No Court Date Yet

I thought I'd post a quick update since it's been a while. We know that our paperwork has left the MOJ and was signed off to the courts earlier this month. We are currently waiting for the court system to provide us with a court date. We hope to hear something within the next week or two. We've watched other families pass court and travel to Bulgaria to bring their children home, and we can't wait until it's our turn.

We put up his wall stickers last weekend and are very happy with the way they look. We also picked up another dresser at IKEA last month. I still want to paint some wooden letters to spell out his name over his crib. I have his clothes and shoes in a pile ready to pack, so we'll be ready to go when it's time. Everything is coming together. We've been keeping ourselves plenty busy while we wait. Although the waiting is hard, it will be here before we know it.

Happy Birthday Nikolas!!

Today is our son's 2nd birthday. It's sad that we are not able to be with him, but we're happy that our case is moving along in Bulgaria and that he'll be home soon.

We received our updated I800A and I800 provisional approval on 4/16. Our Article 5 letter was issued earlier this week and was translated and submitted to the MOJ on Thursday. We hope to hear about a court date by the end of the month. Every form/signature is one huge step closer to bringing Nikolas home.

Before and After

We've been working on Nikolas' play room and bedroom over the past few months and are very excited with how they are both turning out. We still need to print and frame some pictures of Bulgaria for the play room. We're having so much fun getting ready for our little one to arrive. We're very thankful for our family and friends who have given Nikolas so many wonderful things. It feels great to have the support of so many loved ones.

Play Room - Before

Play Room - After

His bedroom has a World Traveler theme with planes, trains, boats and cars. We have some cute wall stickers to put up to match his bedding.

As far as paperwork goes, we're still waiting on our I800 provisional approval and expect it to arrive any day now. We should be able to send everything to Bulgaria very soon. We're still on track to bring our son home sometime this summer.

Lots of Paperwork

After gathering all of the necessary forms and filling out a lot of paperwork, we were able to submit our USCIS paperwork about a week and a half ago and are hoping that it moves through the system quickly. Since our I797C form expires in May and we need to update our approval to reflect our son's medical needs, we had to file the I800A Supplement 3 along with the I800 form. Before the I800 form will make it to our officer's desk, we have to wait for our USCIS fingerprint appointment and have that form updated/approved first. We are grateful that our agency in Bulgaria was able to get us a deadline extension from the MOJ to allow us time to get everything updated and approved.

Once our I800 form is approved, the USCIS will inform the US Embassy in Sofia. They will issue the Article 5 letter and will send a copy to both our agency in Bulgaria and the MOJ. We will then receive a court date. After court our agency in Bulgaria will take care of getting the new birth certificate for us. We will be able to travel to Bulgaria 4-5 weeks after court to bring Nikolas home. While in Bulgaria we will need to take him to a medical appointment, take care of his passport, and visit the US Embassy for a visa interview. We should be in Bulgaria for about a week before returning home.

While we wait for our USCIS paperwork to be processed, we are gathering our documents for court. Once everything is received, notarized and apostilled, we will FedEx it to our agency in Bulgaria. We're hoping to receive our FBI background checks this week and still need to update both of our employment letters, but it looks like we're almost finished with the paperwork stage. Every form is one step closer to bringing Nikolas home. If things go as planned, we hope to travel to Bulgaria sometime this summer.

Overview/Photos - Trip #1

We've been home from Bulgaria for about a week and we are already looking forward to our next trip. We enjoyed our trip so much and loved everything about the country. Our visits with our son, who we will be naming Nikolas, went very well. He's a great little boy and we can't wait until he is officially part of our family.

The staff at the orphanage is very friendly and it's obvious that they really care about the children. The facility is clean and organized. The orphanage houses 90 children, most of them being under the age of 5. There is a larger orphanage for older children across the street.

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We stayed at the Park Hotel Izida in Dobrich. It was very comfortable and was located in a very nice area with a park and tennis courts. We enjoyed all of our meals at the hotel restaurant. The food was wonderful and the staff was very patient with our limited language skills. Dobrich is a small city with a population of about 100,000. During our free time we felt safe exploring the area. Here are a few photos of Dobrich:

We left Dobrich a little after noon on Friday and headed back to Sofia. We spent two nights at the Radisson Blu right on Naradno Sabranie Square with a wonderful view of the Bulgarian Parliament, a monument of the Russian Tsar Alexander II, and the St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral. We took care of some adoption paperwork on Saturday and enjoyed some sight-seeing. Sofia is full of beautiful cathedrals and magnificent monuments. Here are a few photos of Sofia:

We had a very successful and enjoyable trip. We love the country and are lucky to have been able to see so much of it. The staff members who assisted with our adoption were very helpful and we never felt uncomfortable at any time. We are now spending our time preparing our home for a toddler and having fun shopping for him and getting his room ready. We're enjoying our last few months of being a family of two and are getting very excited about becoming a family of three.

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Here's a link to more photos:

http://http://www.facebook.com//album.php?aid=282702&id=588579889&l=c372449752