What's going on?

March 8 2008- Hi everyone! We're finally ready to begin this blog as a way to keep our family and friends in the loop about the happenings in our adoption journey. We appreciate your good wishes, love and support - this has truly helped us and kept us encouraged! We feel extremely blessed to have such an amazing group of people 'with us' as we follow this path.

This entry is a long one, to get everyone caught up - so grab a drink and get comfy!

So - to answer 'what's going on?' - on March 7 we received word from our agency director that our file has cleared Canada's Foreign Affairs authentication, has been translated into Russian, and has now moved to the Kazakhstan Consulate for Canada office in Toronto, to be authenticated there. (*April update - see newer blog entry*)

This file contains all of our adoption paperwork, including application forms, letters from us saying why we'd like to adopt a child from Kazakhstan, reference letters from our friends/ family, government clearance forms, employment records, medical records, copies of our passports and other ID, actual pictures of us, our house, our neighbourhood, our extended families, etc...

We have been waiting anxiously for this update, as our file was received at Foreign Affairs in October and we were told they were 'finished' with it in mid- December, so it has been a bit of a wait for this first sign of movement. Regardless, we are thrilled that our file has been woken up and allowed to get some exercise!

We're unsure how long the file is expected to remain at the Consulate, but this should be the final step in Canada before our file makes the long journey over to Kazakhstan. We will be notified when the file has become air-borne.

Once it is received overseas, a few levels of the Kaz government - first the Embassy, then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) , then the Ministry of Education (MOE) reviews our paperwork. They then match us with a region, then a city/town, then a specific orphange (or 'baby house', as they call them), and then finally to at least one child who is eligible for adoption and who matches our requests. By other families' accounts, this part of the process can take anywhere from 8-10 weeks.

Then - hopefully - we will receive a LOI (letter of invitation), to come and meet a child (or a few) we have been matched with, and we hustle our buns to get there, as our appointment may be as little as 14 days after we receive the LOI. As it takes 24-30 hours just to fly into Kazakhstan from Canada, we expect this to be an intense 2 weeks as we wrap up at our jobs, prepare everything we need to take, prepare the house for our absence and coming home with a little one, and finally get on the plane to start our new adventure!

About the child/ children we would meet - the youngest age that a child can be adopted internationally from Kaz is 6-7 months old, after the government has made efforts to have the child adopted domestically. Most of the other blogs I've been following have been about children 10-14 months old, so this is more what we're expecting. We have requested to adopt one child - boy or girl, of any ethnic mix, as young as possible and as healthy as possible. From the pictures I've seen from other families, the ethnic mix could be a full 'Kazakh' look, a look of mixed Asian/ Caucasian, or a full Caucasian look. We've left all on the table, and we believe completely that the universe will lead us to the child that was meant to be in our family!

About the area(s) of the country - Canadian families can be sent to one of three regions in Kaz - Astana (the new capital city), Almaty (the old capital city), and one other area (I can't remember the name right now). (*April update - see newer blog entry*)

The reason we can only be sent to certain areas is that we'll need to be near one of the Canadian Embassy doctors, as one of the steps while we're there is to have the child looked over by a Canadian representative, to be sure s/he is healthy enough to be brought into Canada.

We expect to remain in Kazakhstan for around 8-9 weeks. This is divided into phases of approx 2 weeks each:
1) The first 15 days after we meet the child we've fallen in love with, is called the 'bonding period'. We'll visit with the child at the baby house every day for 1-2 hours, then arrange for a checkup with the Canadian doctor through the Embassy. This doctor's report gets sent to London, England to be approved (not sure why?).
2) Then we'll request a court date to request permission to adopt this child. Getting a court date can take 1-2 weeks, during which time we still visit every day.
3) After a successful court appearance, there is another mandatory 15 day waiting period, when any remaining birth relatives can come forward to appeal the adoption/ claim the child - we understand this is very rare. And yes we'll still visit our baby every day.
4) After this waiting period we are 'officially' the child's parents, and we'll be allowed to have custody for some/ all of our remaining time in the country. (YAY!)
5) The last stretch is the final flurry of paperwork we need to remove the child from Kaz and return to Canada - we'll apply for a new birth certificate (with our names as parents- yay!), visa, passport , and we'll see the Canadian doctor again - this part takes 1-2 weeks as well.
6) We come home as a family !!

Kazakhstan is viewed within the International Adoption (IA) circles as a country that takes fantastic care of their children - the baby houses are well-staffed with caring people, the babies are given as much nurturing and interaction as time allows, while keeping them on a fairly rigid eating and sleeping schedule, and the children seem to be fairly healthy and happy.

I've added a few links to this blogpage (if I can figure out how to do it properly), with information about Kazakhstan, what time it is there (11-12 hours ahead of Canadian central time, as they do not follow daylight savings time), and anything else we think will be of interest.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions on this site, and we'll do our best to keep everyone updated.

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Thanks again for following along this far!
Take care, lots of love-
Paul and Nicole