Ah, finally something tangible to report! I spoke with Orson, the director of our adoption agency, last night.
I was actually calling to get some reassurance about the whole adoption process in Kazakhstan because I have been following another couple's adoption and they've run into some astonishing issues, with not one, but two birth moms returning to reclaim the first and then the second of the baby boys they have been trying to adopt. Well, Orson did a good job--these really are amazing circumstances, and just by the way, God is doing monumental things thru this poor woman whose heart has just been crushed. Her spirit has not. She is going up against the birth mom, an 18 year old girl who is now pregnant again. The police actually took her first child away from her because the neighbors complained of wild parties and the incessant crying of a baby!
I digress, but man, it has just been a tremendous story to see unfold while waiting for our own to begin!
So, last night, Orson gave us the good news that our dossier had cleared the Ministry of Education, for real this time. And it is now with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We should have our invitation to travel in 10-15 days. At that time, around April 2oth, we can Fedex our passports to the Embassy of Kaz in DC for our visas.
If any of you who live in the DC area would like to help us by going there in person, we would be eternally grateful. The embassy is in the embassy district and apparently things that get done in person go more smoothly and quickly I've been told. There is a service called the Assistant Stork but they charge something like $50 per visa and we need 5! I would reimburse any of your expenses and lunch at the, gosh I can't even remember the name of it anymore, ya know the Grill, or 1789 or Perry's or whatever else is now posh or popular these days.
So, once we have those visas, we will book our flights. I'd love to use some of the FF miles we have, but last minutes travel arrangements don't really jive w/ cheap. Darn. So we'll pay $1500/person and probably go ORD to FRA to ALA to UKK, oh yeah! Can't I just go thru labor one more time? Do flights this long offer epidurals? Am I starting to chicken out or what. It's the lack of sleep. Just like during a real pregnancy, I can't sleep toward the end, so I might as well go ahead and have the baby--I'm up all night anyway. This time though I dream of being in an orphanage and not being able to understand what anyone is saying, and trying to get some kind of medical info because my new son is throwing up.
I remind myself to put on the Full Armor of God including the Sword, God's Word, "Do not be anxious about anything. In everything, by prayer and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God, and His peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and minds through Christ Jesus." A peace that surpasses all understand...that's what I need. And today is Good Friday. The day my best friend took the bullet for me. And you. He is so GOOD. Peace.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tomorrow is April
Just a quick update because not much to tell. Our dossier is still with the Ministry of Education. Petr is still waiting for us. We are nearing the end of Spring Break--initially when faced with 10 days and no plans, I wasn't quite sure what to do.
So we prepared the upstairs, switching a couple of rooms around and painting one, doing some stenciling in the others. I'm so excited about how it all turned out. Now Isabelle and Nicholas will share the room with the animal murals. The bunk beds have been taken apart and reassembled as two beds. It's really cute for both a girl and a boy.
The work on the house exterior is moving along again. The house wrap permit slowed us down a bit. We did the photo shoot for Sophie at a horse barn. Katrina and Isabelle were also photographed. Then Kerrie, the photographer, took Sophie into downtown Naperville for some "urban" shots. She had a blast and is SO photogenic.
Anyhow, I hope that by the next time I post, I have some really exciting news. Til then!
So we prepared the upstairs, switching a couple of rooms around and painting one, doing some stenciling in the others. I'm so excited about how it all turned out. Now Isabelle and Nicholas will share the room with the animal murals. The bunk beds have been taken apart and reassembled as two beds. It's really cute for both a girl and a boy.
The work on the house exterior is moving along again. The house wrap permit slowed us down a bit. We did the photo shoot for Sophie at a horse barn. Katrina and Isabelle were also photographed. Then Kerrie, the photographer, took Sophie into downtown Naperville for some "urban" shots. She had a blast and is SO photogenic.
Anyhow, I hope that by the next time I post, I have some really exciting news. Til then!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Staying busy
We're still waiting. Yesterday was the 20th, and when I asked our agency about the LOI, they said our dossier was still at the Ministry of Education.
In the meantime, we're staying busy. We're changing the exterior of our house, something we should have done when we bought it. It's that fake stucco, "dryvit," and we've had repairs done twice. Now we're just ripping it off. What a crazy way to build the exterior of a house--particle board, with styrofoam glued onto it, and a thin layers of cement-like stuff. We're replacing it with stone on the front and cedar on the other three sides. God-made materials are always superior, aren't they?
