Recent Updates...

3-19-2009

Hello Everyone. Thanks so much for your kind words and for all your prayers. We have been to the baby house as of Wednesday. We are in the middle of making some personal decisions regarding which child to bond with and we'll update you when those decisions are made. Know that we are having a positive experience and we hope to bring you happy news soon! Until we get internet at the apartment, we'll probably only be able to update every two or three days...sorry :-( In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of our apartment and of Pavlodar.


Russian Orthodox Church in Pavlodar


Eternal Flame Memorial (World War II)


Mosque in Pavlodar


Apartment: Living Room


James Cooking Our First Meal in the Apartment


Views of the Courtyard from our Apartment

3-17-2009

Sveta to the rescue! We’ll preface our post with that so you don’t worry too much as you read the beginning of this story. Today we had one final meeting/interview to go through before we are allowed to visit the babies. This interview was with the director of the Child Welfare Union in Kaz. We were assigned a translator, Vitaly, who had never before translated for an adoption situation. His English was also not very good. Sveta is our coordinator and deals with the paper work and all the many logistics and we have a translator who comes with us to meetings for simple translations. Hmm…it was not so simple as it turned out. We expected the interview to be a little harder than the first but since the first one went so incredibly smoothly, we really weren’t worried. The woman at the union began by asking us the simple question of why we wanted to adopt from Kazakhstan. We answered, and she continued to ask the same question, clearly not satisfied with the answer we were giving. For about 20 minutes she kept asking us why we didn’t adopt from the states or why we didn’t try to have biological children first. We had the feeling that our translator must not be communicating our words correctly considering that thousands of US families have adopted from Kazakhstan over the years. I was close to breaking down in tears and we were both convinced that they were going to send us home without even being able to meet the children. Then, like a dramatic movie, Sveta comes through the door and takes over the conversation. The woman asks Sveta to ask us why we want to adopt from Kazakhstan. Again, we answered, Sveta translated, and the woman moved on to the next question. Phew…
By the end of the interview, the woman told us that she was done torturing us and explained that she had to ask us the hard questions since she would be representing us in court. We are now happy that this very strong willed, persistent woman is on our side. She even cracked a smile. She was required to appear in court for two other families today and was unable to bring us to the baby house so we will likely be going tomorrow. Each day we ARE getting closer.

Fun Kazakh Fact of the Day:
While Kazakhstan does have washing machines, they do not have clothes dryers. This is mainly due to lack of space.


3-16-2009

Not much to report today. We were unable to get to the baby house this morning because the ministry of education here wanted to confirm the exact children who are off the registry and available for adoption. There was an unfortunate incident with another family here who was in the middle of their bonding time with a child. The family was at the end of their 14 day bonding when the orphanage director discovered that the child they were bonding with was not yet off the registry and therefore was not able to be adopted. How terribly heartbreaking for this family. We are thankful that the ministry of education is taking necessary precautions to ensure that we don’t find ourselves in a similar position.

Fun Kazakh Fact of the Day:
Peanut butter is a luxury item in Kazakhstan. We found one jar of it in Almaty but there is none to be found here in Pavlodar. Sveta says that sometimes American Families will send her peanut butter for Christmas. They don’t eat it much so they told us we can raid their supply if we get desperate.

3-15-2009

We can truly say we are experiencing Kazakhstan to the fullest. Today we moved into an apartment and boy is it a sight. We’ll just say that the place has character! It’s all part of the experience and we are loving it. Ava is going to have a pretty cool story to tell her friends about how she came to be our daughter. We feel comfortable here and have children playing soccer outside our window at this very moment.
Today we went to lunch with Sveta, Iliya and their son Danny. We went to Sveta’s favorite restaurant that served just about everything. I got a greek salad with chicken crapes and James had a tropical salad with pizza. This was Danny’s favorite restaurant too because there is a play area for the kids to enjoy while their parents eat and drink their tea. Sveta and Iliya also have a daughter, Sasha (2 1/2), who on a trip to visit grandma for the week. We will meet her when she returns.

Well, back to watching Dawson’s Creek…we are now in the middle of season 3! We only have through season 4 so if anyone has another TV series or Dawson’s Creek season 5-9, we’d welcome them!

Fun Kazakh Fact of the Day: Mom wont like this one… Fitted bed sheets don’t really exist in Kazakhstan. There is one sheet that lays over the mattress and then one sheet on top. If you are planning to travel to Kaz, and have room, I would suggest brining bed sheets!