We have a due date!!!

We have found out that our Letter of Invitation has been sent from Kazakhstan and that we can be there on April 15th. This is great news as apparently they are not issuing any more LOI’s for a while. We are so thrilled to finally know when this journey to parenthood will end and when our lives as new parents will begin. It looks like I will teach this coming up week and then we will do all of our last minuet preparations and leave for Seattle early the next week. We can not make our plane reservations quite yet. We have been reminded that the LOI must be in hand before we make those reservations, yet I don’t foresee too many more hurdles to clear before we get to meet our little one(s). It is surreal to us both that this is finaly happening. I don’t know when the reality of it all will hit me. Thank you all for the prayers and positive thoughts. They are definitely working.

Still in Oregon

Sorry to those of you who got your hopes up. Sharron (my sister) was just doing a training session so that she can update the blog while we are away and before we figure out the kazak internet cafes. We have been on a river trip over spring break. I know many of you will find this not to suprising:) And as usual we heard nothing from our agency this past week. We were told to expcet something within the first 10 days of April and, well, it is not April quite yet. I did hear via the web grapvine that many kids are comming off of the registry in Uralsk April 15th so hopeful they will want us there on that date. Thank you all for your comments, well wishes and prayers.
Karon

While Karon and John are away. . .

Hi Everyone,

This is Sharron, Karon's big sister. While they are halfway across the world in a place I look at every morning on my world map shower curtain, I will be posting entries for them.

Looking forward to the journey!

Sharron

A little More Information

After begging for some information I was finaly told that we "should" recive our LOI during the first 10 days of April. We then can depart shortly there after. As with all things in this jorney, I will belive it when I see it. I am still so worried that something will go wrong between now and when we leave.

Great News…Or so I think…

Today was a big day in our bureaucratic pregnancy. I had planned all along to tell my students today about adopting but some news first thing this morning made it a little easier. Our paperwork has left the capitol and they expect it to be in Uralsk on Wednesday. They say that we should have our LOI in a few weeks and we will leave from there. I am trying really hard not to inundate the agency with questions, OK maybe only one a day will be good for now LOL.

As far as letting my students know, they were great. They asked lots of cute questions and also lots of well thought-out questions, like Why Kazakhstan. I seriously doubt that the Kazak courts will be more thorough than my 7th graders. As I have said before it will be hard to leave this bunch early.

I will update again as soon as I find out any more information.

Age and Patience

So this feeling I am having now must be the wisdom of age patience that John is always talking about. While I heard nothing again today I was able to handle it. I know that this is going to happen and that our lives will be forever changed and that it will be soon enough. With that said I have also been supper busy between surprising my father for his 80th birthday and taking my students to the science fair, I have not had a tremendous amount of time to daydream about our future family. John is also a constant source of reassurance as he reminds me that we will do whatever it takes to make this happen whenever it happens.

Also, I am glad that I will get to spend a little more time with my students this year. I had several breakthrough moments with them today and had we been gone I would not have seen how I had touched their lives. Once again, I promise to keep you all informed as soon as I find out anything.

Back to the world of silence

So if you are out there wondering about our journey and how our paperwork is moving along, you are in the same boat as us the expecting parents. We are still in a void of silence. A family working with our agency just left today and we are expecting to hear that our paperwork is at the Embassy any day now. Once it reaches the Embassy it should take a maximum of 2 weeks to receive our Letter of Invitation (LOI). Once we get that we will be able to get our visas and plane tickets. After that we should be able to leave and start the whole point of this journey which is to become parents. We have decided that we will not be taking our laptop on the trip as it is ancient by modern technology standards. We do however plan to keep updating the blog via internet cafes. To all of our loyal visitors I promise that as soon as we know anything we will post again.

28 days or so we think:)

So we are in a phase of hurry up and wait. It keeps going back and forth weather we will be able to go at the end of March on in the begging of April. It all seems to depend on how quickly they finish our paperwork in Astan and get the necessary information to the Embassy. Our coordinator told us yesterday that it could happen anytime with in the next two weeks. Then we should expect our Letter of Invitation (LOI) two weeks latter. It will be a grand day when that happens. In the mean time I did manage to get most of my classes figured out for the rest of the year so I don’t have to stress about getting my sub ready at the last minuet.

We are still in limbo on whether we will be adopting one or two children on this trip. I know it will be much clearer when we meet the available children and see their little personalities shine. I guess this is the time of my life when I get to give up my planning instincts and just “go with the flow.”

The Silence Has Been Broken!

Well I finally heard from our agency today and yes they are working hard for us and yes our paperwork is going through the normal phases of adoption gestation. The great news is that it looks like our paperwork should move to Uralsk next week and we should hopefully, if all goes well, meet our little one at the end of March or the beginning of April. This of course has sent me on a roller coaster of emotions and to do list again. I forced my self to stop stressing about all the details when I thought it would be later. Now the task of getting ready to leave work for the rest of the school year is overwhelming. I think I will tell my students right after the science fair and before spring break just in case we leave over break.

I also heard that one more family is leaving for Kazakhstan any day and that we are next on the list. This is very exciting news.