Days 5 & 6 -- Moving Right Along!

We’re settling into the Groundhog Day routine that so many before us have referenced. With each new day, we can tweak a few things from the day prior, making each passing day that much better. We’re both creatures of habit, so it seems that our bodies and psyches are aligning well with the Kazakhstan adoption process.

Our Friday morning visit started with a traffic jam and we sat unmoving in traffic for 20 minutes (hence the next day’s tweak – leave 20 minutes earlier!). Our hotel is on one side of the Irtysh River, and the baby house is on the other, and the bridge between those two points is under construction. Traffic is crazy and unpredictable. As we walked down the hall towards ZM’s room, we heard loud crying. Sure enough, it was our little guy. There he sat at a tiny table in a tiny little chair, still as could be except for the chest heaving that accompanied loud sobs and crocodile tears. The caretaker said, “he is crying because you are late.” Uh-huh. I scooped him up and he stopped crying instantaneously. We bundled him up and took him outside, but he would not let us put him down. So, we carried him around for a little more than an hour. It just breaks our heart to think of him sitting at that little table crying.

When we arrived (early!) for our afternoon visit, ZM had just awoken from his nap and he was lounging in a play pen. He didn’t stand up right away or reach for us, and his caretaker told him to “get up, or mama and papa are going to choose a new child.” We laughed along (when in Rome...), but yikes almighty. We couldn’t get to him fast enough. We are practicing how to say, “No matter what, mama and papa are your mama and papa” in Russian.

On Saturday morning, our daily improvements included our Ipod and speakers, a calculator, and a cell phone. We took all of these things with us for both visits, and ZM jumped on the chance to interact with every item. He still loves to pull all of his books out of the book bag, and he loves his stacking cups (especially knocking over the big towers that we can build with the cups). I danced around the room with him a lot – today’s music choices were Daughtry and Dixie Chicks – and I can almost always get him to smile while we’re jumping around the room.

After showing him how to do it, he also loved opening and closing the cell phone (which of course doesn’t work in Kaz – have we mentioned our technology problems?! HA!) and pushing the buttons on the calculator. We have no idea if he’s ever even seen anyone on a telephone, so I kept play acting with him and answering the phone (“Da?” or “Hullo?”) every time he handed it to me. As we were about to leave our Saturday afternoon visit, he held the calculator up to his ear like a phone. No words yet, but he is such a good little imitator, so we know we’ll hear something soon enough. (And, he will then likely jabber and scream non-stop on the 38-hour journey home…)

Giggles are still few and far between – this is one serious little guy with a lot on his mind. We feel comfortable that he is attaching well and he loves to climb up onto us and stare at our faces – making good eye contact. With each day, he makes it deeper into the visit before his low moan/whine emerges from his tired little body – a behavior which is soothed almost always with tight hugs in Glenn’s arms.

I know that the adoptive parents who are reading along know this Kaz adoption process well, but I’ll outline it for friends and family who are less familiar. We will spend 15 days “bonding” – time that is documented by a book that we sign each day at the baby house, and a journal that includes photos from each daily visit. (Having a camera that can date stamp the photos is important). We never remember to take the daily photo until the end of our visit, by which time I am a sweaty mess, so our journal is going to be simply lovely. :-)

As the bonding period comes to a close -- May 5 is our last official day of bonding – a court date will be set for the adoption hearing. If precedent holds, that hearing will be roughly one week after we complete the bonding. We will of course keep visiting ZM while we await a court date. We’ll write more about the actual court process as it approaches.

Following a successful court hearing, there is a mandatory 15-day appeal period. During that time (or at any time leading up to this point, for that matter), a member of the birth family can appear to contest the adoption. It is rare that this happens. At the end of the 15-day appeal period, a series of paperwork trails begin, which include obtaining a new birth certificate (including new name), passport and Visa for the child. The process culminates with a few days’ stay in Almaty, where the US portions of paperwork are finalized.

If all goes smoothly between the court date and the final appointments in Almaty, approximately 30 days will pass between the court date and a date in which the new family can leave Kazakhstan. But, it doesn’t always go smoothly, as many of our readers can share! Paperwork snafus, holidays, transportation challenges, etc. all play into delays.

As such, many families choose to leave the country after the court date – yes, without their child – and return at the end of the paperwork chase to bring their child home.

If I were able to work successfully in Kaz – smooth Internet and phone connections required – there is no doubt that I would stay until we could carry ZM out of the baby house ourselves. It is spring time in Ust, there is “sprucing up” happening everywhere around us, and our child is a mere 15-minute drive away (give or take traffic snafus). We are happy here in our child’s birth place.

But, we must manage our emotions against stark reality (or, in Glenn’s words, “Baby needs shoes”). Glenn is already on unpaid leave, and my vacation will run out soon enough. While we both really love our jobs (and our FMLA unpaid job protection), neither of us has a paid leave adoption benefit. This is a soap box on which I’ve stood too many times to count – had I given birth to ZM, I’d be eligible for up to 16 weeks of fully paid disability leave. Our colleagues in Europe don’t discriminate between the two … US companies, for the most part, have yet to consider birth and adoption as one in the same. (Note to Kim and Chris: I told you I’d use my blog to complain about this at least one more time – HA!)

For now, we are simply pushing this part of the process from our minds, and we are focused on the daily tweaks that will make tomorrow even better than today.

As I type this, the sun is coming up in Ust, we just found out via our Blackberry (God bless our Blackberry) that the Bengals picked a linebacker in the draft (continuing the longstanding and reliable tradition of picking against what every draft expert suggests they should/could/will do – giving us a good laugh this morning), and we have a great morning visit planned with our son. Life is soooooooo good.

P.S. We promise to post a few pictures soon, of at least Ust and our surroundings. We're slowly building up our patience and tolerance for very sllllllloooooowwwwww downloads.