On January 30th 2013

It's hard to believe it was a year ago...
Although we were tired from the flights and the 9 hour layover, it wasn't easy to sleep the night of the 29th.  After a quick breakfast and a 2 hour snowy drive, we would finally meet her...
I took these three pictures with and sent them to our family and friends.

Looking for the stork... Take 2

It's hard to believe a year ago today we were packing for our trip to Hungary.  I spent countless hours packing, repacking, weighing suitcases.  We even had a plan to slip one more piece of luggage by the gate checkers.  There was no way we could pack 2 adults, 1 baby of indeterminate size, stroller and car seat in the luggage allotment for 2 adults.  Chris planned to push the empty stroller up to gate check alone hoping the handlers would assume baby was with mom.  Luckily, the ticket checkers at Aeroflot let us check everything- after a panicked "where's the baby!" from the attendant, we explained we were going to get her and everything was checked.  (Though they broke the car seat in cargo.)

Well, here we go again!
Last week we met with a social worker for adoption number two.  We planned to adopt from foster care domestically.  We are requesting a child under 4, so our pumpkin stays the oldest child. 
When meeting with the social worker, he indicated we would be well suited, as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), to the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor  program (URM).  This program identifies children who have lost one or both parents administered through the United Nations; who cannot be cared for in their home countries due to instability, natural disaster or war.  The children are granted special visas and come into the domestic foster care system.  You can read more about it from the US Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that overseas the program's administration. 
They have seen an increasing number of referrals for this program and hope to find more families to adopt them.  Families must complete foster care parenting and additional trainings. 
We will start our training in a few months, the paperwork has begun.  We won't know if the child will come from domestic foster care or the URM program for some time.  But once the child is identified, we won't have much time from matching to placement.  Sometimes is can be a few months but some children are sent to their foster/ future adoptive homes within a week of matching.