This is a short post just to wish all of our family and friends (old and new) a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! We love you all!!! We are so thankful to have all of you in our lives and supporting us during one of the most exciting times in our lives!!!
We are also thankful to all of the adoptive families we have met during this process, and through blogging. You are all wonderful, amazing individuals and we are lucky to have you as support and sounding boards!! Best wishes to those who are completing paperwork, those who are waiting, those who are travelling, and those who are home with their children - we are thinking about you all.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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5 comments:
Thanks for the comment on our blog. I wanted to send you an email but don't see your email listed. I think you mentioned changing agencies somewhere. We are using WPA and are very happy with them so far. Of course we have only submitted paperwork, but I have read/heard such good reports about in-country experiences (which is the important part). Others' blogs I have read had good experiences with Commonwealth & Little Miracles. I have also read about some negative experiences with 2 agencies - one is out of business & the other is not. It seems like it is important to be with a well established agency that has good connections in Kazakhstan. Good luck! And, I hope you had a great holiday.
Angela
http://babygirlmakes4.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the comment on our blog! When I head read your previous post I had not idea the DCF issue had to do the agency fiasco. Hm. Scarey. What ar4e you going to do? Lets keep in touch. Suz
A big hello to you both. Thank you for following our journey here in Astana. Things continue to go quite well and as you have seen, we certainly love our little Aitugan.
As for your question about court. It is an odd experience to be sure.
You go in having been told not to worry, it will go fine, but then a little doubt sets in as things get quite official and serious. As you read, we were the only case our judge saw that day, and she had in fact come to the courthouse after regular hours just to do it for us. Because of this I had expected that she had a warm side to her, but we didn't see it.
It's not to say she was difficult, just very direct and business like. So our experience went like this:
We were led into an austere looking courtroom with inward facing desks on three of the walls, and three rows of bench seating on the other. We sat in the front row along with our coordinator, and behind us sat a representative from the child welfare services. The judge sat opposite us, the court reporter to our left, and the prosecutor to our right.
The judge as I stated was a woman, probably in her 50's while both the prosecutor and reporter were men in their 30's-40's.
We were seated in the room ahead of the judge and were asked to rise for her entrance. She then read a statement of our intent to adopt and asked if we had anything to add. At this point I just thanked her for making the time to see us after which she continued to read aloud the details of our case - the details about Aitugan's birth and subsequent abandonment. At several points the judge asked us simple statements such as have we seen her medical records, do we recognize the implications of becoming parents, etc.
Somewhere in the process we are asked to give a statement wherein the man is expected to go first, and say the most and the woman is given a chance to add comments at the end.
We were told to speak for a few minutes about who we were, why we are adopting, and other such things and as I am much better at improv than rehearsed speeches, I tried my best not to think about what I was going to say until it was time to stand and speak. It worked well, though as a consequence, I don't really know what I said. I know I began by thanking her again, went on to a bit about who we were as a couple, what we do for work, and how we came to decide upon adoption. My wife followed me with a few words of her own, but it was all quite basic.
At some point later we were asked about how we would care for the child and then the judge told Kjersten that the bulk of the responsibility in raising a child falls on the woman and was she prepared for that? Other questions we were asked included why we chose Kazakstan, did we chose Aitugan, Have we bonded with her, does she recognize us, do our families support us in adopting, who are our guardians, and will we make sure that knows she is from Kazakhstan. All quite simple and basic things.
In the end, the child welfare rep speaks on behalf of the best interest of the child and recommends that the judge rule in favor of the adoption and then the judge takes a few minutes and calls us back in to say yes. In all our process took 35 minutes and was quite simple. I hope that this helps. Take Care.
Steve
HI! I saw your comment on Jen and marshall's. what agency are you using.....
Yes I am using CHI. I have been very pleased with the agency so far but I have heard that there are many unhappy people. How far along are you?
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