Thanksgiving...and fear

We've been back from Kaz for 2 weeks now. If all had gone as we had hoped, we'd be on our way back for our anticipated Dec. 2 court date...but it didn't happen.

On November 20th, we were notified by our agency that our judge had decided that our adoption dossier was out of date and we needed to redo it. For many, this would have been the death knell of the adoption. Never mind all the updated docs that we had given to the judge in Kaz while we were there...she wanted the full dossier, 30+ docs, all approved by the Kaz Embassy. She gave us until Dec. 9 to accomplish the near impossible...assembling an adoption dossier generally takes 2-3 months, then another 2-3 months to get it approved at the Kaz embassy in Washington, DC. If we can meet her goal, then she says we can have a court date of either Dec. 17, 18, or 19. Sigh...I did a lot of whining and not sleeping for the first few days, then I kicked it into high gear and started assembling a dossier...for the fourth time. Our adoption friends have been a great help...our home study agency and social worker have moved the world for us to update our docs; our friend and personal notary even showed up at our house in her bathrobe late one night to notarize docs for us. Our international agency arranged for emergency translation services so that each document could be translated as I completed the notarization and apostille process, even over Thanksgiving weekend. People we don't even know have hand-carried docs for us from Kaz to the US which they will send to our agency tomorrow to complete our dossier...and yes, after I finished whining and complaining, I did manage to assemble a 25+ document dossier in a week's time. Craig and I sent it via Expressmail yesterday to our international agency. Our new docs and the updated docs that were returned to us from Kaz will be married up, checked for accuracy, and sent to the Kaz embassy this week. We have been told that the person who reviews dossiers there understands our special circumstances and will review our paperwork on an emergency basis. We can only hope...so what do we have to be thankful for? Oh. Just everything.


In the frenzy that existed this past week in our house, I was still able to see what we have to cherish...3 great kids who are frustrated by not being able to have Aniyar and Madiyar here with us...but who also are happy to have Mom and Dad home for Thanksgiving. We watched the Macy's Day parade, stuffed a turkey, made cranberry-orange relish, started our Christmas shopping, enjoyed Max making French Toast for the whole family's breakfast and Kate's Apple Crumb pie. I had the great joy of going to both the library and the Early Bird sales, sharing Family Movie Night (it was "Get Smart", we all loved it) and then reading with my kids before bed.

So much to be grateful for...but I just wish we had been a little closer to 2 other kids who wait for us on the other side of the planet...still waking in a cold sweat at 4am, afraid we'll fail after all of this. Dawn helps...keeping busy helps...and I'm no quitter. We'll play the hand we've been dealt and hope for the best. Tomorrow's goal...write to the boys, try to explain all of this and the new timetable...hmm...how the heck do I do that? See, lots to keep me busy in those very dark hours before the dawn...feel free to send me comments and emails, I'm often checking for cyber support in the wee hours....

It's good to be home

We had a long but fairly uneventful trek home, arriving in Boston on the afternoon of Friday, 11/14. Fog and rainy weather followed us the whole way but didn't delay us unduly. Our friend Laura arrived just minutes after we cleared customs and walked out to the curb; she drove us home where our kids were waiting to greet us. Our greeting was awesome; our 3 kids and even two of their friends hurtled down the stairs and threw themselves at us as we walked through the door. There were squeals and smiles, tears and laughter, and lots of hugs and kisses...even our normally reticent 11 year old son was in on the action! Any of you who have pre-teen boys will know how rare it is to get an actual hug and an "I love you" in front of peers...but we got all of that...guess we were missed.

We're using the weekend to settle back in and rest from the trip. Jet lag is tough when the time difference is 11 hours. When the trip itself spans two days and includes only 4 hours sleep, it's even more challenging. We got home about 4pm, ordered Chinese food and managed to stay awake until 8:30 before Craig crashed and burned; I was in bed by 9:30. Of course, I was awake again at 4am but the 6 1/2 hours of sleep I got in my own bed helped me feel human again...and large infusions of coffee during the day helped, too. We started the first load of laundry and began unpacking, made our weekend Costco run, and generally tried to figure out what we had missed in the last 5 weeks. Reentry is in process...we even managed to stay awake until after 10:00 last night!