What else? Well, Sophie was stopped by a woman at Potbelly's Sandwiches on Saturday and asked if she would do some modeling at her studio. We're going there this afternoon. She's pretty excited.
All this extra time has allowed us to over-prepare. Kaz uses "c" type electrical plugs, so we got adaptors and transformers galore for all our electronics that are must-haves--2 laptops, nintendo ds, blackberry (I now call it Miss Blackberry, the other woman in Justin's life. She's so needy, always whining at him, and hanging on his hip, day and night. ). We also have a Russian/English phrasebook, the best one according to Amazon reviewers; and a "Russian phrasebook for English Speaking Adoptive Parents." That thing is great. Katrina and I were practicing the other night and discovered that "brother" is "brat" in Russian, ha, ha!
Well, I could rattle on forever. Waiting does that to me. We'll let you know as soon as something happens!
In the meantime, we're staying busy. We're changing the exterior of our house, something we should have done when we bought it. It's that fake stucco, "dryvit," and we've had repairs done twice. Now we're just ripping it off. What a crazy way to build the exterior of a house--particle board, with styrofoam glued onto it, and a thin layers of cement-like stuff. We're replacing it with stone on the front and cedar on the other three sides. God-made materials are always superior, aren't they?
What else? Well, Sophie was stopped by a woman at Potbelly's Sandwiches on Saturday and asked if she would do some modeling at her studio. We're going there this afternoon. She's pretty excited.
All this extra time has allowed us to over-prepare. Kaz uses "c" type electrical plugs, so we got adaptors and transformers galore for all our electronics that are must-haves--2 laptops, nintendo ds, blackberry (I now call it Miss Blackberry, the other woman in Justin's life. She's so needy, always whining at him, and hanging on his hip, day and night. ). We also have a Russian/English phrasebook, the best one according to Amazon reviewers; and a "Russian phrasebook for English Speaking Adoptive Parents." That thing is great. Katrina and I were practicing the other night and discovered that "brother" is "brat" in Russian, ha, ha!
Well, I could rattle on forever. Waiting does that to me. We'll let you know as soon as something happens!
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Tomorrow, tomorrow, we love you...tomorrow
Good thing I was raised in the "tomorrow" mentality. Kazakhstan seems to be a lot like Argentina. We were expecting to receive the glorious letter of invitation early this week, but were told yesterday that it won't arrive before the 20th. The good news? Kazakhstan celebrated "Women's Day" yesterday. Pretty progressive. But it closed down the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is still reviewing our dossier. More good news? The delay gives us a second chance to get reasonably (?!), ok, not-astronomically-priced, tickets. More good news? Justin doesn't have to rush back from a meeting in CA, to hop on a trans-Atlantic flight. More good news, boy you guys really like this stuff don't you. Ok, ok, ummmm, Katrina is coming with us. She's only in second grade and already smarter than me and Justin put together. When I asked Sophie about coming, she said, "Mom, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I really don't want to be in a tiny apartment with you guys in the middle of nowhere. I'd rather stay with Shannon." Ok, I can understand that I guess :)
More good news as it comes my way... til then, "Hasta mañana!"
More good news as it comes my way... til then, "Hasta mañana!"
Thursday, February 22, 2007
An Intro
I realized I sent out the link to this blog to so many people that we know from different places and from different times, some of whom are intimately familiar with this whole adoption "journey" and others who may be hearing about it for the first time. So, I think it needs an intro.
Justin and I have three lovely daughters who we treasure completely. Each is very special in her own way, and we feel that it is by God's grace alone, that we've been blessed with parenting them.
The idea to adopt came from feeling that we have room for one more. It was that simple, we have room for one more. We have room for one more, and there are already so many in the world. The natural thing was to adopt a boy, and to adopt from Argentina--but a trip down there and a meeting with an adoption judge produced nothing. It's a country that doesn't allow international adoption--but I had thought that since I was born there, it would make a difference.
Back in the States, I clicked away on adoption photolisting sites. I was looking for a school aged son. Justin wanted a baby. I inquired about several but they all seemed to get chosen the minute I inquired. Finally, I found Ruslan, and 18 months old in an unspecified country, and called Justin in California where he was on business. Turned out he was about 90 minutes from the adoption agency representing Ruslan. He met with the adoption director and we officially began our journey to Kazakhstan.
