As many of you may have heard, Russia is once again in a crisis moment around the issue of US adoptions. It is a difficult thing to completely explain, but it really boils down to some basic facts about how Russia (and most Russians) feel about having their native children adoted by families outside of Russia. I know many people who think that Russia should be glad to have qualified and vetted people willing to take their orphans out of their orphanages. But we should also consider the Russian point of view. These are Russian children, and even though their parents cannot take care of them, the Russians still believe that Russia is the best place for them, in an orphange, foster home, or adopted by Russian parents. Most Russians would rather that these Russian children stay in their homeland instead of being adopted by foreign parents. There are other more complicated political issues at hand for the time being as well, but that general sentiment is the major basis for this latest attempt at a ban.
I understand both sides of this issue - I understand wanting to keep Russian children in Russia. I do. But I also want every child to have a forever home, and if that cannot happen in his or her home country, then I am all for allowing foreigners to take these children in and make them a part of a family.
So what does this mean for Tanya? I am, very much, in the final steps of this process. My home study is complete, my i-600 (the immigration paperwork for Tanya's visa) is finished - including my federal fingerprints (that came back in 3 weeks, not the anticipated 4-12!). I have some paperwork to complete for my dossier, the agency needs to once again verify Tanya's status, and the referral needs to be completed. After this, I start to travel (3 trips), go to court, and finally bring her home. Once I start travelling, it should only take 2-4 months to actually bring her home. Unless these measures pass the legislatures and the president does not veto them. Then we have no idea how long this could take.
All we can do now is pray. And this is not some small thing. There is hope that Putin will veto anything that passes the legislatures, and up until a few hours ago, it looked like that would happen. Given this latest news conference, it now looks as though he will support the ban on American adoptions. Please pray with me that all this political wrangling comes to an end and things can continue moving on .... just pray.
