Happy New Month

So while we did not see these things in person this is what you get to see on Kazakh TV:) Very entertaining. Oh and we also get the Halmark Chanel.

So to all of my loyal readers, I apologize for not updating yesterday. We have actually been very busy here.

Yesterday morning we many second hand stores to find clothes for the little one. The new ones at the market are expensive, and well we are here 2.5v weeks longer than we planed.

Yesterday was also his 7 month birthday. We made a mistake earlier when we said his birthday was the 8th of September, it is actually the 30th (sorry Stephanie.) The other big thing about our visit was we got to change him. We were worried because we had only seen his hands and face but now we have been granted almost complete viewing rights. We did however have to change him quickly because they worry a lot about babies being cold. He was very patient with his new parents as we played dress up with him. Every day we spend with him gets better and better.

In the afternoon, we ended up visiting with our friends Jack and Janet and their new son. He is adorable. Then we made dinner with Matt and Betsy. We keep joking around that this place is a lot like living in a college dorm. The kitchens are also very small so if we want a meal with two burners we need to make friends.

Today is May Day and we are going to go to the celebrations and parade this morning until our visit. Sadly it is cool and poring down rain. Oh well it will still be fun.

Another fun day halfway around the world

After our adventurouse day yesterday John and I were looking forward to having a bit more of a relaxing day.

We did sleep in for a little while and John went downstairs to get breakfast and we ate in the room. Our neighbors Bettsy and Matt came over and wanted to see if we would like to walk to the Atrium to buy dipers. Ah the thrill of new parenthood! We had a nice walk but it was very windy.

After that we kicked our feet up for about five minuets before our other neighbor Jack came over. He visitied for a while then our Kazkah frined we met yesterday stoped by and said that he would like us to come to the theater to see a play. We ended up having a great talk with him and helped him with his English grammar. He is getting better with each conversation.

We also got to go on the bus today for the first time tonight to get to the theater. The play we watched was "The 13th Floor." It was all in Kazakh and we could not understand a word, but their acting was so good that we were able to follow the plot. It was very funny and they did an excellent job. We were so thankful that we had this opportunity. I hear in June they wll be preforming Romeo and Juliet. I guess the clasics are such no mater where you are in the world.

All in all we are having a great time. I am so thankful for our new Kazakh Friends. I have high hopes for this country if these youngsters are tomorrows leaders.

The very sad thing about Sunday here is that we do not get to visit the little one. It is our interpretors day off. I just hope that she was able to explain that to our little guy.

Market & Students

You can still get bread for a nickel

So, Dad, I thought that you would be very excited to know that you can get a loaf of bread here for a little over a nickel (10 Tenge), but you have to shop around.

Today was our most adventurous day yet.

We started off the morning by going to the outdoor market withour friends Matt and Betsy. It was nice to go out with them, but the market was a little disappointing. We were really hoping to find some souvenirs to help our new child remeber Kazkahstan, but most things at the market were things we could get at home. It was cool, however, that it is all outdoors with small vendors so that everyone has a job.

After that, we found the big food market. It is run the same way, with small vendors all throughout the room. Several people will sell root vegtables, several will have apricots and nuts, several will sell spices, and so on.

We also found the big meat market. Just in case you were wondering about how we would figure out what each kind of meat was, they have the heads on display next to it. No questions need be asked.

After the markets, we went to visit JED, or, as you are all calling him, Baby Bug (thanks Aunt Sharron). He was full of smilles today and loves looking at me with his very big dark eyes. He is still pretty bald, but he looks like he will have dark hair. He is getting stronger and stronger. Today he even could push himself up when we laid him on his belly.

Later, our translator dropped us off at the library where we met with the group af students again. They were having a circle discussion (all in English for practice) about "Does Money Make the World go Around?" It was so nice to be around young idealists. The best part was hanging out with all of them afterwards. We had pizza with a few of them, and many of them walked with us for a long way. We learned more Kazakh words and they practiced a lot of the their English.

Karon

Teaching on the Other Side of the World

While I wait for the internet to reach a crawling speed I will type this message in a word document. Just in case any of you were wondering Microsoft is still the operating system half way around the world. Yesterday we had a very packed day.

