[KiraLin]

I am another member of the smooth fast club but really it was dumb luck. Seven months from signing with agency to home. Paperwork went to Russia in April 04 was translated and I was in Moscow at the end of May to meet blind referral, home July 13, 04 with my then 10month old dd. There was one major trauma that made waiting between trips horrible but it did not affect the process itself just upped the emotional distress.

[SingleMama2B]

Mine too was realitively easy....

I hosted my DD in the summer of 2004. I submitted my dossier 2 weeks after she returned to Russia. Back in 2004, the summer hosting program was considered my "first trip", as the children in the program came with translators, and "Russian Inspectors" for their Region. The Inspectors stayed with the families for several days each. The Inspectors then had to write a report to the Court & Judge. Mine was very complimentary and good. By the time that "Nina" left my home, she was referring to "A" as "Your Daughter"! I thought it was going to be a breeze. THEN..... an "AUNT" popped out of the woodwork. She attempted to stop the adoption (even though she basically had NOTHING to do with her neice for many years (5+) in the orphanage). Long story short, she was "found" UNSUITABLE to adopt, and in DD's case, just being named Guardian was not enough. I received a court date of Dec. 23rd, 2004. 10 days where not waived, but the weekend days where to be counted. Not that that helped any, as the 10 days where ending, the 10 + days of National Holidays started. I came back home, and flew back on January 16th, 2005 to process DD out of Russia. We could not fly back out on the 23rd due to the Blizzard in NY, so we had to stay in Russian 2 extra days. Then with White out conditions in Moscow on the 25th, we where in the airport for 7 hours (delay).

All in all, other then MAJOR Emotional ups and downs, time wise, it was quick. DD was 8 years 3 months old when she came home forever!

[tbristow]

Well it sure seemed hard at the time but it was 12 months and 3 days from on-line application to stepping off on US soil with our son. We were on trip 1 when the data base shut down or it would've been more like 10 months.

[randloar]

Our process in Russia was incredibly smooth (less than 6 months start to finish) in winter 06/07.......but all this came after an incredibly frustrating process for 1.75 years waiting on Kazakhstan....

And we switched to Russia from Kaz when the majority were going the other direction, which was pretty scary to us, and we were expecting it to be tough and were delighted at how quickly/smoothly things went....

I didn't read every post, but got the impression there are quite a few here who got through without too many aches and pains.....seems like when we are frustrated (as we were for Kaz) we tend to talk louder and more often about it (maybe???).......

[mellieollie]

Super fast and easy. Of course, that doesn't mean it wasn't stressful and horrific during the waiting, but now... 3 years later... I can look back and say it was easy.

[tbogardus]

Our first adoption was seemless. Nine months start to finish in 2003. But this second one is a nightmare.