Medical surprises

One of the things you do immediately when you get home is take your newly adopted kid or kids to the doctor to get a complete workup. There are adoption specialists that you can use but here in Massachusetts the waiting period for an appointment is crazy so we just went to our normal pediatrician.

When our daughter came home she was eating like a horse and could never seem to get enough to drink so we wanted to get to the bottom of it. What we found was that she had a parasite which was likely starving her for nutrients. One cycle of meds and problem solved – she is eating like a normal toddler again. This also likely explains why she was under-weight in the baby house and had a nasty skin infection (since mostly dealt with).

One thing I did learn is that these parasites are hard to test for (so you need to look multiple times and over multiple days) and that there are two tests run – one for domestic exposure and one for international exposure. A US medical lab won’t do the international test automatically (and many doctors don’t realize they need to order it special) so you need to make sure it is included in the workup.

Given how many people we met in Kazakstan who got sick, it would seem parasites and other baddies are pretty common in the water and food. So watch yourself and your newly adopted kids (and any kids you bring with you).

Escorting adopted kids home

The end to end process in Kazakhstan is rather lengthy. From the time you first set foot in the country to the time you get on a plane with your newly adopted child or children can be as long as three months and eight to nine weeks is pretty normal. This time frame is in contrast to what is  normal in other countries like China (13 days total).

Since you can pretty much get your bonding period and court date completed in three and a half weeks this leaves a pretty large gap of time in which you are cooling your heels until the waiting period expires (currently two weeks, potentially moving to four at some point in the future depending on what the government decides to do) and for all the paperwork to be processes both in Kazakhstan and with the US Embassy.

While many people stay the entire time, others just cannot be away from homes and jobs that long. We fell into the second camp so we decided to have Jennifer escorted home rather than come back for another week to week and a half in a month. It is less that ideal on a lot of levels but it is the formal process that is in place and you need to follow it. We loading up her care-givers with stuff to take care of her while we were.

So to organize all this I had to get back on that scary turbo-prop airplane and head to Almaty to sign the necessary paperwork with the US Embassy to have her escorted. It is actually pretty simple once you figure it out but it took a number of calls to the Embassy to get to the bottom of what exactly we needed to do.

Here is what I believe is the master list of documents (at least it is everything we signed and it worked out for us):

1. Form DS-230 which is the child’s application for a Visa to come to the US
2. Form DS-1981 which is where you confirm you will get the child vaccinated
3. The I-600 which is the petition to classify the child as an orphan and allow for the adoption
4. A power of attorney at the US Embassy which allows your escort to sign on your behalf for the visa, medical exam, etc. (they have it at the embassy)
5. A power of attorney for travel from wherever this child is to Almaty or Astana. This is a Kazakhstan style power of attorney that allows them to bring the child to a departure city for the US. You need to do this at a notary in country and it needs to be translated.
6. A power of attorney for travel from Almaty or Astana to the US. This is a US style power of attorney that allows the translator to bring the child to the US on your behalf

The other thing you do at the embassy is pay for the visa (approx US$450 at the moment and they take credit cards). We actually missed #6 and had to do it from the US and have it apostilled and sent. For reference, a priority letter from Boston to Kazakhstan is $106.00 and takes about four days to get there.

I’m amazed it actually worked….

Jennifer comes home

So it has been a ridiculous amount of time since my last post but that was primarily because we were waiting for Jennifer to actually arrive here in the US. So with a minor paperwork scramble out of the way, she got off a plane about four days back and was quickly collected and driven home.

Sam and Jennifer

We decided to have her escorted home as taking another week off to head back to Kazakhstan was going to be very difficult. In the end it all seems to have worked out.

Going to court

So we had our court date on Tuesday and everything went well. The judge granted the adoption subject to the normal fifteen day waiting period so on May 6th we can officially take custody. Unfortunately that week is a mess of local holidays and the passport offices aren’t really going to be operational. So the paperwork to allow Jennifer to leave the country will start on the 11th or 12th of May. So cross your fingers and she might make it stateside the week of the 18th.

Parents of kids from Petropavlovsk Yahoo Group

Just found a Yahoo group online that is focused on adoptions in Petropavlovsk and I have applied to join.

There is also a much larger Yahoo group that is focused on Kazakhstan adoptions in general. I’ve also just joined that one.

If you do a search for Yahoo groups using “Kazakhstan adoption” you will find a whole bunch more dedicated to various areas of Kazakhstan and different geographic regions in the US.

Gifts, gifts and more gifts

One of the things you read about prior to travelling to Kazakhstan and your adoption agency warns you about is that you need to bring gifts for a whole list of people including the caregivers at the baby house and various officials involved in facilitating the adoption. We figured we’d planned ahead and had gifts for a whopping 10 people.

Much to our surprise when we got here and sat down and figured it out we needed more like 20. The kink in our plans was that there are two women on shift at a time in the baby room and a total of 10 on rotation. So there was our extra 10 people. The entire list was long a varied. If we had it to do again I think we’d hit Walmart and Target a bit harder and have planned for more people.

Luckily the guideline is $10 to $20 per gift with a few in the $30 to $50 category for some of the more important officials. So with some targeted shopping over here we were able to fill our our selection. We’ve heard rumor of some agencies claiming you need to be in the $100+ category or supplement with cash but from what we can tell that is more than is required.