One very exciting part of yesteray was leading a discussion for a class at the Eurasian Institute. They have an English club, with many students who are learning English and are also interested in Business. We basically stood up told them about our life in Eastern Oregon and then we answered their questions for the rest of the hour. They had great questions ranging from how our political, health and school systems work, to how many disco clubs we have in our town. The best part was afterwards talking with students about study abroad programs and Camp America jobs. We also meet the other peace corps volunteers and a man who works for the UN. Not too bad for an afternoon class. Our next one is this Saturday.

In the afternoon we went for our daily visit with our boy. He is so adorable and he was much more awake today. We are also starting to notice that he is getting stronger. When we met him a week ago he could barely hold his head up. He now has that down, yet he still thinks it is fun to crash into us with his head. Thank goodness we are quick movers so that we do not get craked lips by our little squirmer.

We get to go to the market today to get him clothes. As far as sending any Beth it would take to long to get here, so we will be fine waiting until we are home. Also we do have a car seat, but not an infant one..

We are still having lots of fun with the other American couples at the Pushkin. They are nice to have around to support us through this life changing event.

Sleepy Boy Yesterday

We are having so many firsts with our little one. Yesterday we got there a little later than usual and he was so very tired. He was trying his hardest to stay awake, but by the time he had to go back he could not fight sleep any longer. When our translator took him from John (who hogs him by they way:) he reached his tiny little hand towards him as they left the room. It was very adorable.

Today we started some of our court paperwork. There is nothing like being in a room with 7 women speaking Russian very quickly to make you feel absoultly clueless. We also found out they might have an apartment for us. We will look this afternoon and see if it is really an option.

Today we are also going to get to go to the outdoor market to get some clothes for the little guy. They don't have much that will fit him there because he is so small. Right now he is only fed formula and probably will be for a while until we can beef him up a bit.

Here are more measurments but remember that we will not be home until June (unless we get a mirical) so he should grow some.
Chest 6.25 in.
Head 14.96
inseam: 16.5
waist 17

Tonight we will get to go to the English discussion group. I am not sure what to expect, but it will be fun to step out of our comfort zone a bit.

Until tomorrow . . .

We have found the internet cafe:)

In an effort to save on cost for our extended journey we have found an internet cafe where we can use the computer for 1/5 the cost of the hotel computer. The other advantage is 6k of walking:) We should be in really great shape by the time we get home.

We have not been able to visit the little one yet today. The cafe is very crowded once school lets out for the day, so we will write before our 2pm visits.

As far as measurements go you can do an internet search for a metric conversion calculator. I will see about getting it in inches. His head is 38cm and I will get the rest today. He only weighs about 8.8 lbs right now. Basically we are being told not to treat him as a 7 month old because he was so premature. He should be considered aa a 3 month old. The doctors are telling us that this delay in size and development will even out by the time he is two or three years old. (no teeth yet either.) With that being said we really don't have anything for such a small infant except for a crib. I think he is too much of a squirmer for a swaddle but maybe that is what they are for. I will certainly need a lot of training in all of the tools required to operate a safe and healthy baby. For right now they just let us do the good stuff which is play with him. Over time I am sure that we will get more and more responsibilities.

Another note for future adopting families, we have had the opportunity to relearn the importance of currency strength(exchange). When we did our budget for coming here the dollar was much stronger than it is now. Oops, make sure you ask your agency cost of things in both US$ and Tenge.

Another great day

We got to see the boy again today. John was even complimented on his fathering skills today. Our translator said very few new fathers know how to hold a baby as well as he does. Many of you are asking about the name, yet we are still waiting to get more information about his current name. We gave the caregivers a journal we are starting for him, with many questions for them to answer.

He was very active and always wants to look around. We tried to lay him on his belly, but he did not seem to know what to do. When we picked him back up he looked at us like "hey what was that all about?" He was working his little muscles pretty hard today. He was even sweating as they had him in three layers. One day we might even get to see the rest of his body.