Much to my chagrin, time did not stand still while were were out of the country; the leaves have all fallen off the trees, the stores are all decorated for Christmas, and Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away. There are bills to pay and there's work to be done. Tomorrow, jet lag not withstanding, we'll resume life as usual...the kids will go to school, Craig will go to work, and I'll refocus my energies on my consulting project. We bought a turkey today and this week, I'll do the rest of the planning and shopping for the Risley-Schoelles Thanksgiving feast. The kids are starting their Christmas lists and I need to start my holiday shopping. At the same time, I'll begin planning for our next trip to KZ which is only a few weeks away. I think I'll just empty the suitcases and begin refilling them again. I have one last document to update and carry back with us for court; I'll make tentative flight arrangements for early December which we'll confirm once we get word of our actual court date from Alma. (We should hear from her after her November 21 meeting with the judge.) I'll also write a letter to Aniyar and Madiyar, have it translated and fax it to them at the orphanage (waiting is hard and we want to reassure them that we really will return for them soon). In short, there's plenty to keep us busy...but our hearts are still with two boys in Kazakhstan who are waiting not so patiently for our return.

On our way home...

We're in Almaty after a long day. We woke up to a lot of snow and were delayed about 4 hours getting out of Ust-K but since our flight leaves here at 4am, it wasn't that big a deal. We're grabbing a few hours of rest now in a hotel, will be picked up at 1:30am to go to the airport.

We'll be home on Friday afternoon...more then!

Things are looking up...

No, we didn't get a miracle court date when we went to Ridder today...but all is not lost. Here's how our day went. We left Ust at 7:30am and arrived in Ridder around 10:00 due to the snow on the roads. When we arrived at the court building, we were told to return at 12:15 to meet with the judge who would be hearing our case...OK, that was at least progress. We had tea and soup for an early lunch, mostly just killed time. At 12:15, Alma was told to come back after the lunch break which runs from 1-2pm. OK...more sitting in the car waiting until the judge was finally available around 2:30. At this point, I was pretty sure we were never going to get anywhere but finally Alma got her chance. The judge met with her for about 20 minutes and when she came out, it was with good news. The judge we have been assigned to is the same one who heard the only other adoption case in Ridder...and she granted that adoption. She was also able to explain Ridder's rather lengthy and complex court process so now we know what to expect.

In Ridder, when a case is assigned, the judge has 2-3 weeks to review the file. Then a determination hearing is held in order to let the parties know if there are missing docs or other problems with the case...that's what we had today. The next date will be held on Nov. 21; Alma will represent us at that hearing where the judge and prosecutor will ask any questions they might have re: the case. After that meeting, a court date will be assigned. The judge will allow us to request a date of our preference because of our travel from the US. It's all standard operating procedure, not the conspiracy to avoid giving us a court date that we were beginning to fear so that's a relief.

We're not thrilled with the delay and we wish we had known about this process a bit sooner...but we can go home now knowing that we are still moving forward. We're requesting a court date in early December, just 3 weeks from now. That will give us some recovery time and a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with our kids. We'll return here for court but it will be a short visit, less than a week. We'll figure the rest out when we get there.

We saw the boys today to tell them the news...Aniyar took it well but Madiyar was frustrated. The poor kid finally got his head ready to make this big change and now he's looking at another delay...we know just how he feels.

OK, that's all the news for tonight. We're exhausted...we drove through terrible conditions coming back from Ridder. Imagine blowing snow, near zero visibility, and next to no plowing of the road...it wasn't fun. Add the stress factor of the last several days to that and you can probably understand why we're pretty worn out. Time for some sleep...tomorrow, we fly to Almaty in the afternoon, grab about 12 hrs rest in a hotel and then we'll begin the 24 hour trip home, arriving on Friday afternoon. Can't wait to see our kids!

No court after all...

We never got to Ridder today. Alma was supposed to hear something from the court there; she called them several times and they kept stalling her. Each time she called them, they told her to call back later...by 2:00pm, it was clear that there was no point in making the 2 hr trip, especially since the weather was bad...snow, icy roads, and a late start that would have us returning in the pitch dark no doubt played a part in Alma's decision to wait until tomorrow to take us to Ridder. As a result, we have no news regarding a possible court date or anything else.

Here's Plan B: We're supposed to go to Ridder at 7:15 in the morning to try one last time to get a hearing or at least a new date in the next few days. If that doesn't work, Craig and I will leave Ust on Thursday and fly home from Almaty on Friday. We're discussing alternatives and other options that are open to us and Alma will continue to work on our behalf. We'll leave it to Alma to get us a court date in the next few weeks, then we'll return here for court. We plan to see the boys tomorrow and tell them what's up...it's so hard to leave them hanging this way and we don't want them to think we're abandoning them. They've had more than enough of that in their lives already.

We don't know what else to do...Craig is running out of vacation time and our kids at home need us after more than a month away. We're also pretty much mentally exhausted at this point and it's hard to see things clearly. If we can't pull off a miracle tomorrow, then it's time to go home to rest and regroup, then return to fight again another day.

Today it was in the low 20's here, windy, felt colder than it was. The snow is beginning to accumulate when it's not blowing in your face. Feels like we're in Siberia...no, wait, we pretty much are. There are plenty of clouds in the sky...haven't seen too many silver linings lately, though.

