Waiting Still...

Well… here it is May. I am getting pretty sad over here waiting for a referral. When we turned in our dossier in December, I asked what they thought for a time line for our referral, after checking on some stuff they told me “any time from now until the next few weeks.” I freaked! I was so excited! We started getting ready! Then after referrals came through 3 weeks later they said it would be a little longer, maybe a couple more months. Well, it has been 4 months and no referral insight. Jerry is sure it will be a couple more months. My heart is aching something fierce! I am beside myself with anxiety to go!!!!! We even have our guest room set up as the packing room already! I have been gathering stuff for the trip for months! People ask me almost daily if I have heard anything or if we are leaving yet! Sadly, all I can do lately is shake my head no and walk away as soon as I can or they will start into the “you’d think they would want the kids to find homes faster,” or “why does it take so long?” The thing is, that this is still early in the game… most people have to wait much longer than this. (We have been waiting for our Kimi, from China now for 21 months!) But they said “weeks!” so my brain was ready, and I can’t seem to change it to the new plan! So it could easily be 2 more months. I am sad that we will miss Spring in Kazakhstan. That has been my dream to see Kazakhstan in the spring! Maybe we will have to go back again…

In case none of you know, we are approved for twins in Kazakhstan and twins in China. Either would be great and both would be AWESOME!!! I know, we are a little crazy… It has been a dream of mine to have twins in the family, we shall see!

Alex prays for Anthony daily, as well as our friends’ baby Dylan in Vietnam. Alex happily puts stuff that is too small in Anthony’s bed, that’s where we pile stuff until we decide to clear out his bed and put it away every month. He is so excited and ready for a sibling!

We have many more fears this time around. We have not even put Anthony’s name up on the wall like we did Alex and Kimi’s when we were getting ready for them. I am not sure what I am waiting for though. Although I suppose we could receive a referral for a girl, you never know! We have heard many stories lately of lost referrals and it makes me very nervous! Kazakhstan is getting very busy due to China being a 5 year wait and Guatemala shutting down as well as Vietnam now. I assume that is why our time line stretched… from weeks to months.

Anyways… that is how we are feeling around here! Praying everyday that we will soon know who “Anthony” is to be!

Kazakh Tulips!

When we were waiting for Alex two years ago we bought some tulips that originated in the Mountains of Kazakhstan so it has become a tradition to plant a few every year in honor of our children! This year i actually found a whole bunch andbought them and then lost them in the hub-bub of preparing for the Baja 1000. Well, as we cleaned out the garage after winter we found them!!! I felt so bad! so i threw a few in the ground right away and sent the rest home with Bonnie, who has more space this year... So several have come up and one is even blooming! I am so glad! i will take better care of them next year! The two species found in nature in Kaz are the Greigii and Kaufmann kinds. I don't remember which is which right now, but usually the Greigii has very pretty striped leaves, I think. I also included a couple pictures of other Kazakh tulips that i planted a couple years ago!

Something to think about...

April Already!!!

Personally I can not believe it is April of 2008 already! That is amazing.... Time goes by so fast, but at the same time the weeks seem to slowly drag by we wait for that special call!! It certainly helps having Alex around, as he is a constant source of laughter! Although I have to say that he doesn't make the wait any easier... if anything, the wait for Anthony is harder than it was for Alex... now we know what it all is like... to be a parent and love this little guy more than anything in the world... we want it again... NOW!

Hurry up baby Anthony!

No Major News.

March 24,2008
Well… here we are private and all! Now what?

I have nothing to report, really. We are currently waiting for our referral.

Someday soon we will receive a referral, which in Kazakhstan is an unofficial match with a child. We should receive a picture and medical information on him. When we accept our referral, the attorney’s office will forward our Dossier on to the region where the baby is. After that we will receive a “Letter of Invitation”. That will give us the date that we need to be in Kazakhstan. Then we will go.

I would like to talk about the reasons we decided to go private. The most important reason it to protect our adoption process.

Because a “referral” in Kazakhstan is not given by the government like China, it is unofficial, until the day the judge says the adoption is final, our baby is not “ours”, meaning that a birthparent or other birth family member can come and if they even visit our baby, he will be unavailable for adoption to us. Some agencies choose to not give referrals to their clients and some people actually prefer to go to Kazakhstan themselves to pick out their child. Therefore it is possible for another Pre-Adoptive Parent to adopt our child before we get there, if they know to ask for a certain child. So when we receive a referral we will not be sharing where he is, how old he is, or his given birth name. Once we are in Kazakhstan we will be posting some of this information, but not until then. I hope this makes sense to you all. If not… just move on and read the other stuff!

When we get home from Kazakhstan, we will make the blog public again, so anyone can read about our amazing experiences! We enjoy sharing this with anyone. Adopting a child is by far the most unbelievably wonderful thing we have ever done. We hope that our blog can give someone else the confidence they need to want to do this themselves. There are still 143 million orphans in the world and growing every day.

Planning to go Private with our Blog!

Sorry... y'all but we are going to take this blog private soon, for reasons I am sure most of you understand. This way, you will need to have a google account and have an invitation from me to view it. It is not too hard really. Just post a comment below (with your email address) that you would like an invite and i will put you on our list! I am not exactly sure when we will take it private but probably very soon. You can also email me at christel at jlcookconstruction dot com.

Dossier Finally Done!

It was one long paperchase! Goodness! It took 6 months to get the approval from Homeland Security. But we finally have it and our Dossier went to Kazakhstan on December 28th... our 10th anniversary. So now it needs to get translated and then it will head back to the US to the Consulate in New York! So now we wait again.

It's a Boy!!!

So we have decided to go to Kazakhstan for a brother for Alex! He is just going to love that! He can teach his bro how to make quad noises and cow noises at the top of his lungs!!!

We have decided to name him Anthony Graham. We really like both of those names... And no we are not trying to name our kids with all the same letter of the alphabet, it just so happens that we like that one! ha!

Kazakhstan Again!!!!!!!

We are going to Kazakhstan again!!! China is planning on taking about 3 years to give out referrals for our LID group, so we decided that we have time to go to Kaz! Kazakhstan should take about a year to complete an adoption there. So we are in "Super Fast Paperchase Mode" if there is such a thing! Our goal is to be able to hand deliver it to our agency the second weekend in October, since we plan on being in the area!! So we are hoping to be able to travel late next spring or early summer 2008!!! Alex needs a sibling! For now we have no preference on a boy or girl, so we will see who God has chosen for us!





We spent a few hours with our friends a while ago that were in Kaz with us last time. Their little guy is about 3 months younger than Alex and they had such a fun time chasing each other around the kitchen and playing, that we just could't wait 2 more years!