For those of you wanting measurements will you please tell me what you need. He is 53 cm tall from head to toe.

It also looks like we will be able to start helping some university students with their English soon. Maybe even starting tomorrow.

John in front of the World War II Memorial

Karon in front of the market they call "the blue store"

Take two on posting

Well I had just finished writing you all about our adventures and it just dissapeared into cyber space:( So I will start agian.

First off I want to appologize for any spelling errors as this computer is formated for Russian so t thinks everything is spelled wrong when I do spell check.

We had a great Sunday or wondering around town and also we went to see the Russuan Orthodox church not too far from our hotel. We also got the chance to practice our Russian with a little old woman who was selling potatoes in front of the church. She also took the time to teach us the names of many other vegtables.

The big news though for today was seeing our little guy. We only could see him for 30 minuets for various reasons. But there were the best 30 minuets we have had here. He is still just as cute, and we prommise that we will post pictures as soon as we are allowed. Aunt Sharron he loves the toy you got him and thinks that he is very hot stuff in the mirror. He loves looking around and he opens his mouth very wide and laughs when he sees something of interest. Be prepared to have your hearts stolen. Also, we will take measurments tomorrow for all of you who ask.

After our trip to the baby house 2 we picked up a map for John and we also picked up dipers (let the reality of parenting stat to sink in).

Other exciting news is that we have neighbors and new friends at the hotel. THey are really friendly and we even decided to be brave and go out to dinner. We were armed with my little knowledge of the Russian language and their tranlator book. It took three hours but the food and company were great. When we were leaving we had a guy ask us in Russian if we were Americans. We said yes and learned that he is the corrdinator for the Peace Corups volunteers in the region. Just who we had been looking for. How everything falls into place is a miracle.

I must go for now but I will check in again tomorrow from the internet cafe. It is cheeper than the hote.

Must stop napping

Hello loyal fans and readers,

Today was our first full day in Uralsk and we are commng out of the gates rather slowly. We woke up very early this morning and headed down to breakfast at the hotel. It was very good and we have decided that we will be eating some big meals in the morning while we are here. After breakfast we went up to the room and became fixated on the puzzle we brought and talked a lot about our little one. We are both very sad that we cannot visit him this weekend but soon enough it will be Monday..

We did make ourselves go out and explore for a few hours this morning. It was very interesting to walk around and I do wish that I had learned how to read Russian. The shops here don't have things in the windows and many times they don't have any windows so we just had to be brave and curious and peek in. We found lots of cool things and neat little shops. The people were very friendly and patient as I spoke the best Russian that I could muster up. At one point John just started drawing pictures to try and communicate.

It is very wonderful to be in a place without much tourism as it forces us to step out of our comfort zone. We are going to also try to find the Peace Corps Volunteers so that we can do some volunteer work when we are here.

We are still struggling with the jet lag, yet the idea of givving up our mid day naps are hard. I am sure by the time we leave we will be fully adjusting. Thank you all for your comments. We enjoy hearing from you all.

It is a malenke malchick!!!

We are proud to announce that we are soon to be the proud new parents of a very tiny little boy. He was born Spetmeber 8th 2006 and he is absolutly adorable. He was the second child they brought in and we both knew the second we saw him. We both held him and he laughed and hopped around and just kept looking at us. We played with him until they took him away. They brought in two more children that were each two years old. While they were adorable they just did not feel right.

After meeting him our hearts were so happy knowing that it was so easy to meet the right child and just know. Then we got to hop on the emotional roller coaster. As we were rejoycing the social worker made a few phone calls and then it was announced that this boy would not be availible until May 9th. Our hearts crashed as we did not understand what this meant. We were then told that while she filed the paperwork more than 6 months ago they did not file it right away in the capitol. So we made a very difficult choice which is to start unofficial visitation on Monday until May 9th. We will not be able to start our official visitation until May 9th and court will be a few weeks after this.

We have said from the beginning that we would do what we felt was right not what was easy. When John and I got married we vowed (for some very bizzare reason) to always keep our lives adventures. Right now we have many details to work out this weekend to figure out our extended stay.

