Last papers in the capitol

Well we finished our physicals on Thursday, on Friday afternoon I took the physicals, medical licence and FBI prints to the post office so that they could go to mongomery for their apostile. Once I get them back I get to make a bigiillion copies of the final pieces of the dossier and then send them to AA. A little step but at least it is something.

Realizations

So here I sit with the last papers going to the notary this afternoon. From there they will go to translation, then to the Kazakh Embassy in DC. Then to the MOE in Astana, then to a region. After all of those steps we will get THE CALL to travel halfway around the world to meet a child or children who need a family. I know these steps, we have lived these steps before with Emerson's adoption and until yesterday they just felt like steps.

Last night I found myself watching a beautiful video of a child who just came home a few days ago and I found myself brought to tears as the song playing said "how long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough?" For some reason at that point I was snapped back to a very real place and remembered that our child is alive, there in a baby house.

I am comforted in knowing that they are out of harms way as the people at the baby houses and the preschools truly love and care for the children. I do wonder what let our child to there, does he/she know that soon a family will open their arms, heart and home to him or her? I nievly want to dare ask if it will be hard for them to make the transition. Of course I know intellectually that because the child will be older (3-6 years) that it will be rough, confusing, scary and exciting all at the same time.

So little one, who ever you may be, please know that there is a Mama, Papa and brother that think of you every day. Right now all that stands in the way are papers, forms, notaries and thousands of miles. It feels overwhelming but we will take it one step at a time. For now you are probably in bed as it is night time in Kazakhstan, so sleep tight and dream of a forever family.

Last Piece of Paper Soon

Finaly we have been given the go ahead to get our physicals which is our last piece of paperwork for now. We will do our physicals on Thursday and then send the off to be apostiled with a few other papers. We hope to have everything ready to go by April 10th so our paperwork can get off the pile and to the embasy. Currenly it has been siting since December 1. I keep trying to remember that it all works out perfectly.

Here are the things that we are thinking about now:
1. Should we bring Emerson with us? This question really comes down to region and weather he will get to come to the baby house with us each day. We really feel that he will help our next child transition into our family because he is so social. We also belive that the bonding time is for the whole family. Alas though, we can not make this decision for a while.

2. How will Emerson handel the gap between Daniyar leaving and his new sibbling or the gap between trips. I wish the gap was smaller but there is not a darn thing we can do as we wait except for keepng all papers up to date.

3. I worry constantly that the rules will change and we won't be able to complete the adoption. John's age is a concern but I am so much younger we have been asured it will be ok.

4. We wonder about gender and age. We are truly hoping for a child between the age of 3-6 years old. We are open to either gender and we really want our second child to be ethnicaly Kazkah like Emerson. This though is one more thing that gets to remain a mystery and like before it will work out the way it is supposed to.

5. I am curious as to which region we will go to. There is a strong possibility we will go to UST and this is our hope because Daniyar has lots of family there. This would be very good for us because they could help us find an afordable appartment and teach us the bus routes which would save us a lot of money.

6. I need to practice my Russian big time.

For now, I just have to hold tight, do more papers and start renewing documents.

Sitting in Line

Well I only have one small peice of news for the last few weeks. Dossiers from our agency have started to move through the emabsy again. We still have about 14 ahead of us. I am continuing to be patient but I really hope we can get through this before having to redo massive amounts of paperwork.

A Delay in Plans

Well with all good time lines there is the caviot that they are just guesses. Our first major hurdle in the process we will hit at a slower pace than expected. We were really hoping that our dossier would be to the Embassy in February. I just found out it will probably not be until the end of February and possibly not until March. I am trying very hard to trust the process. I keep remembering with Emerson if things had gone any faster or any slower we would not have found him. So, I am trying to take this delay in stride and believe that it is for the right reasons.

This unfortunately means that the earlies we would travel is in July making it more likely that I will miss school making the process even more costly. Don't get me wrong, it will all be worth it, but making it all come out in the black will be tricky.

In the meantime I am realizing that our first round of documents will expire in May. When will I start on those? Soon, but not yet.

Moving Right Along

Well,
I have not been a very good bloger this go around. With Emerson's adoption I regularly posted every little update. This time I am really trying not to get too wraped up in the day to day details. The main reason I think is because we are so darn busy with Emerson and our other new addition to the family.

This year we are hosting an exhchange student from Kazakshtan. So far is has been a wonderful expereince for us, kept our mind from being too focused on the second adoption, helped us see what it will be like with a family of 4 and many more things. Our exchange student is 17 and a Junior in high school. He and Emerson get along great. We keep joking that if this adoption does not work out, we will just keep taking in exchage students.

On the adoption front, after many long months dealing with Alabama buracracy our homestudy was finaly completed on October 20th. Mind you this is after having all of our part complete June 10th. We recived our USCIS clearance on Nov 13. We turned in our Dossier to our agency on Dec. 1st and the we recived our FBI prints on December 15th.

Our dossier is currently being translated and at the begining of Febuary we will mail our Medical Letters and the FBI prints. Hopefuly by Feb 15th our paperwork will then go spend a short time at the Embasy in Washington DC. It is still way too early in the process to know when or where we will be going. I probably won't be posting again until our dossier is mailed to the Embasy. For now, we just get to wait.

Here we go again

Well after much deliberation and after being on the wrong path a couple of times we have decided to adopt from Kazakhstan again. We believe very strongly that Emerson should have a sibling and that we want at least two children. After waiting over a year and a half for something to happen in Bulgaria we have come to the conclusion that it is not the right program for us.

While it was sad to get out of a program we are thrilled at the prospect of returning to Kazakhstan and we hope this blog will be much like our first for our loyal followers.

We have already sing with an agency, started our homestudy and slew of background checks and we are gathering papers for our dossier. Our hope is to have our dossier completed by the beginning of August and that we will travel sometime next spring or summer.

As far as our new addition; we believe in going to Kazakhstan with a very open mind. We are hoping to adopt a child 5 years or younger, either gender is Ok. We are actually hoping that our second child with be Ethnic Kazakh like Emerson. One of the biggest things we learned from our last adoption is that the universe is unfolding perfectly. All the twist and turns and random delays are the reason Emerson is part of our lives today. As frustrated as I was and I get with delay after delay in this bureaucratic process, I have a bubbly wild 2 year old that reminds me daily that it was/is all for a reason.