Sports Camp, August, and the Story Behind the Wait

Bard and Evie at Sports Camp

It's been exactly one month since my last blog post.  Our lives have been a whirlwind but unfortunately not a whirlwind of adoption movement :(  I thought it would be good to let you know what we've been up to, what we're looking forward to, and although I haven't mentioned it before now, what's behind all the delays.

Last week I finished my biggest work event of the year-Sports Camp. Over a hundred and fifty children from the community came and played all week with us; it was awesome!   Bard volunteered, along with 140 other volunteers and Evelyn was old enough to participate as well, which she loved!  But, it meant a sitter every night for Cici, doubling my work hours for the month of July, and after all the stress, now our whole family is sick :/

A lifetime ago, I had imagined getting "the call" while preparing for Sports Camp.  Because, I originally thought our dossier would be turned in sometime during June and hoped to have a referral by the end of July. That was pretty optimistic, even for me, and as time went on we realized that we probably would not even be submitting our dossier this summer.  So, then I just hoped to hear Kaz would open this month, and for a brief time, it looked like that might actually happen in the middle of July.  There are a few officials in Kaz who were ready to sign off on the reopening of US adoptions and on July 11th and 12th I was holding my breath and checking my email every few seconds.  But, the 12th came and went with no opening and the officials went on vacation.  Until the first week of August.  They must not have realized that if they had opened on the 11th they would have given me the most incredible birthday present ever!!  Kaz, like many European and Asian countries, has way better vacations for its employees than we do, a fact that has never been more upsetting than now.  So, in my mind, if they are on vacation until the first week of August, they should be back at work Thursday, I'll give them a day to respond to all their emails, and then the country reopens Friday, right? Well. Perhaps not.  So, I'm in limbo now, for another 3 days.  Then on Friday I begin my climb into hope again. August is hope month.  Hope for a quick reopening.  Hope for the fastest ever dossier assembly, translation, and submission.  Hope for a baby.

Every other adoptive family knows what we're going through-the constant cycle of delays, hope, and more work.  That's why the reason for the delay is all the more frustrating.  We found out sometime in spring what the hold up was but I debated sharing it because, well, I'm honestly not sure why, it just seemed  awkward. If you do a tiny bit of research, you can discover the reason yourselves, and there have been articles recently in the international news.  So, since it's kinda out there, I figured I may as well share, from our perspective. The short story is that every adoptive Kaz family is required to submit yearly reports, until the child is 18 years of age. When you first begin your adoption process, you are made aware of this fact and often pay up front for many of the reports-which is what we did.  Now, about a year ago, there was quite a hullabaloo regarding a ranch (oddly, just a few states over from where we live) that took in high risk internationally adopted children. Apparently there was a licensing disagreement with this ranch and local government (read between the lines or google it for yourself) and the Russian government got involved due to some of their adopted children being at the ranch.  Tip-if the Russian government is criticizing someone's care of children with special needs, that is a bad-almost to the point of being ridiculous- sign.  Turns out, there were Kaz children at the ranch as well and turns out, those families had not filed their reports.  Turns out, that made the Kaz government quite upset-and rightfully so in my opinion!  As I've said before, Kazakhstan has an adoption process that is quite a bit more stringent than other countries.  You could be cynical and argue why they operate in such a manner.  But I've read many adoptive Kaz blogs and I truly believe they care greatly for their orphans.  Kazakhstan is unique when compared to many other Central Asian and Former Soviet Union Countries.  Their economy, government, and unity differs from countries around them and is due to a variety of reasons, some of which go back centuries and some of which stem from how Kazakhstan's leaders ushered their country out from under the fall of communism.  I'm reading a fascinating book right now that details that journey, The Lost Heart of Asia by Colin Thubron.

In any case, the Kazakhstan government said that they would not reopen to US adoptions until those families were found and the reports updated.  So began the great game.  Finding the families, getting them to schedule the social worker's visits, filing the reports.  That was early May and by the end of June, both families had filed their reports.  Early July, the reports had been read by Kazakhstan government officials and were seen as favorable. Holding breath. Officials gone on vacation.  Exhale.  If only, if only, if only. Since this is the 2nd or 3rd time in our process that there has been an externally imposed wait period, in which I had no adoption activities to busy myself with, I've noticed a pattern. So for the last few weeks, and probably at least the next few days, I've just stopped.  Stopped haunting my email. Stopped checking adoption forums every day.  Stopped searching for new blogs.  I've had a swarm of work to keep my slightly distracted.  But now I can sense the tide changing again.  In almost a physically charged manner, I'm being pulled back into the hope cycle and am ready to dive, again, into the waves of unknown.  I'll find another Kaz blog and read it start to finish. Daydream about the news of reopening.  Lay out the steps for completing our dossier. Finish The Lost Heart of Asia.  Try my hand at cooking traditional Kazakhstan cuisine (does anyone know where I can get mutton?!)  In essence, immerse myself in Kazakhstan as much as I possibly can until I can actually be in the country itself.

So there you have it. I have high hopes for August.  High, apple pie hopes for the actions of a few people, for a country to reopen, for a dossier to be completed and for all the intricacies involved in those momentous steps to fall delightfully in place before my waiting eyes.  C'mon August, don't let me down!