Court day...or not

Today is Tuesday, November 11, 2008, the day scheduled for our court hearing in Ridder...sort of. Alma arrived last night for what we thought was a brief session to review our court speeches but it wasn't quite that simple. (You have to understand that Alma is very efficient and doesn't fluster easily...but when she is flustered, her favorite English phrase is, “Oh, my God!” We knew something was up when she came in and said, “Oh, my God!” three times before she was able to tell us what was going on.) She had been to Ridder earlier in the day to prepare Aniyar and Madiyar and had called the court around 4pm to reconfirm our date and time. Instead of the hearing we had been promised, the clerk instead told her that the judge will make a “determination” about our petition at 9:00am. What does that mean? Even Alma wasn't sure, she called her contact in the courts here in Ust to get the explanation...it's a step in the process that isn't even done in court here and it's basically a review of the petition before it's assigned a date. Sigh...back to square one, right?

Well, maybe...but the clerk also said we might still have our court hearing later today. Anyone out there have a crystal ball? Anyway, Alma says she'll call us as soon as she talks to the clerk this morning but that we will go to Ridder in the afternoon in any case. Yes, we're back to begging...so we'll be dressed in our finest and driving the now snowy mountain roads to Ridder for an event that might or might not happen. It's really cold here now and the road conditions are getting worse. Alma's driver had to stop to change to snow tires yesterday on her trip to Ridder...it seems other cars were spinning out. (Our friends the Gibersons were in the car at the time...pretty exciting, right, Anne?) Anyway, keep us in your thoughts and prayers today as we make the journey into the unknown in more ways than one.

We do have some good news...Alma said she talked with Madiyar yesterday about his rather conflicted feelings and she says he's ready for court. He says he's still nervous but he wants to join our family, both for himself and for his brother. Both boys practiced their court speeches and are ready to go. The director of the orphanage and our friend Natalya are ready for court and so are we...they all still think court is today since this change was a last minute surprise...and maybe it will be. We'll just have to wait and see...as Alma would say, “Oh, my God!” and as my mother would say, from her lips to God's ears...we could use the help here.

Two more days until court

It's Sunday evening and we've had a good day. The highlight was meeting our friend Yulia's Deaf cousin, Natasha, and her husband, Misha. Yes, he's Deaf, too; both use sign...it didn't take long before we were able to understand each other pretty well because American Sign and Russian Sign are very similar. We had tea and chatted for a couple of hours; the similarities between American Deaf culture and norms and what Natasha and Misha described to me about the Deaf community and culture here were striking. It was also fascinating to see our Yulia using using both Russian signs and home signs to communicate with her cousin; they were very close growing up so Yulia is pretty close to a native signer. We all exchanged signs, swapped stories, and looked at photos together...Yulia said she thinks it would only take me a week or so to be able to learn Russian sign but it's a bit more complicated than that...there's still that little problem of fingerspelling and the cyrillic alphabet. Even so, this was a highlight of this trip for me...it really is true what they say in ASL, small world Deaf!

We made chicken rice soup again tonight because it's gotten so cold. It snowed a bit last night and today. It's been below freezing all day and will probably stay that way for the rest of our time here. We're just hoping the road to Ridder stays halfway decent through Tuesday; right now, the forecast is for 2-4 inches of snow and temps in the high teens or low 20's for our court day. It didn't seem too cold when we went out for coffee this morning but we felt the difference quickly and were pretty chilly by the time we reached Pizza Blues. We had really big lattes that helped us to take the chill off before we headed back to the apartment. We were expecting Alma to meet with us to go over our court speeches but her schedule changed so she'll be coming tomorrow afternoon instead. We still don't what time we have court on Tuesday but all will undoubtedly be revealed in due time. Yep, it pays to be flexible here in Kazakhstan...more deep breathing on my part...reciting of the Serenity Prayer, also. Only a few more days.

We had a lovely time at our friend Olga's apartment last night. Dinner was very tasty, we made mac and cheese for everyone and Olga roasted chicken and made Russian potatoes. We also had spicy carrot salad (just for me since they all know it's my favorite!), a couple of other salads, homemade pickles that Tanya and Max would have loved, and a spicy tomato sauce that Olga's mom made. Yulia brought dessert, cookies filled with the caramel sauce Kate loves so much and other cookies dipped in chocolate. We had a variety of teas to choose from with our cookies, a nice end to our meal. We got back to the apartment about 10:30 last night, late for us to be wandering around the streets of Ust-K but we were glad to have something fun to do to pass the time and such good friends to do it with. Even so, we really are longing for home. Kate, Tanya and Max, we miss all of you so much and it gets harder every day to be away...we're counting the days and hours now until we're home again.