Get Well Grampa Doug

Yesterday was a little bit stressful, but for a change not because of the adoptions. Dart's Dad was sent to the hospital by ambulance after having an abnormal ekg at his doctors office. He ended up going the hospital cath lab, having a procedure on his heart, and staying overnight. Dart immediately got flight info and was ready to fly to Florida that day but his Mom called in the afternoon and seemed to think everything was ok.

Based on the photos Gramma Jan sent us last night, Doug seems to be doing well. He looks pretty happy all things considered (but I think Gramma Jan looks a little worried). And I guess Doug was feeling ok because when Dart called to check on his Dad this morning he found he had been released from the hospital and that his parents were presently sitting down to breakfast at the local Bob Evans...I assume enjoying a fruit plate!!

Right now we can't wait to get them back to Ohio and to a specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. We sure do love our Grampa and besides I need Doug's ticker in good shape....I still have lots of home improvement projects for him :)

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Good News

Kazakhstan is OPEN! The official notice is below. We have heard back from our agency that the lawyer they now have reviewing our dossier has asked for a number of changes. None are a very big deal and we could have had them done by now but our social worker is currently on vacation and she needs to make one of the changes. We are trying to find someone else in her office to make the change but who knows. The home study/social worker part of the adoption process seems to always be the slowest link in the chain. I am really hoping we are going to be back on track soon.



March 25, 2008 -

On Monday, March 24th, Joint Council met with Kazakhstan Ambassador to the United States Erlan Idrissov and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michelle Bond. The meeting addressed the Ambassador’s concerns regarding adoptions between the United States and Kazakhstan and confirmed the ongoing review of all adoptions cases currently at the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington D.C. The Ambassador kindly detailed Kazakhstan’s efforts to ensure that intercountry adoptions are in the best interest of each child and conducted within an ethical and legal framework. He also expressed Kazakhstan’s efforts to utilize the tenets of the Hague Convention in both current and future laws.

Joint Council is pleased to report that at the conclusion of the meeting, the Ambassador confirmed that the temporary suspension of dossier processing by the Embassy is lifted and dossier’s meeting all necessary criteria will be processed. Dossiers not meeting the criteria will be held at the Embassy until all issues and concerns are successfully resolved. The Ambassador also confirmed that a review of all adoption service providers and family dossiers is ongoing and will remain in effect until further notice. During this review period, adoption service providers and potential adoptive parents should expect ongoing delays in processing times. No specific time line for the processing of dossiers is currently available.

It remains Joint Council’s understanding that in adoption cases where the dossier has already been processed by the Kazakhstan Embassy and forward to Astana are not affected by the review process noted above.

The Kazakhstan Embassy, U.S. Department of State and Joint Council have agreed to work collaboratively over the coming weeks to ensure that the goal of ethical, legal adoptions under the tenets of the Hague Convention are met in a timely fashion and in the best interest of each child. Joint Council hopes to meet with Consular Chief Almat Aidarbekov in the coming days to discuss specific issues related to child welfare in the U.S. and Kazakhstan.

Joint Council extends our sincere thanks and appreciation to Ambassador Idrissov and Deputy Assistant Secretary Bond for their efforts on behalf of the children we serve. We also applaud Ambassador Idrissov’s commitment to ethical child welfare and to ensuring a safe, loving and permanent family for every child.

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Vacation was fun but oh to be home again...

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

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Happy Easter!

On this Easter morning, a holiday celebrating faith and hope, I have a bit of positive and very hopeful news to share. Kazakhstan's status has been amended from "closed" to "suspended". Our agency seems confident that this is a temporary situation. Although no one can predict how long the delay will last we are hoping it will not be long. Our agency apparently had a dossier approved last week-DC is an Embassy that was supposedly closed. I don't know if this is a sign that things are getting back to normal, but it sure sounds good.

...we are on our way back from our Disney trip and I am sitting in a hotel lobby right now waiting for the rest of my family to get ready to hit the road again. Sitting next to me here is a family of three boys and a 3 year old asian girl (unbelievably cute). I told Kiefer to smack me in the head if he saw me staring-I think I may need therapy soon!!!

