Caution...Serious rambling ahead.

When we found out in June we didn't make it in time to catch the Judge before her vacation, in my mind I was clinging to the thought that I just needed to make it to August. August was my great white hope. July 31st was like Christmas Eve, in the morning I would wake to find gifts and treasures untold. August. By then the agreement would be signed, the Judge would return to her post rested and relaxed, the thousands of prayers sent up would somehow soften her heart to us and our little boy waiting for his mama and papa.
August 2nd did not go so well. I thought to myself, ok.....I'm flexible, Rome wasn't built in a day, blah, blah, blah. I need to be patient. (Shouldn't I be an expert in that department by now?) I thought about my desk when I return from vacation, its a mess. I need to give it a few days. Tuesday brought odd e-mails. Wednesday, Thursday, SILENCE. And Friday, our hopes of "August" were gone. News that until an agreement is signed the Judge will not finalize American adoption cases. The small amount of hope I was clinging to was crushed. It's an impossible to describe what we were feeling on Friday. Friday was a very bad day.
In response to my previous post I was inundated with e-mails. I tried most of your suggestions. Before I even wrote that post I e-mailed the Secretary of States office and the embassy. I had spoken with them before when news first broke of Torry Hansen sending her son back. They have asked me to continue to update them as our situation changed (or not), so on Friday I just continued on our correspondence. "Hi we are still stuck, signed anything yet?" Last time they wrote me back immediately and even called me at work to get some more details. This time, silence. I still haven't heard anything from them. In April I contacted all of our congressmen and senators and three contacted me personally. I don't know that any progress with that was made, but it did make me feel better to know that people in a position of power know that Ms. Hansen's actions have had a profound effect on real people. That we have a real son that sits everyday in a real orphanage waiting for his real mama and papa. They gave me an emergency cell phone number to a SOS employee. I decided I will give them a week before call some poor unsuspecting intern and bombard her with information while demanding answers.
I have been given a few email addresses for some adoption gurus. I have wrote them.
I have posted on yahoo message boards and adoption support groups. I have facebooked and used your "friend of friend" contacts. I spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday responding to emails and message boards. I am sorry if I haven't written you back personally, there were ALOT of emails.
And all roads lead to this conclusion= we wait. This decision is out of our hands. There is nothing we can do, nothing our government can do, The only thing left to do is wait and pray.
We have been told that our Judge is attending a conference or training of some sorts in September in Moscow. Our agency said the beginning of September, someone on the "inside" says the 20th. The Judge would like to resume court if she can obtain reassurance in Moscow on the way to proceed. But will it matter if an agreement is not signed? We just don't know. I hate the thought of putting our hope into another little "hope basket" for September as we did for August.
So it's like this: We know by some of your emails that there are a lot of people in worse situations than we are. (I know, can you believe it?) It has opened my eyes to the widespread devastation that this situation has caused. I think my perspective was focused on the families that "made it out" before the bottom fell out. "Why couldn't have we gotten a referral a month earlier?" "I wish our home study would have been finished a month earlier" I think for those of us that didn't "make it out" we feel like sad isolated "woulda, coulda, shouldas". Instead, I wish that we would bind together and pull each other through.
We know that we need your prayers and your support.
 We know that this story will have a positive outcome. Eventually, we'll get a call and all will be right with the world. Until then, we wait and we pray.