Kaliningrad Opens

We've just heard that the Kaliningrad region is re-opening for international adoptions. Jon and I are both excited about the possibility of adopting from this part of Russia - mainly because of our time spent in the Baltics. Kaliningrad is on the Baltic Sea and shares a border with Lithuania and Poland. Even though neither of us has ever stepped foot in Kaliningrad, we feel a connection to it somehow. We posted a question to our adoption chat group, asking about people's experience adopting from this part of Russia. We only got a few replies, but they were all positive. One couple gave a glowing review of the orphanage there. They were very impressed with the care, and said that the kids all seemed to be healthy and as happy as can be expected. The only down side to Kaliningrad is that they require three trips instead of two. We would have to travel to submit our dossier in person. We don't understand why they have this requirement or how it might affect the rest of the process. Our agency is looking into this for us.

We received a final copy of our Home Study in the mail today. That means the CIS office in Hong Kong should receive their copy this week. Hopefully, we'll get our I-171H form from them in the next week or so. Things will then slow down for a while. Our coordinator from the US is going on vacation later this week, and apparently Russia shuts down for the first couple weeks of May due to national holidays.