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Official post from the US State Department

Embassy of Kazakhstan Halts Processing of Adoption Dossiers


March 21, 2008


The Department of State has been informed that the Embassy of Kazakhstan is conducting a review of current procedures regarding intercounty adoptions. Until completed, this review will affect the processing of new adoption dossiers. Although initial indications were that no new cases would be processed during the review, we have learned that some new cases may have been accepted. We have offered to assist the Embassy with its efforts to ensure that adoptions from Kazakhstan to the United States are conducted in a transparent, serious and honest process. It is not known at this time how long this review will require.

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Rumors that might be more than rumors...

There is a lot of chatter on the message boards about Kazakhstan closing it's international adoption program. I guess this started with an announcement made on the 17th. Our agency has already sent us an email on the subject-which in my mind elevates this from rumor to very real concern. We are hoping this is not true but I just don't have a good feeling about this. This morning for the first time I thought about walking away; from Kaz and China too. Nothing we have been told has come to pass and I am seriously beginning to wonder what else might not be accurate.

There is a difference between optimistic and naive.

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Home Sweet Disney Home

This is our 18th Disney vacation so it really does feel a little like our home away from home. It is pretty funny to think about my first visit here back when Kiefer was 3 years old. Kiefer and Dart LOVED it. I on the other hand thought it was absolutely miserable and vowed I would never ever return. At trip 18 it’s not too hard to figure out who won that battle. Of course I must admit the place has grown on me. The truth is with three kids ages 17, 13 and 8 it really is one of the few places where everyone is happy, which is really all a mom can ask for.
We went to the Hoop De Do Review our first night at Disney. It is our favorite dinner show here and always fun. Kiefer was chosen to go on stage this time which made it even more fun. He was dressed as an Indian and dubbed “brave and strong”. He really hammed it up and got lots of laughs-finally a proper audience for the class clown!
BTW: tonight the magic kingdom was open until 3am-I mean are you kidding me!!???

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O-Savannah

Our first stop of Spring Break 08 was in Savannah Ga. This was just a quick overnight stop on our way to the real deal but we intended to make the best of it. Dart and I spent a 4 day weekend in Savannah a couple of years ago and loved it. It had everything we could ask for; a charming riverfront, beautiful city squares and gardens, history, golf, amazing food and nightlife: A perfect stop over on our family trek down south.
Ok now the reality…this is the weekend before St Patrick’s Day. Savannah, apparently founded a troupe of drunken leprechauns, is (as we now know) home of one of the most wild St Pat’s parties in the country. I’m not talking about the bagpipes and redheaded-step-dancing-girls sort of celebration either. This was more like an emerald colored Mardi Gras, complete with beads, booze and boobs.
But we’re here. We’re making the best of it. We get our beads (avoiding the beads with pot leaves, bear bottle openers and mini plastic breasts), and duck into a restaurant for dinner. It’s a nice enough place and since everybody else in the entire city is at the bar we are seated right away. After dinner, fearing our standing for parents of the year might be in jeopardy we decide to head for the exit, a brief stop to watch the AC/DC tribute band and we were done.
How about our timing though, as we were driving out of the city the lights went out (and I am not being figurative). The whole city was in a black out from about 10pm until 6 this morning. I can’t even imagine what it was like to deal with thousands are wasted Irish wannabes-the only light for miles, thousands of blinking shamrocks around their necks!

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LID Six Month Anniversary!!!

Well today marks the six month anniversary of our official log in date in China. Even though I know we have so many more months to wait I wanted us to celebrate the milestones. So today I say hooray...that's six months closer to our little china doll.

I hope someday my daughter looks back on this message and understands that even before she was born she was anticipated with joy and wanted beyond measure.

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Fun in the Sun & Snow

We had a great family day tubing at Brandywine today. It wasn't cold at all. The sun was so bright it was almost blinding without sunglasses. The Blizzard of 08 definitely had an up-side!

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Snow!!!

This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny sunny sky and almost 2 feet of the white stuff. It snowed pretty steadily from Friday afternoon through last night and we have been house bound the whole time but here I thought it was because we just wanted to spend a cozy, snowy weekend together. I t turns out that we couldn't have left the house if we wanted to!

