Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

Well, if you are sitting through my long blogs, at least you'll get a pretty good geography lesson :)  Did you see that?!  I made a joke!  Progress.

So, I am probably the most pragmatic and practical person in the world today (yes, I just saw those of you who know me well smirk and roll your eyes.)  It's only my artistic side that saves me, but it's often quite a battle.  On the very day that Putin signed his bill, I was a mess.  Crying at everything, in a fog, unable to cope-I'd love to say that I was a hot mess but I'm too old to really know what that means and besides, I think I was just a mess mess.  However, I still got online and started looking at other countries to adopt from.  How could I do that?!  If you've read my other blog posts about adopting from Russia, starting to look right away might seem odd to you, since it was such a long held and deeply personal dream for me.  Granted, I did not do a lot of research that day, but I did start somewhere.  And since a lot of you have asked what are plans are, here is where we are and maybe where we are going.

First, domestic adoption.  Please know that I have nothing but respect and love for people who adopt or foster children from the US, in fact, many of them are my close friends and family.  Estimates are difficult, but over a hundred thousand children were adopted domestically in 2008, so clearly there is a huge need.   I go into greater detail and passion on this issue in earlier blogs, but our reasons for choosing Russia were one, answering a call from God, and two, we both have a long connection with Russia, speak Russian, got our degrees in Russian, spent time there and have friends who are living there now. Now that Russia is not an option, we have discussed domestic adoption but for a variety of reasons do not feel like this is the right path for our family.  Adoption is an intimate decision, one that I hope will be embraced by more people. There are millions of orphans here in the US and around the world who are just waiting for love. I have friends and family who work for organizations that help orphans internationally and right here, next door to you and in school with your child.  So please, adopt. And adopt from where you feel called to adopt and remember that it is a very personal decision that no one makes lightly.

So, where would we adopt from then?  Well, our first thought was to look at former Russian/Soviet countries as those regions would probably have a lot in common with Russia and the cultural background, language, and people may all be quite similar.  Immediately I ran into problems.  One country had suspended adoptions and there had been no process for years.  Another country only allowed adoptions for school age children.  Another country only allowed adoptions for special needs countries.  Another country had a 2-4 year wait for a young boy.  Another country had a very difficult government and I'm certainly not going down that road again!  And even though both the Russians and Soviets were quite the busy little beavers in building their empires on the backs of surrounding kingdoms, I was starting to run out of countries! We have discussed older children and special needs.  Bard and I are in a pretty good place and perhaps could offer a wonderful home to a child who has very little to hope for out of life.  But we've decided not to change the girls' birth order.  This is not cut and dry, and if you feel like you can adopt an older child, please do so, there are many out there who are precious children, waiting for love.  It's just not the right decision for us, and remember, adoption is a very personal decision.  So why not special needs?  Actually, we're still talking about special needs.  But, with two young children of our own, and me needing to work part time, we do not feel like we could just take a child with any amount of needs and some countries only allow for adoptions of what they term "in-correctable special needs."  And, anyone who is adopting, especially internationally and thinks they will get a child without some level of special needs, is simply going into this with eyes wide shut.  Very likely our child will need some type of speech therapy as well as dealing with vision issues and/or development of gross and fine motor skills.  So, we are doing more research and seeing what, again, is best for our family.

