Dossier - check!

I've been very bad about blogging this summer, mostly because I've been on a very important mission to assemble a new dossier for a second adoption.  For those of you unfamiliar with my strange adoption lingo, a dossier is a collection of "official" papers such as marriage licenses, birth certificates, sworn statements, etc. that all must be notarized, apostilled, and translated before sending to the foreign country of your choice to be read and scrutinized by the officials in charge of approving foreigners for adoption.

The first step was getting a completed home study from our social worker, which we did in June.  Next you send that to US Customs and Immigration Services for approval.  That takes the longest.  Then you scurry about for the next month or so getting reference letters, doctor's letters, employment letters, bank letters, fingerprints (send those to the FBI), print a bunch of sworn statements, sign and notarize. 

We got our USCIS approval last week, finished up with the rest of our documents over the weekend, and after scanning them all over to the agency for review, I was given the green light to FedEx them over for assembly and preparation for the apostile step.  Our agency takes over the paper work process from here and now I just wait for phone calls and emails that alert me to the progress like:

• Sent your dossier for apostile
• Got your apostilled dossier back
• Sent you dossier to translation
• Sent your translated dossier to Kazakhstan Ministry of Education
• Ministry of Education approved and sent your dossier to Regional Authority
• Hey, we have a referral for you, want to see a picture of your potential kid?
• Can you be in Kazakhstan next week?

Exact communication there at the end gets vague, but you get my point.  Since Kazakhstan hasn't been processing adoptions for over two years and ours is likely the first dossier to get presented, we have NO IDEA how long the last four steps will take, so now we just wait.

tic toc .... tic toc .... yeah, not so good at the waiting. 

At least I've found some activities to keep me busy in the meantime, like:

• Empty guest room of all furniture (books) and repaint/decorate into a mermaid room for Miranda.  We did make $125 off six bankers boxes of books last weekend.  Hopefully we will make some progress on painting over the long weekend.
• Remake Miranda's room into nursery for new kid.
• Find, purchase and make room for new King Size bed for Ben and I.  Move current Queen Size bed into nursery for now.
• If new King Size bed requires purchase of new dressers and end tables, which is likely, clean out and organize back yard shed to make room for current dresser and end tables to be stored.
• Work - oh yeah, I have a job that will get insanely busy with auditors around September 30th.  Yea auditors!!
• Blog about Kazapalooza (it was only back in June), post video of Miranda's swim show-offs (cute, but not a lot of "swim"), take some pictures/video of new dance and soccer classes that start in the fall and blog about that ... I'm sure there is more here I could be doing.
• Work - my job also gets super busy in January so I probably will go radio silence then, but at least I will have other things to think about than the ...

WAIT.  ugh.

Miranda Day!

2012 

2011

2010

2009

Happy Adoption Day

One year ago today Ben and I met Aigerim in the Astana baby house and we personally chose her to be our daughter. Even though we wouldn't go to court for four weeks, the adoption wouldn't be final for six, and she wouldn't be home with us for eight, that was the day we became a family.



To celebrate this anniversary, we had a family day that started with Miranda's first art class. It is a class within walking distance of our house that is designed for 18 month to 2 year olds. It starts with free time in the play-doh and paint rooms, then there is story time with a related project. Today's stories were about mud, then the kids got to play with clay. She had a good time exploring the space, but I think it will take a couple of classes before she really catches on to the projects.



After an abbreviated nap, we got all dressed up and headed downtown to have Miranda's Kazakh adoption reaffirmed by the State of Texas. It was a quick and painless process given Ben is an attorney, and one of the final steps in obtaining all of Miranda's official paperwork.



We wrapped the day with lunch, some shopping, playtime, then dinner with our friend Ryan Smith who is in town for a job interview. Overall we had a great day and I'm a little sad to get back to the grind of work tomorrow.

We're reviewed!

On the China adoption front, we got an email from our agency yesterday that our dossier has been reviewed. This means we are officially "Pending Referral" for our China adoption. Realistically, we are still looking at a minimum of two years before we go to China to adopt Miranda's sister. Our dossier was logged in August of 2007 and China is still matching families whose dossiers were logged in March 2006. These families have been waiting 40 months, and it is likely our wait will be between 48 and 60 months. Right now this is just fine with us since we are having fun as a family with Miranda and we want to give her all our love and attention for a while before introducing a sibling. Plus, Ben and I both need to replenish our supply of leave and good will from our jobs before taking off again with a new baby. For now it is just nice to see some progress with this adoption.

