Name, Paperwork and Leave

I named him Christian Ruslan ("roos-lawn").  Ruslan is his Russian first name so I kept it as his middle name to keep a part of his heritage.  The minute I told people his name, pretty much everyone said they loved it.  A couple of people said, "oh we can call him Chris for short".  AAAHHHH! That was the one reason I hesitated so long to pick Christian because I do NOT want him to be called Chris!  Maybe that's being too anal but I just LOVE the name Christian and I had some "moments" on my trip that lead me to that name which makes it that much more meaningful to me.  I will just politely correct people and hope for the best.  Hey, I'll have my little boy, and that's the only thing that will matter.

Now that I have gotten back to a normal sleep schedule, I am completing my final court documents.  I was having trouble getting anyone to provide my Statement of Residence letter but after a mass email plea to friends, a friend of a friend's mom is a realtor and agreed to provide the letter. I hope the remaining documents arrive in the mail tomorrow, then I get them apostilled and mailed off to Russia.

When I was there, my in country rep delivered my completed court papers that I hand carried over there to the judge.  The judge asked if I was married or single, my rep responded single, and the judge made a negative "noise".  I asked my rep if there's going to be a problem and said I might have to provide some additional information which would be a complete psychiatric evaluation and a photo album of family and friends to show I have support at home.  Before I went to Russia I went ahead to get my letter from the psychiatrist, he had me go ahead and take a test anyway. His wife and he adopted a child from St. Petersburg, he knows the drill and said they may ask for it later so just do it now and get it out of the way.
So glad he suggested that because it looks like I need it and it's already done!  YAY!  I'm actually ahead on something :)  Now to find out what the last phase fees are so I can go to the bank to request my loan. 

I will be staying home 6 weeks with him after I return back to the US.  My work doesn't have a program for adoptive parents and neither does my disability insurance, it's only covers biological births, which I think is crap!  I don't have enough vacation time to cover the 10 day waiting period in Russia and the 6 week home stay, so I hope my bank will allow a little bigger loan because I can't go 3 weeks without pay.  So the financial stress is still there but I will just keep praying that God will provide one way or the other.

So now I start getting the baby room ready and wait for "THE" call :)
I'm  not that smooth of a writer (as you can tell) so I can't find the words to express how much I appreciate all your support and prayers. I know the prayers helped me find my little boy this last trip and I just want to say God Bless You All!
~Amy