Okay, that was a lot, now where are we?  We are in Bulgaria and Kazakstan?  Where?  Bulgaria and Kazakhstan.  Which is slightly humorous to me, because if you are familiar with that region, you know that those countries are on different borders of Russia.  Which, maybe for the US would not be saying a lot, but keep in mind that Russia is twice the size of the US and has 9 time zones.  So, big.  You are probably asking a fairly expected question, "Kazakh what?"  Bulgaria is a Southeastern European country, in between Romania and Greece, so maybe a bit more known.  If you can find Kazakhstan on a map, I will buy you a latte!  Kazakhstan is in Central Asia, just to the west of China and north of Afghanistan, it's huge, fairly well developed, and has a lot in common with Russia, mainly because Russia kept conquering it, one of Russia's little idiosyncrasies.  Both countries have children who need to be adopted but that is about the end of their similarities.  Culturally and historically, Bulgaria was never really part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, although Slavic peoples were influential as was communism, it would not share a lot of similarities with Russia that might be true of another neighboring country.  Kazakhstan was ruled by Russia and later by the Soviet Union and actually has a fairly large Russian population due to some rather disgusting Soviet policies but has also maintained a strong sense of its own identity, influenced a great deal, of course, by its proximity to China.  So continuing a more "Russian" route, Kazakhstan might be a better option.  However, (we're not sure yet) it appears that Kazakhstan may be quite a bit more expensive.  Largely due to the greater travel costs since it takes a minimum of 22 hours to get there (yikes!) by plane, although if we wanted to take a train, there is apparently one from Moscow that is 82 hours.  Yikes!  The cost increase is also a result of us being required to live there for a month.  Weird.  Did you hear that?  A vein in my dad's head just popped!  Yes, Kazakhstan requires a substantial bonding period between the child and prospective adoptive parents, which is actually quite good, just a teeny bit challenging.  Although apparently they have Ikea, so, there you go.  Bulgaria is just two trips, one less than both Russia and Kazakhstan (yeah, we would have to go back, twice, after that first month which means that in under a year I would spend more time in Kazakhstan than I typically do in Lakewood!)  And the trips to Bulgaria are shorter too.  But, the odds of us getting a young child, and, anytime soon, from Bulgaria are very slim.  The adoption age for Kazakhstan is 9 months, the adoption age for Bulgaria is 2 years.  And the wait is long for Bulgaria so a majority of families bring home a child who is actually 4 or 5 years old.  Unless you go the special needs route.  The wait for Kazakhstan is shorter, very similar to Russia.

Lake in the mountains south of Almaty, Kazakhstan, where Bard wants to go hiking with the girls!

A child from Bulgaria would likely be "Roma" a term which you may not be familiar with and mostly refers to an ethnic group better known here as gypsies.  Gypsy is now quite often considered pejorative and by the way, I often hear people use the term "gypped" to describe getting short changed in a deal.  This is a racist slur against Gypsies so please do not use it anymore.  And if I adopt a Roma child, and you use it in my presence, go ahead, make my day! Anyhoo.  A child from Kazakh has about the same odds of being Russian as he does of being Kazakh.  Kazakhs most often have a Central Asian appearance, so we would have a little Mongol warrior :)  But of course it's hard for me to hold on to or let go of the idea of adopting a Russian child.  And for that reason, and maybe a few more, we seem to be leaning more toward Kazakhstan and have both researched it a lot.  Just in case you thought Bard and I were alike, let me tell you how we went about our research.  Because we both love to research, pretty much anything, we both looked at Kazakhstan's history, political make up, and geography.  And from there, we diverged.  I studied Kazakh culture- visual arts, music, literature and looked up information on travel websites about living there, pictures of what it looks like, availability of items, and transportation.  And also read blogs of families who have adopted Kazakh children.  Bard, on the other hand, read the CIA fact list and researched their stock index. He contacted former colleagues who lived in Kazakhstan for their perspective (I know, I live with him, remember?!) He also found some great hiking and if we are there in the winter, a ski resort where he is planning to teach Evelyn how to ski.  Also, because he is crazy, he is super excited about the idea of living in Kazakhstan for a month!  Goodness.

There is a quirk for both of us though, that may be something and may be nothing.  Due to some obvious reasons, there is friction between the ethnic Kazakhs and the ethnic Russians, living in Kazakhstan.  Even though the Russian language is actually spoken more than Kazakh, that is not received entirely well by the Kazakhs and they work hard to preserve their identity.  So, if we adopt a child who is ethnic Kazakh and bring him back to our home, where he will grow up surrounded by Russian knick knacks, cookbooks, art work, and music, is that odd or is it fairly similar to what he would have experienced in his birth country?  And, since our history with Russia will likely be known to Kazakh adoption officials, is that a strike against us?  With either ethnicity, we would want there to be Kazakh influence, as that is the birth country.  But, it's complicated.  And no, even with having said all that, it does not mean we have ruled out Bulgaria, we just need to look into it more.  Part of me feels an intense pressure to make this decision and go.  The other part of me knows that we need to go slow, something I don't do very well.  Pray.  Process.

Somewhere, halfway across the world is my son.  I don't know what country he is in or what he looks like.  I don't know when he was born or what language he speaks.  But I know he is mine.  Hang in there baby boy, your mama is coming and once she has you, she will never let you go.