We're Going to Kazakhstan!!!

Our dossier is here....the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan!

Ok well at least our dossier is going. After many long months of waiting the Kazakhstan Embassy has approved our dossier. This is HUGE progress for us and just the boost we needed. Adoption sure ain't for the faint of heart!

Our dossier should be to the first Ministry this week. At this point we are anticipating a 3-4 month time frame before we pass though the ministries and are assigned a region. After that it is just a matter of luck and faith. We will be invited to travel as soon a baby girl is available for adoption in our assigned region.

For Kaz PAP's keeping track, my dossier was submitted to the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington, DC on May 1 and was approved on May 23rd-we were notified on the 27th.

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My "first daughter"

About a month ago my 17 year old niece Courtney came to live with us. The circumstances were difficult and we have been going through a stressful transition. Today though we had a couple of things to celebrate with Courtney.

1st today was her last day of high school! She will be graduating from high school on June 1st.

2nd Courtney finally got her (temporary) drivers license!!

so watch old world (literally and figuratively)here she comes......

This is a poem that Courtney wrote for my birthday today

Thank you for your loving advice,

Even though you had to repeat it once or twice.

Thank for giving me a home,

Even though I said i wanted to be alone.

Thank you for not giving up on me,

I know how hard this has to be.

You picked me up when I said I can't,

This poem is for the best Aunt.

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My thoughtful husband...

I forgot to show everyone the gorgeous flowers my husband had waiting for me when we walked into our room at the Four Seasons in Vegas. We celebrated my 42 birthday while there.

How about the note in his card to me "You are even more beautiful and sexy than the day I met you" (is he good or what!!!!) Thanks Babe, I love you too.

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Celebrate every milestone, Live every day...

CELEBRATE...
Ok now, less cranky. Happy 8 months LIDversary to me. 8 months closer to my dream of a daughter. Someday this will all be a memory; part of a long and difficult journey that in the end, like that journey to each of my beautiful sons, is worth every effort. I love you already my sweet sweet daughter.


LIVE...
We are heading to one of my favorite places-the Four Seasons Hotel POOL in Las Vegas in the morning. I need this, right now, mmmmmm good.

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Calculating...

(warning this is a cranky post....) Tommorrow is 8 months since we logged into China-I find it hard to celebrate. This is what we got when we entered our China log in date on an online referal calculator;



"Our prediction for LID 2007-09-13



China has 609 days of dossiers to be processed before they get to your dossier. China currently processes about 5.7 days of dossiers each month.



Our best guess: 2015-07-31"

Hmmm, in summer of 2015 I will be 49 and Dart 50. We will no longer be eligble to adopt an infant. The boys will be 24, 20 and 16 and if we are fortunate enough to adopt a baby from Kazakhstan this year she will then be 8 or 9 years old. I feel like our timing has been monumentally bad.

By the way last month China processed 3 days (not 5.7) of dossiers-yeeeesssshhh .

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Mother's Day 2008

Well even though the weather was cold and rainy and not at all like springtime, I had a beautifully warm Mother's Day. We went to church this morning with grandma and grandpa and then to Silver Lake Country Club for brunch. Family, food, cards and gifts and best of all gentlemanly behavior from the boys, (maybe they saw my earlier post and decided to be good???)

My men gave me a set of silver picture frames with a photo of each of my gorgeous sons and a pearl drop necklace engraved with the words "keep the faith" (referring to the adoption). So very sweet and thoughtful.

I am a lucky Mom indeed!

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Mother's Day

Every Mother of teenage sons will get this...I wonder how daughters will be different (she thought naively)???

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Pink Pagoda

I finally made a choice for our soon to be girly girl nursery. I love that we were able to add an asian attitude to this very special nursery but still keep a pink and green cottage color palate. This one seems to have been custom made for my girls. (My girls-I love that!) We are setting up both a crib and twin bed. I don't think we will have a delivery until mid summer or so but that leaves us time to do the transformation from red, blue and yellow trucks to Pink Pagoda!

(click on the title of this post for a link to the manufacter...)

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Not much movement for China...

"This morning the CCAA informed us that they have completed the matching process for families with dossiers registered through January 12, 2006." "...last month the CCAA’s cut off date was January 9, 2006"

Message from our China Adoption Agency

In the last month our China adoption wait has only moved three days closer to a referral. Our LID is 9/13/2007. At this rate we are just a couple hundred months away from a referral!!!

I am so grateful that we are pursuing another adoption in Kazakhstan. Although it still feels like my heart is in China it is clear that my daughter is actually in Kaz. How funny how things work out. Three years ago I thought my family was complete, a year and a half later I was dreaming of China, and a year after that I learned of Kazakhstan.

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Dossier to DC!!!!! This time it is for real...

We heard from our agency today, our dossier has been sent to the Kaz Embassy. We are so very excited. I thought we would be long past this part of the process by now but right now I don't really care about the delays. I am just so relieved that we are finally moving forward again. I am hoping to be thru the Embassy and on the way to Kaz in a couple of weeks; too late for Mother's Day but maybe in time for my birthday. That would truly be a great gift.

So I am reinvigorated and once again blindly, naively, hopefully optimistic that I may indeed meet my daughter yet this year. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed - wish us luck.

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