Our International Adoption Journey

Hello all! This is the first time that I have ever done any "blogging".....if that is even a real word? So please be patient as this is all new to me :).

I wanted a place to go where I can tell of our adoption journey and people who want to can follow along. The hard part is going to bring everyone up to speed as our journey actually began in November of 2007.

My husband, Thomas, and I had talked of adopting on and off for many years. I have a 22 year old son, Derek, from a previous marriage. Thomas and I have two children together, Kalista, 9 and Jager, 3. After having Jager and because of my age, we decided that I would have my tubes tied. Of course, shortly after that (Nov. 2007), I wanted to have another child! Thomas and I prayed about this and basically left it in God's hands. Financially, it was a huge chunk of money that we didn't have at the time. Ironically enough, soon after Thomas ended up getting a raise at work with quarterly bonuses! So now it all begins, but where do we start?

We have several friends in Montgomery that have adopted so I approached them. One of our friends had just finished their second (Russian) adoption with an agency. They seemed very pleased so I contacted that agency. Thomas and I knew that we definitely wanted an International Adoption. Originally, we really wanted a little girl from China. After talking with the agency, we were informed that China was taking approximately 4 years from beginning to end. We did not want to wait that long so we asked what other options we had. The agency told us about Kazakhstan. I had never heard of that country and had no idea where it even was. After researching it, we decided we were going to sign up with that agency and adopt a little girl from Kazakhstan! We sent all the paperwork in and began the mounds of additional paperwork, fingerprinting, home study, doctor visits, background checks.....you name it in January 2008.

In May 2009, we get a phone call from our agency saying they have a 2 year old little girl waiting for us in Kazakhstan. Basically, can we travel in less than two weeks. We had to make two separate trips to Kaz. The first trip being gone for approximately 5 weeks in Kaz. During that five week time, we would complete our bonding time and go to court. We then would come back to the US for about 1 month and then travel back to Kaz to complete the adoption and bring our daughter home. We had mixed feelings, not on the adoption, just the unknown of what we were about to encounter. The following is what I journaled while in Kazakhstan.

(Additional pictures are posted on my fb page under photo album named Kazakhstan 2009.)