Cooking in Kaz

The food situation here is not as dire as I was lead to believe by some of the other adoptive families through our agency. There is a store directly across from our building called the Ramstore. Basically the building houses a grocery store and many other kiosks with most of the goods that you would find at any Super Target, Walmart, or HEB Plus. So far, we've been everyday because we've needed little things here and there, and frankly, it gives us something to do since visiting Miranda only occupies three hours of a day here.

The milk comes in cardboard cartons and is not refrigerated, so I was slightly concerned, but it is fine in coffee and for cereal. Nestle is big, in fact all the cereal options are Nestle. There is an entire aisle for tea on one side and instant coffee on the other. I have never seen so many choices for instant coffee. There is also one side of an aisle dedicated to a large selection of sardines.

The fresh produce section certainly leaves a lot to be desired. It is about 5 foot by 3 foot and the quality is not great. I was able to get garlic, green onions, 4 tomatoes, a bunch of cilantro and a bag of potatoes. I used all but the potatoes to make some chicken noodle soup tonight with the left-over half a chicken from last night's dinner of chicken and garlic mashed potatoes.

For breakfast we have been doing ham and eggs with toast, or cereal. For lunch we usually just snack on yogurts, cheese, bread, etc. Today we went to the Pizza place one building over and were the only people eating pizza. You order at a counter and when we walked in they handed us the menu in Russian. When I flipped it over with the hopes English was on the other side, I was relieved when they reached for that version of the menu! It seems there may be lots of forieners that stay in this area, but more on that later. I got a Margherita pizza, which was basically a cheese pizza with some dried basil sprinkled on top. Not exactly Margherita, but it did taste yummy. Ben got the salami pizza which was also a cheese pizza with one slice of salami and a tomato slice on each piece of pizza. He was also pleased. We would like to try more of the local cuisine, but we would prefer to do it when we have the translator with us so we know what we are getting into.

Never fear, we won't starve over here. We are taking multivitamins due to the lack of veggies, and we are probably eating more reasonable portions as well. This combined with all the baby bench pressing, we may come home in better shape than when we left.

We're in Kazakhstan!

Just a note to let everyone know that we're safe and warm here in Kazakhstan. Baby is good, we're good. We can't post pictures of the baby on our blahg because she's not officially ours for several more weeks, but once we get past the cold snap we will be having here in Astana the next few days, we will get some pictures for everyone of the city. More things to come ...

Travel Dates!!!!!

So I got the call this morning that we are going to Kazakhstan NEXT WEEKEND! So we've got a kajillion things to do before now and then (I apologize in advance that thank you notes is probably not one of them) so I proably won't blog much this coming week. We are taking the computer and will be able to catch everyone up once we are able to acquire internet in our apartment. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Stuff to do ...

As most of the blahg readers know, there is a ton of stuff to do to prepare for a baby. Of course ours is slightly different (tour of the maternity ward of the local hospital is really unnecessary). We have gotten our vaccinations (yay), rearranged furniture to make room for baby furniture (to be acquired this weekend), started buying gifts for the people who help us in Kazakhstan, and started a construction project on the house. I know it is incredibly bad timing to have a construction project at my house, but I kept coming back to the fact that it would always be worse timing once the baby was actually here, so there you have it. Currently our laundry room / pantry is being expanded. Luckily it appears to be going really quickly, and I anticipate having access to the washer and dryer 95% of the time.

We still don't have actual travel dates which is starting to frustrate me, but to manage this level of frustration I've decided to look at this like a pregnancy. Frankly, very few women decide when their baby gets here, so I'm telling work that my due date is February 16th, but like any expectant mother, it could happen at any time now, so let's just be prepared. And we should have 10 days notice at a minimum.

Baby!

I know this post will annoy many of you for many reasons like it's almost a week late and it's short and doesn't have nearly as much information as you would like. I'm super busy with work (still) and I've been visiting my Granny at the rehab center a lot since she had a stroke last week and I've got a million other things to do now because ....

We're going to Kaz to get a baby. Unfortunately we can't tell you any more than that at this moment. We haven't picked a name and we don't know when we will travel except we have an estimate of early February.

So like I said, late, short, not enough information.

Volunteers?

I've been thinking about how I'm going to find time to research all the baby things Ben and I are going to need. Things are super busy right now between launching a new product at work and studying for my exam. There are lists at BabiesRUs, but since our baby will likely be 9 months or older when she comes home, how do I know what stuff is no longer needed once a baby is that old?

