Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Stalled out 12/20/2004

Our documents are currently being held by Customs in Kiev. “Shipment Exception” is the status listing at Fed-Ex tracking with the details being shown as: “Regulatory agency clearance delay.”

This is probably not unusual. When I traveled to Russia for the very first time in 1992 I made the mistake of leaving one of the zipper compartments on one of my suitcases unlocked. When I received my luggage in the states, all the contents from that section were gone, including the extra suitcase strap! I have since always made sure everything is locked up tight!

In this case, they will probably open our package, read all the contents, hopefully determine there is nothing illegal, espionage-related, or that they themselves can benefit from, and release it for delivery. Thankfully there are no checks or other monies in the package!

Now that you, my readers, have a better idea of how the system works over there, I am accepting suggestions for the best response to the question: “When will you get to travel to adopt your child?” as I get asked this question several times each week and need a better answer than ” I don’t know, maybe April or May” since it feels now like it could be anywhere between April, 2005 and December 2008. The Christian cliché answer is that we’ll get L.T. “in God’s timing”, and I really do know that and even believe it! But surely there is something I can say to people to get them to understand that the system in Ukraine is inconsistent at best and further delays are not only possible, but likely. So, bring on the suggestions, ’cause I really need a good laugh today!

Adoption Process – Week 19 12/15/2004

I could practically have copied and pasted this post from Week 17…

Really, though, it’s good news: the documents which will complete our dossier are on their way to Kiev as of today! Yes, the FBI received our fingerprints on Friday and completed processing them on Monday. They were mailed from WV yesterday and received in AZ today. I can’t imagine the government of any other country in the world procssing official requests like that with such speed and efficiency! I then took the clearances along with letters from AZ DPS explaining the stupid laws we have here (ok, concession here, our country and states are far from perfect) and got them all apostilled by the AZ Secretary of State – I was in and out in under ten minutes and the cost was $3 per document. These items then all got stuffed (gently) into an International Fed-Ex shipment to Ukraine, which will take a few days to get there.

Assuming, hmm, that’s almost never a good thing to do, and something I’ve been doing far too much of lately, but assuming it is received when expected – namely Saturday – it should be submitted to the adoption center next week barring some freakish problem. So, please pray against any freakish problems, okay?

Poisoned by Dioxin! 12/13/2004

It was proven by specialists in Vienna over this past weekend that Yushchenko, opposition candidate in Ukraine, was in fact poisoned last summer and didn’t just eat some bad sushi as the supporters of current president Leonid Kuchma have argued. This link (scroll halfway down the page) contains the before and after pictures from the poisoning. Evidently his internal organs looked much like his face.

It is so hard for me to fathom how anyone could intentionally do this to another human being!

The Orange Revolution 12/10/2004

Here is a convenient timeline for those who still have no idea what the hoopla in Ukraine is all about.

Adoption Process – Week 18

Well, there’s good news and bad news this week.

First, the good news: Our dossier made it to Ukraine and into the hands of our facilitator!

The bad news: He says that the National Adoption Center in Kiev will not accept the criminal clearance letters because they are issued on County Supreme Court Letterhead rather than on STATE letterhead. Unfortunately, there are laws on the books in Arizona that prohibit anyone representing the State itself from issuing criminal records information even if asked to do so by the citizen. So even though the letters are completely official, contain the required language, “so and so is cleared AT THE STATE LEVEL in Arizona”, and are signed by a Judge, our facilitator says they will be rejected immediately.

The solution: We have to get another fingerprint clearance by the FBI, which covers ALL states, and submit that in conjunction with a letter from Arizona DPS explaining why the state cannot provide the information being requested and that the FBI clearance does provide the necessary information.

Hoop-jumping at its most spectacular.

Our consolation prize: Somehow, Cheri managed to track down some folks at the FBI processing center in Clarksburg, WV who told us how to indicate our need for urgency on our fingerprint processing request, and one of them called me a couple hours after receiving our request. What is normally a 4-6 week process should be reduced to just a few days.

…or so we’ve been told. I have no reason to think otherwise, but I’m learning the hard way not to get my heart set on particular dates or timelines. We’ll submit our dossier to the adoption center when we’re meant to, and we’ll pray that they don’t take issue with anything in it. Then we’ll pray through the next step in the process. One…slow…step…at…a…time.