We are sad that we can not visit him until Monday but the baby house does not have heat in the room we will use for visitations. This should be fixed by Monday. We love hearig from all of you.

Hello From Almaty Kazakhstan

Well we have made it safely to Kazakhstan and all went well in our travels. The flights to Germany all went very well and were quite uneventfull. In Germany we had to get boarding passes for our flight on Luftansa. This took about 1.5 hours but hey what else did we have to do there but hang out in line. I did buy one thing there which was a $4 bottle of water. oh yea. After that everything seemed much less appealing. People in Germany were super friendly and it amazes me that many people we met spoke English well. I still find it a bit embarassing that Americans don't typically know another language.

The flight from Chigago to Germany was a bit rough we spent a lot of time generating static electricity and not so much time sleeping. We then had another night of flying into Kazakhstan on a brand new Luftansa plane. great service!

When we got off of the plane in Almaty I saw a family with these adorable children that appeared to be from Ireland. I thought about it a while and realized that this family looked a lot like my Aunt Stephies friend Kate. I went on a hunch and the bravery that 14 hours of jet lag can create and asked her husband (as she had taken off by this point) if his wife's name was Kate, and did her mom live in the San Fransico area. Sure enough we now have friends and contacts in Almaty:) We are planning on meeting up with them on our way back through.

We are staying in an apartment. Mom and Sharron I will e-mail you with the phone number. We have been searching for the grocery store for quite some time, but we stumbled upon the internet cafe so I have not managed to get a calling card yet. At the cafe I began to become very thankful that I sacrificed my NPR for the last year to learn Russian. We managed to buy breakfast, tea, get on the internet and hopefuly get good directions to the grocery store. All directions seem to say walk straight for three blocks. I would feel better about this if this was not the third time we were told to walk three blocks. Who knows we might end up back at our apartment without any grocerys and many calories burned.

Also to traveling families, make sure if you are arriving in the middle of the night that you get a bottle of water on the plane. We arrived in the middle of the night and the stores were closed. We have been boiling water for 10 minutes hoping that we will not regret this in a few days. Also the city does not have hot water so I had John to wash my hair like Robert Redford washed Meryl Streep's hair in Out of Africa. Ah all of my dreams are comming true.

Speaking of, we will head to Uralsk very early tomorrow and hopefully we will have met our child by tomorrow night.

Much love to our faithful fan club:)

Karon and John

If all goes according to plan. . .

We reckon Karon and John should have arrived in Almaty around lunchtime, Central time, today. Of course, we just figured this out when I got home from work and Dad said "are they there yet?" After studying the itinerary and making the best time conversions we could, our conclusion was that they should hopefully be recuperating from all those hours of flying, before they have to board another plane in about a day in order to go to Uralsk.

Of course, once we have confirmation, we'll let you know for sure.

Meanwhile, let's hope they're getting a good night's sleep so they'll be well rested for the big days ahead. . .

With love from Sharron

On their way

Hello everyone,

Here in Alabama it's a gorgeous day, with bright blue skies, occasional warm breezes, and lots of birds singing. Over on the other side of the country, Karon and John boarded their first plane in Seattle this morning. Chicago is their first stop, followed by Frankfurt, Germany, then Almaty, Kazakstan.

So, if you haven't already done so, it's time to pull out that family atlas, or look on the internet, or the maps at the library, so you can follow their journey. For those who don't know, Almaty, their first stop in Kazakhstan, is right on the right-hand side near China.

After a bit of time to rest there, they will then head across the country in the other direction, back towards the border between Europe and Asia, to a town called Uralsk.

Little known fact of the day: did you know that apples cannot be grown from seed? Well, more specifically, say you are eating a Granny Smith apple, and decide you'd like to plant the seeds to get a Granny Smith apple tree. Unfortunately, there's no telling what sort of apple you'd get from that seed.

What you need first is good root stock. Then, once the first branch appears, you cut it off. Next you need a Granny Smith apple tree branch. You graft this on to the tree, and before too long, you'll get your Granny Smith apples.

