Suckitude

I'm not sure if that is a real word or not, but a friend used it in an email to me recently and it fits my attitude these days.

Waiting sucks.
Being told by your coordinator that I need to be ready to travel within 3 days of getting a phone call and then the same person not being able to even tell you what month you will be getting that phone call sucks.
The constantly changing process sucks.
The lack of information on the process in my region sucks.
Trying to live your life, but not being able to plan anything sucks.
Not having a vacation for 9 months since you are saving your time for the trip sucks.
Being cranky because I have not had the above vacation in 9 months sucks.
Watching Christmas get closer and closer and knowing that unless I travel soon, she will not be home for Christmas sucks.
Knowing that you are probably very close to traveling, but not knowing it for sure so you have to stress and worry about it sucks.

Suckitude-it may not be a word, but it should be!

My latest gadget

I am having lots of time to wait and think of things to worry about these days. My latest is what would happen if I got lost. I have a map of Shymkent, but I have no idea if they have street signs or not. So I decided to buy a GPS unit. They don't have the streets of Shymkent mapped out yet for GPS, but I bought one that hunters use. So if I mark where my apartment is, it can direct me back there no matter where I roam. So I have yet another item for my suitcase which is already full.

The Kaz Process

I did talk with my coordinator Friday and got an update on the process. While I am close to getting my LOI, it will still be a while and most likely will not be this month. I did find out that the time from LOI to travel is very short for Shymkent and I may not have much notice so that will be an exciting time.

I thought this might be a good time to review how the process will proceed from here. I am currently waiting for my LOI or letter of invitation. You cannot travel to Kaz or get a visa to Kaz without a invitation. It also means that there is a child or children in the baby house that matches the request in your homestudy for age, gender etc. When you are sent the LOI, the Kaz embassy is also sent a registration number. Once they have that and you have the letter, you can apply for your visa. This involves sending your passport, some forms, and of course money to the Kaz embassy. They put a special stamp in your passport which allows you to enter the country. Some region take a while to get this number to the embassy, but I guess Shymkent is one of the fast ones so I will be expected to overnight the visa application to the embassy and have them overnight it back the next day. I will also have to find plane tickets to Almaty on very short notice. It does not sound like I will have much time to do these things so I will need to have everything ready to go. So it will be a matter of more waiting and then go and go fast.

As a note to my blog friends, most people invited to this blog are family or friends not from the adoption world. I have invited a small number of families that I have met who are also adopting from kaz and have graciously shared their blogs with me. I would just like to please ask all my blog friends to use discretion and not discuss anything they read on this blog with their coordinators or post anything on their blogs. I trust each and every one of you and I know no one would do anything that they felt would harm my adoption(and no one has), but I have found out that Shymkent is a region very sensitive to this. I know of another family I met from their blog that got hurt by something that they had on their blog that was passed on to one of their blog reader's coordinators. It ended up causing this family a lot of grief and did put their adoption in jeopardy. What the family had posted wasn't anything bad, it was just information on how their first day meeting went. I don't think the other family meant to hurt them, but the information got back to kaz and caused them a lot of problems. For those not involved in a Kaz adoption, this probably seems very strange, but this is their process and we must follow their rules.

Pediatrician

I visited my first pediatrician today. I got to tour the office and talk to the people there and visit with the doctor. It was one of the first times in this process where the focus is on the future child, not the adoption process. It was great to talk about vaccinations and well baby checkup schedules and all the other things that all parents get to do. Plus I liked the Doctor so I will probably use him so that takes care of another thing on my to do list. I still have to finish up the childproofing, but slowly things are getting done.

Things to do while waiting...

No, I haven't heard anything new, but I have started trying to fit all the things I have been collecting to take to Kaz into my 2 check in bags. Traveling solo means that I have only 2 bags to take all the things I will need for the baby, gifts for all the people at the baby house, donations of clothes, socks and shoes, things for the apartment, medicine, and maybe even some clothes for me. So far, I haven't packed any clothes for me, but I have the rest of the items ready to go. Actually I have an Excel spreadsheet with multiple worksheets organized by catagory to help keep all of this straight.

Space bags are great. This suticase is already half full, but with the magic of space bags, all of this will also fit in. AND it reaches the magic weight of 48 lbs! Checked bags can only weigh 50 lbs on the flight to Kaz. The other suitcase weighs 38 lbs and is about 3/4 full so I can take up to 12 lbs of clothes for me. I am only packing 1 pair of pants(for official meetings), a court outfit and shoes(shoes are already packed), and 5 or 6 tops. So I should be ok. (Yes, I was able to fit all the stuff in the picture above in 2 suitcases and even have some room left)

I have been weighing everything on this baby scale. My brother and sister just turned 47 and this was the scale my mom used back then, so this scale is probably 47 years old and is still accurate! It is crazy when you are weighing out granola bars to determine how many you can pack, but I now know exactly how many granola bars it takes to reach 2 lbs.

All of this weight checking will not do me any good once I get to kaz and have to take the flight from Almaty to Shymkent. They weigh all luggage including your carryon bags and the weight limit is 44 lbs TOTAL! So I will be essentially buying my luggage their own seat on that flight. My carryon bag with my computer and other electronics in it weighs 28 lbs. I can't imagine ever meeting this 44 lb weight limit. The only good thing is that they charge a lot less for overweight than the US airlines do.

Packing and repacking and trying to decide what to take and what to leave has at least kept me busy. I will probably be doing this several more times as each day I think of something else that I just have to take. Hopefully, I will be able to pack these for the last time very soon.

2 months since region assignment

Well, it seems like all I post about is how long it has been since some milestone or other. Not much else going on. Just waiting. I knew August would be a long month, but it is really crawling by. 2 more weeks to go until we get to September. I could count days, minutes, seconds left in August but it still wouldn't make the time go by faster. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee I will hear anything in September either. If I don't hear something in September, then I will most likely not finish the adoption this year. Remember once you hear a travel time there are usually a few weeks until you travel then a month in Kaz, a month to 6 weeks wait and then go back to get the child. If the process continues into December, there are many holidays both early and late that will delay things. Kazakhstan seems to enjoy holidays to the fullest and you can't complete the process if the officials you need to see are on holiday. So I continue to wait and hope I hear something soon.

8 Months on 8/8/08(almost)

8 months ago today, I submitted my dossier. I just realized I hit 8 months the day before 8/8/08. I think however since Kazakhstan is 12 hours ahead of us that technically in Kaz time, I hit 8 months waiting on 8/8/08. That should be a good omen! Right?

Somedays that seems like just yesterday that I was finishing up the dossier and somedays it seems like decades ago. June and July went by fast. I had a lot going on which makes time fly. I also redid my dossier and prepared all the travel documents so it seemed like I was doing something to help the adoption progress. I don't think August is going to go as fast. I have all my documents complete now except for redoing the medical forms. There are a few things left to do, but not that much.

Kazakhstan goes on vacation in August so I don't expect to see anything this month. I am hoping to hear something in September so it will be a long month waiting for September to start.