Some good news.

After many hours of legal research on my end and meaningful correspondence with my HR department, we have reached an amicable agreement about our leave request.

The district requested more information from the local orphans court in Media. There a court clerk explained the two ways one can adopt in Pennsylvania. The first being the adoption is finalized (if it is an international adoption), in the foriegn country at the respective American Embassy. Second, the adoption is not finialized at the host country and needs to be finalized in front of a local county judge (This is called readoption).

Our HR director knew all along that we were finalizing in Russia (Option 1). After this was confirmed, we were told we will be able to take FMLA leave and keep our benefits in force while we travel.

Now we need to figure out how to get our family policy in place before we travel. This will be tough though since we do not have a name or SS # for these child(ren)

Till next time and thanks for reading.

A big shout out goes to the winner of our #1 blog reader contest. Congratulations to Emily Stefankiewicz Special Education teacher at Sun Valley High School. She is a "loyal" reader, who states "The day is not right until I check vanvooren.org"

WAY TO GO EMILY! :)

Hello All,

We have an update from our Russian Coordinator. As you know we only call once a month. So Thursday the was already one month since we called last.

After playing phone tag for a day, we finally talked to Danielle. She stated that we are number 3 on the list. The number 2 family in front of us, is asking for a girl <18 months of age only. So we may jump ahead of them, but later in our conversation Danielle revealed me that we may be number 4 inline. What I did not understand was how we went from 3 to 4 in just 15 mins. What she said was that our dossier was submitted the same day as another families and that she cannot tell us who is 3 or 4. So that was annoying, we may be travelling with that same couple, if they are looking to adopt a boy like us.

I then asked if it still looks like we will be traveling for trip one in either late March or early April. Danielles answer was that late March looks more promising, but not to rule out April. So after talking with her for about 2o mins, what we realized is that we moved up 1 maybe 2 spots. Also, we are still figuring to travel in April.

One final note, Danielle stated that the agency is requiring us to carry a minimum of $3000.00 in new $100 bills to Russian on trip one and the same amount for trip two. I told them, I am not comfortable in carrying that much cash. Kind of makes me think like we are conducting a cocaine purchase.

Still no resolution on the FMLA front and our medical benefits fight with our employer.

Thanks for reading and till next time.

Hey all,

We have been having back and forth discussions with our HR Department. They want us to take leave without benefits. I am trying to work through this amiacably. But we really need the FMLA and medical benefits for when we travel on trip two. I am sure this will get resolved, but it is just another hurdle that Cathy and I have to climb over.

I plan on calling our social worker tomorrow and see if anything has changed? Maybe we moved up inline.

For all those who read our blog, thank you for your time and support.

Till next time, hopefully with more information.

Hello fearless readers,

Nothing new to report this week. A week from this Friday, Cathy and I will call to see if there is any update in our status. I figure sometime then on the 21st of January I will post a follow up from our call.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog.

Till next time.

Hey All,

Just wanted to let all our readers know, that Russia is officially closed till the 16th of January. I would sure like to be off from around the 23rd of Dec. till the 16th. That must be one heck of a celebration. We do know one couple that is traveling this Sat. We are assuming that they have something other than a court hearing to deal with.

Other than that, nothing new to report. I figure we will call our social worker again some time during the 3rd week of Jan.

Thanks for reading and till next time,

C-ya

Happy New Year everyone!!

From Scott, Cathy and Chloe