This I learned in a late-night conversation with Karon last night. We were talking about her friend Larry's orchard, and how his root stock had come from Kazakhstan, a place with wild apple forests. (If you haven't yet read the post entitled "Why Kazakhstan?" I encourage you to do so. It's a great story.)

For now, enjoy your apples, and here's to a safe and wonderful journey for Karon and John.

With love from Karon's big sister Sharron

Yesterday we also had the opportunity to enjoy a rare sunny spring day in Seattle at the botanical gardens.

One Day More

Last night we had a wonderful going away party at John's little brother and our sister in law's house. Before dinner Josh said a prayer for us and our future children that brought warmth through my body and tears in my eyes. I stood there holding hands with our family and I felt so blessed that there are so many of you out there that are rooting for us and even more importantly children half way around the world. I wonder if our future child(ren) could feel the same wave of warmth and peace that I felt last night. I hope that they know how many people here in our circle of family and friends are waiting with open arms and hearts to welcome them and to love them.

Thank you also to all of our Alabama fan club for all of the calls and well wishes last night. Many of you that are following along are the reason that we have made it this far in our journey.

We are packed ready to go and getting our last details in order before starting the adventure of a life time. This next week will be full of suprises and the biggest decision we have had to make in our lives.

While we are away we will make every attempt possible to keep this site as up to date as possible. My sister Sharron will probably post for us when we get there just to say we are alive and well. It will probably take us a few days to figure out the Internet cafes and our living arrangements.

The Universe is Unfolding Perfectly

So, as I have mentioned before, this process is teaching me to trust. We have been having a problem figguring out how we will get to the airport on Tuesday morning. Mainly because who ever decided to take us was going to get the pleasure of battling rush hour traffic in Seattle. (Which is worse than any place I have ever seen.) Last night we heard from Carol (my Mother in Law.) They are flying back to Seattle just after we fly out/ She called last night and asked if we would take their car to the airport. This works our perfect for everyone! These little things that work themselves out continue to teach me, that forcing a solution now, does not necessarily make it the best option for everyone involved. I am curious to see how the next few days of our lives unfold.

Seattle and waiting

We had a very nice visit with our agency today and got many of our last minute questions answered. After searching all available flights there we no really good options that really got us started on the process any sooner. We could have left Monday but it put us doing three nights of red eye flights in a row. Our agency basically said, sure you can do that, but you have some pretty important business that you want to be alert for once you arrive.

Some of you have asked what our first few days there will be like and I will do my best to describe what should happen. When we arrive in Uralsk (which should be on Friday morning), we will have a few moments to clean up from days of traveling. After that we will have a very important meeting with the Ministry of Education. This will be where we state what type of child(ren) we are hoping to welcome into our family, and we will explain why we choose to adopt from Kazakhstan. After this meeting we should be granted permission to visit the baby houses.

Once at the baby house we will be introduced to children that meet our specifications one at a time. We should be given a little time with each child. After this process we get/have to make one of the biggest decisions of our lives. Most people have said that their heart makes this decision clear, and many times the child picks them. We really hope that this part is clear as we are very nervous about such an important decision.

Visas are in Seattle!

We found out last night that our passports and visas are there. This makes me happy, yet I am bummed that I chickened out on the Friday tickets. I am going to call the travel agent the second they open to see if tomorrow is even an option. If it is I just need to get the Ok from our agency to make the change. Please send positive thoughts that we can get there sooner. John could really use those extra days on the end of the trip to be able to get back to work. I'll post tonight from Seattle to let people know what I found out.

Paperwork is in order

Well John now has all of his paperwork ready for the BLM and we have all of our adoption paperwork finalized:) We are in Portland tonight and plan on meeting with our agency tomorrow. We did find out that our passports and visas were shiped last night. I am hopping to get the OK to move our flight up, but it all depends on flights to Uralsk.

We spent tonight walking around all the cute little kid stores in Knob Hill. It is probably a good thing that we don't know anything about our future child, because I was fully prepared to start spoiling them rotten. New parents must be the easiest group out there to market things to.

We are starting to get really excited and also realizing how close we are. Our happiness is bitter sweet right now, but I am sure things will get easier as time goes on.

