Waiting.....

Well, I am definitely in Wait mode. I was warned that waiting to travel was the hardest part and I now understand. Waiting (i.e. not being in control) is not my strong point and I am becoming increasingly impatient. However, I am trying to focus on the tasks I still need to accomplish before I go. I had a conference call with my agency last week about the documents I will need for travel. There are 3, yes 3, different sets of documents. One for court, one for travel, and one for the Embassy appointment at the end of the trip. Most of the documents I have already had to acquire for my dossier, such as medical forms, FBI fingerprint check, character references, etc. But these docs cannot be more than 6 months old at the court date, so they have to be done again. Sigh! I guess it's kind of like being pregnant and childbirth; you'll forget about the pain and discomfort once you see that little face! That's what I keep reminding myself.

Anyway, I plan to travel blind to Kazakhstan. This means that I will not receive any information about a specific child before I travel. My agency is currently in the process of seleting the region where I will travel. They, of course, will send me to a place that has children available that match the criteria I specified in my dossier. The children in Kaz are absolutely beautiful and diverse. Most of the people are Kazakh which looks very asian. Some people are ethnic Russian and look caucasian. And then many look like a combination of the two. I did not specify ethnicity. I did request a boy under the age of 18 months. Children must be on a registry for 6 months before they can be adopted. So, the babies are usually not younger than 7-8 months before they are adopted. Therefore, my baby will probably fall somewhere in the 8-18 month age range. Makes it a little difficult to pick out clothes at the moment!

In Kaz, you can choose to do one long trip or break it into two. If parents choose to do one trip, they are usually in-country for 7-8 weeks. If you break it into 2, the first trip is approximately 4 weeks and the second trip is about a week with a month in between. You spend 2 weeks bonding everyday with the child in the baby house and then a court date is set. Court happens before you leave on the first trip. After court, there is a 15 day appeal period. This is what causes the trip to be so long. If you do 2 trips, you leave for the 15 day appeal period. I currently plan to do 2 trips so I can come back and work in between. This will allow me more time with my son once home before I have to go back to work. I know leaving after bonding will be very difficult and it is not ideal but I think this will work best for my situation. We'll see. My Mom will travel with me on both trips. She plans to stay for 2 weeks on the first trip and then will travel back with me on Trip 2 to pick him up. Alot of single women do the entire trip alone. I feel very grateful I will not have to go alone. Thanks, Mom!!