My sister Lisa called me this morning. That's not unusual Lisa calls me every weekend, usual sometime during the spin cycle. This morning though she started the call by asking about the blizzard. BLIZZARD? Apparently it was all over the TV..."Ohio Blizzard-Worst Snow Storm In Ten Years" I mean there is snow but I didn't think it was that big a deal. I guess we should have turned a TV on yesterday.

Right now we are going to try to power our way out of development. It is almost noon and we haven't seen a snow plow yet but we are guessing the main roads will be in better shape. We did go outside yesterday to play in the snow but it was blowing pretty hard and we couldn't stay out for long. If we can get the old family minivan out of the cul de sac we are going to try to do some snow tubing. Now I just need to assemble ten gloves (matching optional), 5 pair of snow boots, ski pants, hats and coats!

I think the boys shoveled the driveway at least 5 times on Saturday!!!

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Someone Should Write a Book...

..."What To Expect When You're Expecting, A Baby or Toddler, Sometime In The Next 10 To 40 Months, From China or Kazakhstan". Hmmm something to do while I wait????

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Another half step forward for Kaz and China too

First Kaz...Maeven from Adoption Ark emailed me to let me know that she received our translated dossier back and that she is sending it to the Kazakhstan Embassy in DC today. While this is progress I know our dossier will simply be placed in a growing pile of untouched, unprocessed dossiers (the result of the staff change/retraining that has been going on for several weeks now). I am starting to get good at this waiting in queue thing!

Now China...Great Wall China announced today that "the stork has landed". This happens about every month; another group of GW families receive their long awaited referral. But this month, finally there were referrals for families with 2006 log in dates! The referrals went thru January 4, 2006, (September 13, 2007 here we come!!!). One interesting thing though was the age of these babies. All 20 of the babies were between 6.5 and 8.5 months old. That is really young. We pretty much thought we would be referred a toddler 12-18 months. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come.

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Delays...here we go again

KAZ EMBASSY IN DC-MY DOSSIER IS HERE.

The next step for us is the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington, DC. Unfortunately there was a change in staff a couple of weeks ago and they have stopped processing all dossiers until the new staff has had time to complete training. Apparently there is another Kaz Embassy in NYC but our agency has been assigned DC and that is that, we wait. We have no word as to how long this delay will take or what sort of backlog the interruption will cause. I am without energy to even complain. It just seems to be par for the course for us. Our coordinator Alla claims that there are no other delays expected and that once we get past the Embassy we will be back on track but who knows. I am hearing all kinds of scuttle about long delays to adopt baby girls ( a result of lots of people like us jumping from the China program). Still we believe that our daughter will come, and just as with each pregnancy, she will come in her own time.

Optimistically this weekend we moved Nolan into Aidan's room, hereafter called the "dorm room". Dart has been working all weekend to install a closet system and build a monstrous loft for the boys. They now have both beds in the air and a sectional sofa underneath. To soften the blow of no longer having their own rooms we have allowed them to bring a TV, XBox, computer and stereo up to the "dorm room". We did say no when they asked for a refrigerator.

Aidan is fine with all the changes but he is always happy whenever there is someone to talk to, even if it is his 8 year brother. Nolan on the other hand is really sentimental about his "nursery". Last night he made a point to tell us he was "just trying" the dorm room. No commitments here-he's keeping all options open. Later this morning we compromised. He said I could have his room for the babies as long as he could sleep there once in a while. I told him it was probably going to be pink and girly but he didn't seem to mind as long as he could visit. I hate to think what would happen if we actually had to move!

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New, Improved and Girly-fied Blog Design

Another adoptive mom in my GWCA group told me about Danielle, the person who redesigned my blog. So neat. I am going to have to check this whole digital scrapbooking thing out. The regular scrapbooking with the glue and the scissors and the stickers and the mess, well it just never worked for me. Although I own enough supplies and equipment to open my own scraporama mega mall, I think digital photo layouts might be a better fit for me :)

IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED IN A BLOG MAKEOVER PLEASE CHECK OUT DANIELLE'S LINK ON THIS PAGE :-)

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