Catching Up to Speed

For readers just arriving to my blog, especially non adoptive readers, I thought I would catch you up. I've tried to go back and label my posts about adoption and Kazakhstan as such, there are not very many of them...yet! Right now, we have about 3 weeks to prepare for our first trip. One of the unfortunate things about being assigned to Almaty is that it will require 3 trips, unless of course families have the means (financially and jobwise) to stay the entire time. My hubby has a limited amount of vacation time and of course, we have to take into account Olivia and Claire. We are not planning to bring them with us. It's advised that we not bring them with us and I think it would just be too hard, especially for 4 year old Claire. It's a long trip, lots of jet lag, lots of different foods with which I think they would have a hard time. This will give us time to focus on our son without distractions. The sad thing is we will have to leave him behind between trips.

So for the first trip, we will meet with a child or children and decide to start the 'bonding process' with a child. Unlike some other countries, Kazkhstan requires 2 weeks of bonding. We will then go to the Babyhouse (what they call the orphanages in Kaz) every day for 2 weeks to play with our child and to get to know each other. This will have to be documented with pictures. We will more than likely consult with an international adoption doctor for advice on the health of our child. Of course, they don't have a crystal ball, but they can look for certain things we may not be aware of. We will do this in the beginning of course before we decide we start bonding.

So we will be in Kazakhstan approximately 2 1/2-3 weeks for our 1st trip. Next we will have to wait for a court date where we will go in front of a judge to ask that we can adopt our child. It could be about a month after our first trip, there is no way of knowing. So we will be at home waiting for our court date. On the 2nd trip, we will go to court so hopefully we won't be there more than a week. We have to come home again because there is a waiting period, I believe it's 15 days. It also takes time to process our child's passport. The 3rd trip is when we actually take custody of our child. We will have to get his American visa and visit the clinic to confirm he has no communicable diseases and is relatively healthy. We will say goodbye to his home and his caregivers, it will be bittersweet and emotional...who's kidding, this whole process will be emotional, life changing, challenging, joyous.... I'm thinking I will probably have to go alone on the 3rd trip, we will just have to see how everything is coming along.

I hope we have our son home by the time school starts up again. It's summer time though which means it's vacation time so the timing of everything might slow down.