Hey, it's Adam's first post!

This week we have completed our paperwork for the local Social Worker, except we are still going through a few medical appointments. At the same time though, the social worker is being super-helpful and letting us go through the homestudy interview process. Pam and I have our individual appointments all set.

We have received tons of donations that will be going to the Russian orphanage. We also went to the Mic Mac Mall Zellers clearance sale yesterday and bought out a bunch of shoes, since we heard that the orphanages are sometimes short shoes (which makes sense, because shoes aren't something that people donate much...). Which means we now have these:

We also bought one of these on a great sale:

And tonight I also posted our announcement of adoption on facebook for those who we hadn't told early in the process (hi new people!).

Tonight we sent the first of our paperwork to the agency in Toronto too - Pam is excited - she always loves mailing things:

After all the time we spent trying, it's awesome (and a little weird) to be making actual recognizable progress towards getting a child!

Oh, and the cats were very well behaved getting their shots tonight. Good job little guys!

First Round of Paperwork

. . . . . .  is being handed in tomorrow morning! (With the exception of our medicals).

Adam has an appointment with the doctor tomorrow for another step in his medical clearance, and I'll be picking up another donation tomorrow afternoon.

Also, a nurse I work with gave us a wonderfully large bag of clothes.

Progress!

Donations & Shopping & Fun!

Last night we had a wonderful night.

We got more donations (our second bunch) and again the woman was very nice.

Warm Little Mittens!

Then we went out to do a little window shopping. We need to piece together a child's bedroom after Christmas and we aren't too sure what we want, so we took a little look around. And I couldn't resist buying a couple little items that we will need no matter what.

 

And then we had a wonderful dinner at my favourite restaurant to celebrate my birthday last week. And I got presents! Adam lavished me with a beautiful card, day at the spa and a calender of Russia! 

 

Today we had a early morning blood work (*yawn*) follow by another appointment with our doctor for forms. In between, however, we managed to slip in a nice breakfast. Adam was tired and playful.

And then I (Pam) spent 4 hours (yup, 4) working on a questionnaire for the home study. 

So far so good here!

Orphanage Donations!

One thing that adoptive parents will often do when adopting from Russia is gather items for an orphanage donation.

These items can be (but ofcourse are not limited to):

• Warm Clothing
• Shoes
• Snow pants, snowsuits and winter jackets
• Hats, mittens

Another couple over at Adding A Burden have identified the following as the most needed items:

• Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Advil
• Neosporin and Benadryl Skin Cream
• Expectorants and Antihistamines
• Disinfectants
• Children’s Allergy Medicines
• Multi-Vitamins
• First Aid Dressing Materials
• Desitin

So Adam and I decided to put an ad on Kijiji asking for donations of clothing. You can see the add here.

Well, we asked and someone already answered! A lovely lady with a new baby at home got in touch offering us some warm clothes that her Little One has already out grown or hasn't worn. We went over tonight to pick the items up and when we got home and opened the bag we were shocked at her generosity!

And look at this adorable moose hat! I would love to keep it for our Little One but it would be too small. So we'll take it to Russia as a little token of Canada!

Perhaps Aunty could make one . . . ?

Also today, I received the 4 (FOUR!!!) original birth certificates I had to order. They have a lot of security features in them and it makes them look so pretty! It doesn't look like a fundamental legal document at all!

Next on the list is paperwork (yes, there's more), blood work on doctor appointments on Thursday and officially registering with our agency!

Medicals For The Whole Family!

Hello everyone!

Part of the paperwork process is getting a lot of medical information on paper and having your physician sign off on it.

In our case, being Nova Scotians adopting from Russia with a Ontarian adoption agency there is a lot of forms needed!

First thing - the basics!

So, being as we very rarely have time off at the same time, we both booked a vacation day on my birthday. And what's a more special way to celebrate a *cough* 29th *cough* birthday than to get needles!

(I get a laugh out of this pic!)

So we are all up to date with our shots now, and only need to get the one for Cholera & Traveller's Diarrhea within a couple weeks of travel. We also got a great deal of reference material that has some good info it for international travel.

 

And then it was off to meet a friend for coffee at Tim Horton's. They always have great fun with us and on this day we stuck on Adam!

Our next medical appointment was with our family doctor. As it turns out getting this paperwork finished up will take 3 appointments each, plus blood work in between (which takes about 2 weeks to come back). So we hope to have that completed by the end of the month.

But for fun, here's a pic of Adam on the exam table :)

And for the other members of the family, they have an appointment for shots next week! As you can tell, they are thrilled . . .

November!!!

It's November! Yay!

Also, it's Adoption Awareness Month!