So Friday at work when the department admin, who is my friend and grandmother to a one year old, asked if I had any work for her, I jokingly asked if she wanted to register me for all the stuff I would need on BabiesRUs.com. Apparently she and another woman who sits next to me (mother to a 9 month old) really liked this idea and spent the next 1/2 hour registering for things in my name.

Before you read any further, I need you to know ... DO NOT go buy us anything off this list. We still have no idea when we are getting a baby, how old the baby will be, or if it will even be a girl. Once all this is know, we'll have an updated list for anyone who feels compelled to get something for our new baby.

Back to my thought ... after pondering this for a couple days, I've decided that this is perfect. Why would I trust the opinion of a bunch of consumer researchers who may or may not even have a baby? What I need is a panel of mothers/grandmothers (ok, or fathers/grandfathers) who know their stuff and are willing to take a few minutes to make some recommendations. If any of you blog readers out there are willing to volunteer a few minutes to register me for the items you felt were essential, let me know and I'll send you our registry number and password.

Adoption Update

So after three months of hearing nothing, we have finally heard some news on the adoption front. Our paperwork for Kazakhstan moved from the Consulate in NY to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kaz back on June 12th! Since we had heard nothing for so long, I just assumed we were delayed, but it turns out we are actually ahead of schedule. Our paperwork should be approved by the MFA in the next few weeks, then it will move to the Ministry of Education where it will be approved after another two weeks. Then we will finally be ready for a referral. This could take another month or two, which is fine by me at this point.

I would really like to take the actuarial exam I've been studying for on October 30th so I can pass it and be done with these tests. If we receive a referral too soon, there is a chance that travel will prevent me from taking this exam and I will have to wait until next fall to take it. Also, there is the distraction factor. If I were to get a picture of my adorable new child before my test, what do you think the odds are that I will actually focus on studying versus focus on buying all the crap my adorable new child will need, along with arranging for travel half-way around the world? Yeah, odds is my business and I can tell you, not looking good.

So at last, there seems to be light at the end of this tunnel and Ben and I might just yet become parents.

Adoption Update

Yesterday our Dossier for our Kazakhstan adoption returned to the US after translation to spend 60 days at the Kazakh Consulate in NY getting a first round of review from the officials that be. We are still hoping to travel in December, but likely won't have a clearer picture of the timeline until more in country reviews are completed mid-September.

As for China, there are roughly 1,500 families ahead of us through our agency which has been receiving 0-30 referrals each month. By my calculation, that puts our wait time there anywhere between 4 years and ∞.

What I learned in class today ...

Tonight Ben and I had our first Beginning Russian class, part of a community education program at the local school district. We decided to take this class since Russian is one of the two primary languages in Kazakhstan, and there just aren't a lot of opportunities to learn Kazakh in San Antonio. We had an interesting mix of students, from high schooler missionaries to older men with Ukrainian girlfriends.

I learned that "Kto" which means "Who is" sounds like "couture." And that "elephant" is "Slon" although I'm not sure I'm going to need to know this word in my travels to Kazakhstan.

Gotta love Government!

So even though Customs and Immigration Services (CIS) has already fingerprinted us for our China adoption application and those fingerprints don't expire until October 2008, we must be fingerprinted again for our Kazakhstan adoption application. I'm still having trouble figuring out how fingerprints "expire" at all, but maybe that's just the scientist in me. So today we were notified that on the last day of January we need to trot down to the local CIS office, stand in a long line twice (once to get a form to fill out, and once to get a number once you've filled out the proper form), wait for our number to be called and then go through the most elaborate process you have ever seen to get the perfect fingerprints. At least it means we are getting closer to having all our documents for our dossier since last time CIS send the approval document 2 or 3 weeks after fingerprinting. The only other piece is our medical exams, and I'll save that story for a later date.

We're Approved!

Ben and I have been approved by both the adoption agency and the home study agency to adopt a child from Kazakhstan. This isn't totally surprising given that we were approved by a different adoption agency and a different home study agency mere months ago to adopt a child from China. It is however exciting for us (and probably scary to some of you) that we are another step closer to becoming parents.

Background: For those of you who haven't heard, the wait time for adopting from China has increased significantly. We estimate that our China application will result in a referral in 2012. This wasn't exactly our plan since when we started the process we were told it would be 18 months. We have decided to pursue another adoption for now but we still hope to adopt a child from China. As Ben put it, we will now be adopting our second child first.