Losing our best friend

September 22nd 1996 I adopted my first “baby.” She was between two and five years old and in need of a good home and was already on home number three when we met. I can still remember her shy disposition as she sat there snapping at flies as they buzzed around her head. I had spend weeks looking for the dog that was to be mine. Ghunsa was mentioned on a flyer at the pound and somehow I knew she would be my dog. I called the number for two weeks as I looked at dog after dog. I found out later that her owners were out of town and when they called me back they had already given her away. I was devastated and went on a limb and asked them to call me if the person happened to change their mind. Well they did, Ghunsa did not like them and she let it be know. Because of this failed attempt at finding her a home Tina (her owner) wanted me to visit her for two weeks to get to know her. I knew from day one when we ran down to the river and went swimming together.
For 11 years she has been my constant companion and has grown to love John. She had to earn his trust and love, but did so after finding our camp for us in White Sands National Monument in the dark. She was the ring bearer in our wedding and has for all intensive purposes has been our first child.

Today was one of the hardest days of our lives as we said good buy to our loyal friend and companion forever. She will be missed and we hope that she will be watching over us on our trip as our ever present guard dog.

Visas on the Way!

I just recived news from the agency that our visas are being processed and that they will be in Seattle tomrrow or Thursday. Looks like I wil be moving our plane tickets up. Oh well we knew there would be changes along the way. Now I just need to find some open flights.

Karon

Why Kazakhstan?

This is a question we hear frequently enough and we will still need to answer it many more times throughout our journey so I figured I should go ahead and share this with all of our loyal readers (we like to think of y’all as our fan club;)

As our friends and family all know John and I met at Hancock Field Station as outdoor science field instructors. John’s family was blown away that he finally met the girl of his dreams on the river of all places. While working there, HFS had is 50th anniversary and many people were invited from all over the country and especially Oregon. John was in charge of running the lapidary saws and while polishing a piece of goose rock, a man named Larry McGraw (whose uncle founded the field station) looked over his shoulder and asked John if he would make his grave marker out of that rock. This got John's attention and the next thing we knew we were sitting down learning about this man’s life and drinking some of his homemade apple cider.

Over time we became good friends with Larry and we began to visit him at his orchard on the weekends. His orchard was an enchanted garden with 450 varieties of apples, 70 types of pears, 40 species of plums, and some grapevines and apricots thrown in the mix. As our friendship with Larry developed he taught us more and more about apples, and herein lies the first time we ever heard of the country of Kazakhstan. During the cold war Larry had contacted orchardist from Kazakhstan to get root and grafting stock and many of his trees that we still look after, have a common roots with our future child(ren)’s heritage.

When we started to research countries to adopt from, Kazakhstan made our top four because of Larry and his desire to go there and meet the wonderful people who sent him roots and to see the wild apple forest. Then we learned how well they care for their children, we learned that they have baby houses, not orphanages. We learned that they live in small groups and that they have consistent loving care takers, and massage and physical therapy and most of all our hearts screamed to us that our child(ren) are there and we must go to them. While we had the opportunity to do this much easier, there are some things in life that are difficult and they are still the right thing to do.

It has been a long journey and our friend Larry has since passed away, yet his trees live on and flourish with their roots from Kazakhstan and nurturing from here. It is our desire that we can show and share with the people of Grant County and all of our other friends around the world, not only Kazakhstan apples, but the children we will be granted the honor of calling our own.

Only Days Left Now

You would think that the harder we worked the smaller our list would get, yet I am finding this not to be true. Our house is nearing completion and there are only a few more things to be done for the kid’s room. We have the pets a home for the next few months, and we even have house sitters (Thank you Wendy and Tom.) We hope to leave Dayville in the middle of next week. We then must drive to Salem to apostil the rest of our court documents. Also, we plan on meeting with our agency in Portland one last time to square away the many details needed before arriving in Kazakhstan. Then at long last we will go to Seattle spend time with family and in the hot tub relaxing before embarking on the biggest adventure of our lives. The one last very important thing we are waiting on is our visa’s which if all goes well we be sent to us on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. For John the reality is sinking in, for me I still feel so overwhelmed with getting everything ready that I can’t quite see the finish line. It is hard to not knowing what our future family looks like. Oh well, in a matter of weeks this will be a worry that will seem quite trivial for the rest of our lives. Please keep all of the prayers and positive thoughts coming our way, we really appreciate all of the love and support we and our child(ren) are receiving.