Given how hard everyone works to makes sure the adoption goes smoothly a gift is a nice way to let them know you appreciate their efforts!

We got a court date!

We’ve been waiting for a few days now to confirm our court date and we found out this afternoon that we got it when we wanted. So at 10:00am local time on April 21st we will be petitioning the court to grant our adoption.

For those that have never tried something like this, here is the approximate steps you need to get through an international adoption in Kazakhstan (apologies if I get some of this slightly less than accurate…I’ve done so much paperwork in the last year and a half my mind is fuzzy on what exactly I ended up doing).

1. Decide you want to adopt from Kazakhstan
2. Engage an agency to work with
3. Engage an agency and social worker to do the home study (a document that describes your background and home situation)
4. Do the home study
5. Apply for Homeland Security approval to adopt a foreign orphan
6. Go get fingerprinted so Homeland Security can run an FBI check on you
7. Get yourself fingerprinted at the local police station
8. Send the fingerprints into the FBI for another background check that is completely different (yet exactly the same) as the one Homeland Security is doing
9. Get a document from your employer to confirm your income
10. Get documents from your doctor to confirm you are healthy
11. Get references from people you know confirming you are great and all that
12. Build a whole stack of documents including certified copies of every identifying document that you have ever received (passports, marriage certificate, birth certificate and so on)
13. Get the whole load of documents notarized
14. Get the whole load of documents apostilled (where the Secretary of State confirms the notary is duly registered and can notarize documents)
15. Go back and get new documents notarized as they changed the required notary language and didn’t tell you. Then get them apostilled again.
16. Send the entire package into the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington (or New York in some cases)
17. Wait….wait and wait some more
18. See if they ask you for updates to any of the documents (medical certifications are only good for 3 months for example)
19. Go get all the updates done
20. Get them notarized
21. Get them apostilled
22. Submit them back to the Embassy
23. Wait…wait…and so on
24. Get approved by the Embassy
25. Realize your Homeland Security approval is going to expire prior to you getting your future child home
26. Apply for an extension
27. Go back in and get your fingerprints updated for another FBI check (like they would have changed?)
28. Get approved for the extension
29. Send your dossier to Kazakhstan for local approval
30. Wait (you get the idea)
31. Get approved locally
32. Wait some more
33. Have your agency come back and tell you they believe there is a child that fits your desired profile at an orphanage somewhere in Kazakhstan
34. Cross you fingers (as these are blind referrals – no information on the child is provided)
35. Wait for your letter of invitation to arrive
36. Get Visas for Kazkahstan
37. Book your flights
38. Update a whole pile of documents (likely medical again, income…all the hard ones to get)
39. Get them notarized
40. Get them apostilled
41. Fly to Kazakhstan
42. Go to the Education Ministry to present your approvals and request permission to visit the orphanage
43. Get permission
44. Go to the orphanage
45. Discuss available children with the orphanage Director
46. Choose a child
47. Meet the child
48. Spent 2 hours a day with the child for 14 days as part of “bonding period”
49. Pick a new name for the child (if you decide to do it)
50. Apply to the court for a court date
51. Wait (chew on nails)
52. Get your court date (usually 10 days after the completion of the bonding period)
53. Hang out in Kazakhstan waiting for your court date (and visiting your child)
54. Go to court
55. Get approved (hopefully)
56. Decide whether to stay or leave Kazakhstan as there is a 15 day “cooling off” period to allow anyone who wants to contest the adoption to come forward. Chew on nails
57. Fly home if you decide to
58. Wait (chew on nails) until the 15 days have passed
59. Get custody of the child
60. Apply for the child’s passport
61. Wait (5-10 days) while the passport comes and your agency does the final sets of paperwork
62. Get a doctor to examine the child (required by the US)
63. Go to an interview at the US Embassy in Kazakhstan
64. Get permission to take the child home
65. Get on a plane
66. Try to pass out and fail as your new son or daughter has not only never been on a plane but has likely spent little time outside the orphanage.
67. Entertain child for 25+ hours and 10 timezones
68. Land back in the US. The child becomes a US citizen as soon as their feet hit US soil
69. Go home

But of course it doesn’t end there. There are follow-up placement studies that need to be done and a yearly progress certification that needs to be filed until the child is 18 years old.

Worth it though.

Meet Jennifer Darya

So after much debate we finally decided on a name. Jennifer Darya is the one that won out even though it wasn’t even on the list at the beginning. Her name will officially change after our court appearance. At that point they will apply to get her Kazakhstan passport in her new name.

Some more pictures:

Petropavlovsk Baby House

There are three orphanages in Petropavlovsk that serve all of northern Kazakhstan. They are divided up by age and the one for the youngest kids (up to approximately 4 years of age) is called the Baby House. At any time there are up to 80 kids in residence although not all of them are up for adoption. Right now they are not full fortunately.

In all it is a pretty depressing place even though they are in the process of renovating it and bring it up to something that can be called modern standards. The older sections are definitely falling apart although I bet you could find a number of retirement homes in the US that looks pretty much identical. So it is more a statement on how societies care for their less fortunate than anything specific to Kazakhstan.

I’ve posted some pictures in this gallery to give you an idea. Most of them are of the outside. I’ll try and snag a few of the inside at some point. They are best viewed in full screen mode (click the little square in the bottom right of the picture when you roll over it with your mouse).