - usually around 2-3 weeks afterwards.  I am thankful that I have so much stuff going on in these next 16 days - picking up Ward from camp tomorrow, back-to-school get-togethers, haircuts, doctor's appointments, and school starting on the 14th (1st grade and 2nd grade!), just to name a few.  I will post if I hear anything else!  Keep us in your prayers!