Last day with students

OK so one huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders. John’s boss has just asked him to be back as soon as possible and said that she really needs him for Memorial Day.

Today was my last day with the kids at school and there were several times I almost cried when telling the good buy. My 7th period class even surprised me by getting pizzas and throwing a going away party for me. Tomorrow I will finish all of their letters and grades and I will be done with school for a while. It will be nice to be able to dedicate this next week to finalizing as many details as possible.

The ever changing details

My mantra during this whole process to learn patience has been simply “trust.” Well this evening I am finding that harder and harder. Every time there has been a delay I must remind myself that there is a reason for everything and maybe it is so we will be matched with our forever child. Unfortunately those little extra days here and there added up to weeks which now is going to drastically effect John’s work and mean that he must leave early to come home. Right now the big question is how early. Currently is boss says he must be back at work on May 14th. If this is the case he will miss court by 1 or 2 days. When I use “dad’s wisdom test” for if this will matter 10 years from now, I think it will. Court is the day that we, John and Karon become parents, and we want to share that as a whole family. Hopefully all this worrying will be for nothing. Right now we can not get a hold of her and tomorrow she is supposed to be in the field until 3pm. I just keep thinking of how much I want and need John for this day. I can handle the rest of the time by myself. It might not be easy, but I know I can handle it. I just wonder if husbands wives who are about to give birth must go through the same thing. I just wish there was some way to make people understand that adoptive parents have needs, wants and rights too. So until tomorrow….

Saying good buy to sleep

Gary Paulsen in his book Winterdance writes about training for the Iditarod up in Alaska. He talks long and hard about the day that sleep died for him and I read this with a humorous ear. That is until now, where I now look back with an empathetic ear. Sleep for me is gone and maybe it will return after this “Last Great Race.” I hope I recognize it when we meet again. If I so much as dare near conciseness in the middle of the night I am awake for many more hours, making sure that I have thought through every possible scenario of life with our new family.

I know in my heart that the universe is unfolding perfectly, and I now know the meaning of the phrase “God has a plan for us.” This whole process is teaching me about trust and knowing that while I don’t know how it will work out, believing that it will work. For nearly three years now our struggle to become parents has been filled with let downs and heart ache and so it is hard to know that this is actually it. Who knows, maybe I would feel this way if I were pregnant, yet hopefully the science of it all would comfort me. Politics and bureaucracy have never been my strong suit.

When I start to worry about not knowing details like the age, gender or even the number of kids we will be adopting I think back to my fathers words of wisdom about stress. Number 1, can I do anything about the situation to change it, If so continue working on it. Two, will this matter 10 years from now. When I ask myself these questions I am reminded there is not a darn thing I can do about it, and in a month and a half from now it will seem like I never had such questions.

Tomorrow I should be able to confirm our plane reservations. This will be a nice step to take. Thanks again for all of the well wishes and prayers. This might sound silly, but I can feel the love and support from all of you out there and it means the world to us.

Working on the mega list

As we begin the official countdown I have made a list now 5 pages long of all the many things we must do before leaving. Poor John, I think as he knocks one off, I add three news things. We have made huge progress on the nursury and I am going to attempt to post some pictures, yet our dial up internet service might have a thing or two to say about that.

Last night I think it finaly started to hit John that his very long wait to parenthood is near an end. We had a friend over and we were testing this very cool baby monitor. When I started talking on my end to John and Amy in the baby's room, it hit him. I am still waiting to trust this whole process. I know it will come soon.

For those of you that are lurking along, please let us know you are out there. We will really aprecaite your comments and support while we are away. If we seem a bit distant these next couple of weeks it is only because we are overwhlemed, feel free to call us and drag us away from the never ending list.