Adoption Update

We wanted to bring all of you up to speed on where things stand regarding our adoption process. Here’s a recap:

We received a Letter of Invitation from the Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan to travel between the dates of December 10, 2010 and March 10, 2011 with a request to arrive as soon as possible. It then took a couple of weeks to receive our visas for travel.

Kazakhstan is in the process of converting their adoption program to become a “Hague” program, which involves more rigorous standards (hard to believe they could be more rigorous). They have therefore not been processing any new dossiers for several months, while they prepare to bring this new program online – probably in the late spring. In short, we are one of the last families (if not the last) to be adopting under the old system. That’s why they wanted us here ASAP – so they can get all of these “old system” cases done.

We left the States on December 26, arriving in Kazakhstan late the night of December 27. FYI, it is 12 hours ahead of Central time here – so if you live in the Central time zone, it’s always easy to know what time it is here! We’re your voice from the future.

At this time, an official match with a child has not yet been made – we are hoping for a match by mid-January, and are encouraged that this will happen.

Following this timetable, the mandatory bonding period would begin in mid-January, then court, and we would anticipate returning to the United States in early February while various paperwork steps are completed. Steve will then return about 4-6 weeks later to bring our child home.

Given the transition from I-600 cases (like ours) to I-800 cases, we are just thankful to have been invited to come and given this wonderful opportunity.

The most difficult part of the journey for us has been being away from Lily Grace. We are grateful to our family for doing such a great job taking care of her – she has adapted well and is on her own great adventure. We have experienced first-hand the blessing of technology, as we are able to have video calls with her via Skype.

So, our blog will continue to have those riveting posts on frozen lakes and borscht and who knows what next, as we endeavor to make the most of this time of waiting and preparation. :-)

Thank you for taking this journey with us – your support has been incredible, and we’re beyond blessed.

Steve and Tonya