BADCALFF 2007

Official inviataion to anyone who wants to join Brent and I for the Brent and Dale's Cheap-Ass Labor Day Film Festival 2007!

Please note that it has moved this year - it is now at the Silver Cinema in Green Bay - at 2350 East Mason Street

The schedule?

1408, 12:30-2:04
Evan Almighty, 2:30-4
License to Wed, 4:50-6:30
Shrek the Third, 6:40-8:15
Surf's Up, 9-10:30

All movies I haven't seen - I'm really excited!

Fingerprints! and the unrelated adventure thereafter

We got our fingerprints today! It went fine without incident, except Brent got his pocketknife taken away before the metal detector. He asked for it back on his way out, but the security person said no. Oh well.

We got in and showed them our paperwork and they gave us a form to fill out, and we waited our turn. In about 5 minutes they called us each to the back room where they filled out some more paperwork and then took us each to the fingerprint kiosks. The lady I had sprayed my hands with water and then took each of my fingers and placed it on the 'biometrics reader' thing, and my prints showed up on the computer screen. It was pretty cool, I must say. A couple of fingers she had to do twice, but it was nice to know that they got them right on that visit, so we'll not have to go back. The lady noticed what we were there for and we made small talk about adoption stuff. She said that they get about 60 adoptive parents in per week- mostly from China, but quite a few from Russia too. We were finished 2 minutes before our appointment was set for - I thought it went very quickly for the number of people in the waiting room.

When we got back to our car, it started idling really jerky. I'm not sure how to describe it, because I know nothing about cars, but Brent was worried. Since we were in the area, after fingerprinting, we stopped at a favorite organic grocery store and shopped a bit, but when we got back in the car to leave, the Check Engine light came on. It still ran, jerkily, but Brent didn't think we should go home. Thankfully we were already in Milwaukee when this happened, and not in Sheboygan, because we were only 10 minutes from the Saab dealership, and they took us right away. Brent told him what he thought was wrong (something connected to the sparkplugs? I really have no idea), and they sent us up to their waiting lounge area. About an hour later the mechanic came back, and told Brent that he was correct in his dianosis, and the car was ready. Fortunately, Brent was a couple hundred dollars off from what he thought it would cost, and it only was $350. Also fortunately, I got paid this week, so we didn't have to dip into our adoption savings to pay for it. If there was ever a good time for our car to have a problem, today was it.

Anyway, back to adoption stuff. Now we have to wait for the paper saying that Immigration has accepted our fingerprints, and we're cool to adopt. Following another adoption blog, who just recieved their papers today (congratulations!), we should have ours in a couple weeks. By then we should have our dossier all ready, and then we're close to done!

MMPI part 1 million

So a week or so after the last visit, we started bugging the psych again to get us our results back. He was not responding to email and we were getting impatient, when I just happened to run into him last Friday at a coffee place downtown. I asked him about it and he said it would be ready on Monday.

Brent went to pick it up and there was nothing different than the last time. He refused to take out all the stuff about Brent's first test and it says some other not very nice things about Brent lying on the test to make himself look better. Apparantly you can do too well on this test.

So I forwarded it to our adoption coordinator (after a warning from the psych - "weird things happen in cyberspace"), and await her opinion.

Also, I have been reading around the web, and have seen things that imply that this test is not in fact required by the Russian government, but by the agency to cover their butts. Wow. If that is true, I don't know what to think. Also I have read that we are lucky to only have paid $400 out of pocket (so far) because there were people that paid in the thousands to get this all straightened out. I'm not sure whether I should be relieved or more steamed.

We have and appointment!

We got our notice for our fingerprinting today. We have to go in on August 29th at 10 AM, which means I have to take a day off from work. Awww shucks.

I wish it were sooner than two and a half weeks from now, but I'll take what we can get.

More on the MMPI testing

So Brent's psychologist said his new MMPI test was fine. But then he called us on Tuesday and said Brent had to come in for more tests, just to make sure. And they cost $200. And he wanted to interview me too. What a joke.

Yesterday was his appointment. Brent got there at 10:00. First he had to copy some pictures that the dr. showed him. Then he had to draw a person, and then another person of the opposite sex. Then he had to draw himself. Then he was shown pictures and had to make up stories about the pictures. Then he had to make up stories about the pictures that he drew. Then he had to do a fill in the blank page that had things like "I wish___________________" and "I hate___________________" all while the psychologist was looking over his shoulder and making note of his every move.

That took about an hour and 45 minutes. Then I went in there for an interview and he asked me what kind of person Brent was, whether he started projects and didn't finish them, what our marriage was like, what I thought our biggest adjustment to becoming parents will be. Nothing major.

Then he wanted to talk to Brent again. He showed Brent the page that he already had written up before the appointment. It was a nice little summary, Brent said. But... BUT, it made mention that this was Brent's second MMPI. Brent had specifically told him that he only wanted a write up of the second test - nothing about the interview, nothing about the first 'failed' test, nothing about anything except exactly what he found on the second test. Brent had actually told him that in the initial call and the psychologist said he could do that. Now he seems to be having reservations.
Brent told him that he could have not told him about the testing history, he could have refused to show him the first test, and that he had been completely honest and open about the process so far. All he wanted from him was a tiny little paragraph similar to mine. The Russian judge will pick apart our whole dossier and zero in on any weakness that he sees. Well the psychologist said he'd talk to his supervisor about it and see what he could do.

So now we await his call. If he can't give us what we need, I'm not sure what we'll do. Brent might have to start all over again with someone new. I hope we won't have to go through this again.

Finally!

Tuesday we got our homestudy back and sent it right away to Immigration Services. Since we applied about 12 weeks ago, we should be up close to the top of the pile. Hopefully we'll get called for fingerprinting very soon.


Also, we sent the other copies in for appostilling along with many of our dossier documents - 22 in all. Hopefully this will come back by next week also, because we still haven't officially filed our pre-lims (the documents that put a hold on A so that no other foreign family can adopt him).

We only have a few documents to gather for our dossier, so if we get fingerprinted soon, we should be able to have our dossier ready and on its way to Russia by the end of the month. So I would guess that we'd be travelling in early October? Wow, that's soon!

Nice little vacation

Brent and I just got back from a mini-vacation to Illinois. We left Sunday and came back Tuesday afternoon. It was wonderful and very relaxing.

The Bed and Breakfast we stayed at was great. Brent really liked that they had breakfast at 9AM instead of 7 like all the other places we have stayed at. I liked that there was a Starbucks within walking distance and I went there both mornings first thing when they opened. The food there was great, the room was cozy, and their dog was cute. I even told Brent that I woudn't mind getting a dog, if she was like their Georgia.

The little town was great too. There was a square and park in the middle with music piped in and shops all around the edges. Brent commented that it looked vaguely familiar and I told him that this town was where Groundhog Day was filmed. We also went shopping at Ikea and visited my grandma on the way home.

I feel very refreshed. I took some time to get my thoughts organized and destress - it was very nice. :)