So Where Do We Go from Here?

Hey everyone- So I know you are all wondering what's next in the process with our little one. First, there is the 15 day appeals period. I thought I would really be sweating it out at this point but I'm not. Our coordinator and everyone here are so confident that it makes me feel as if we are done with the hard part. As a matter of fact, we went to lunch after court and our coordinator gave a toast and said something to the effect of "August 13th will live forever in your memory. Today is the day that you are parents." It was really sweet and I figured that if she is no longer worried about anything that could go wrong, then I need to not worry about it. And honestly, I think she might tear the head off of anyone who stood in our way- she's very protective. OK so 15 days and then we are hoping that we can pick our guy up on or around the 28th but it depends on if Dr. Alma is free to meet with us because, of course, there are a million papers to sign- we are taking a living person out of her care after all. Then we will have him with us forever. Yay!!! We will stay in Astana for as long as it takes to get him his Kazakh passport (between 2 and 10 days). Then we'll catch a flight to Almaty where we have 2 days of appointments. The first day we go to the SOS International Health Clinic and we have to get him an HIV test and the Once Over to make sure he's healthy. He's already already had all of these tests before but they want them done again by the US approved doctor there before he is allowed to immigrate to the US. Then the following day after all of the results are in, we have an interview at the US embassy to get all of his paperwork on that end done. We have to agree to take care of him and not abandon him to be a ward of the government and all of that. Then we get to come home- as soon as we can get a flight out. We bought the changeable tickets so we can change them no big deal, but we just have to find a flight with room for us. We are hoping to be home around the 12th of September. That sounds like it's a long way off, but we have been here a month already and it has just flown by. Hopefully the next month will too. Our friends from Michigan and our friend from Buffalo got their kids on Monday and let me just tell all of those people who said "It'll be great, you kid will already be sleeping through the night" that this is most definitely not the case. Their little girl slept about an hour the first night and I think about the same last night. Poor thing is so confused and scared. They said she shook the whole day long because she was terrified. And in the 10 minute car ride with us to the BH to sign some more papers, she yawned probably 5 times. She must be just exhausted. I am going to be so sad for Rinat because I know he'll be feeling the same thing when we steal him away from everything he knows. And just when he's getting comfortable with the apartment, we're going to fly to Almaty, and just when he's comfortable with Almaty, we're going to fly home. Peter and I are going to try to be camels and store up our sleep for when we get the little guy. Anyway, have a great day! -m