Our girls are absolutely thrilled. Katrina would like to have 12 children when she grows up--six biological and six adopted! Isabelle initially wondered why "baby Nicholas" (what we would like to name our son) wasn't in my belly. We explained there's more than one way to have a baby! And Sophie is approaching the perfect babysitting age, so the more the merrier.
There have also been times we've been worried about paperwork, or anxious about attachment disorder, but so far we have tried not to lean on our own understanding but rather on God's. Our neighbors have been a great support and encouragement, and are going to be essential for taking care of Sophie and Katrina while Justin, Isabelle and I spend three weeks in Kaz on the initial visit; and then two weeks after the "appeal period." But now I'm getting too "blogged down" in the details. You'll learn about all that as we go!
Justin and I have three lovely daughters who we treasure completely. Each is very special in her own way, and we feel that it is by God's grace alone, that we've been blessed with parenting them.
The idea to adopt came from feeling that we have room for one more. It was that simple, we have room for one more. We have room for one more, and there are already so many in the world. The natural thing was to adopt a boy, and to adopt from Argentina--but a trip down there and a meeting with an adoption judge produced nothing. It's a country that doesn't allow international adoption--but I had thought that since I was born there, it would make a difference.
Back in the States, I clicked away on adoption photolisting sites. I was looking for a school aged son. Justin wanted a baby. I inquired about several but they all seemed to get chosen the minute I inquired. Finally, I found Ruslan, and 18 months old in an unspecified country, and called Justin in California where he was on business. Turned out he was about 90 minutes from the adoption agency representing Ruslan. He met with the adoption director and we officially began our journey to Kazakhstan.
Our girls are absolutely thrilled. Katrina would like to have 12 children when she grows up--six biological and six adopted! Isabelle initially wondered why "baby Nicholas" (what we would like to name our son) wasn't in my belly. We explained there's more than one way to have a baby! And Sophie is approaching the perfect babysitting age, so the more the merrier.
There have also been times we've been worried about paperwork, or anxious about attachment disorder, but so far we have tried not to lean on our own understanding but rather on God's. Our neighbors have been a great support and encouragement, and are going to be essential for taking care of Sophie and Katrina while Justin, Isabelle and I spend three weeks in Kaz on the initial visit; and then two weeks after the "appeal period." But now I'm getting too "blogged down" in the details. You'll learn about all that as we go!
Valentine's Day Surprise
A bit heart-breaking, but on Valentine's we got news that Ruslan is no longer at the orphanage. But that's good news isn't it. Somewhere he is home with a mom and dad after 18 months living in a "baby house."
It threw us for a bit of a loop, but we went to Meson Sabika for dinner as planned. Justin gave me a beautiful bracelet, and I gave him a waffle-iron and a lifetime supply of homemade orange-infused whole grain waffles on Sunday mornings.
We were sent photos of several other boys, and our hearts were drawn to a three year old boy in girls shoes (there is definitely a shortage of boys clothing in these orphanages), with a big smile on his face. Justin and his mom both say he looks like Justin's older brother Philipp at that age.
His name is Petr, and apparently he was abandoned sometime after birth because he has not been there long. He's a comical little boy, and he got all of us laughing and loving him from 7000 miles away, so just think how funny he'll be when he's right here! I know God has already chosen our child, so we move forward with trusting hearts.
The photo that we have of Petr has a peanut butter and jelly kiss on it, a big smooch from Isabelle. She talks more and more about "Nicholas" as we'll call him. So far, Petr is Nicholas, the third. We'll see if he becomes, "Nicholas, the one we brought home."
It threw us for a bit of a loop, but we went to Meson Sabika for dinner as planned. Justin gave me a beautiful bracelet, and I gave him a waffle-iron and a lifetime supply of homemade orange-infused whole grain waffles on Sunday mornings.
We were sent photos of several other boys, and our hearts were drawn to a three year old boy in girls shoes (there is definitely a shortage of boys clothing in these orphanages), with a big smile on his face. Justin and his mom both say he looks like Justin's older brother Philipp at that age.
His name is Petr, and apparently he was abandoned sometime after birth because he has not been there long. He's a comical little boy, and he got all of us laughing and loving him from 7000 miles away, so just think how funny he'll be when he's right here! I know God has already chosen our child, so we move forward with trusting hearts.
The photo that we have of Petr has a peanut butter and jelly kiss on it, a big smooch from Isabelle. She talks more and more about "Nicholas" as we'll call him. So far, Petr is Nicholas, the third. We'll see if he becomes, "Nicholas, the one we brought home."
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