Dossier in St.Louis

Well we turned in our dossier at the end of September and it has been in St. Louis for a couple of weeks. We have been really patient but I finally broke down and called to find out if we had any mistakes in our dossier and to find out what the status of our dossier was. I must say that Jeff got back with me right away to say that our paperwork looked great and that the translation should be complete by the end of this week and then it will go to the consulate for 8 weeks before it heads to Kazakhstan. So that puts our paperwork being sent around the first of the year or so.

We went to a Pre-Adopt class at our agency a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic. They covered re-adopting once you get back to the states, what vaccinations you need to get before you go to your country and then we got to speak with a family who just got back from Kazakhstan. They were so great with all of their information and their son is just so cute. I am thankful to all the families who have adopted from Kazakhstan! They have so much information to share and it is so helpful for those of us who come behind them.

We are also spending time searching for all the right baby equipment! We are taking it a month at a time focusing on one big item each month and purchasing it, that way we are not waiting until the end to go out and purchase everything. One thing we have spent alot of time on is looking for luggage. We really want hardsided luggage since we are traveling so far and I have had bad experiences just here in the US with my luggage getting torn up. So the last thing we want is to have our luggage ripped to shreds. We have settled on some Samsonite hardside luggage called the Flite. We looked at the 28 inch size because the 30 inch exceeds the specs and if they stop us on it at the airport we could incur some substantial fees for oversized luggage and we are not interested in that so we are taking the safe route and making sure we are under the size restrictions. When I opened up the luggage I was just looking at it thinking how am I going to fit everything into this? But I will make it work. I have had several people recommend the plastic bags that compress your clothes and you don't have to have a vacuum for them. So we will give that a try.

I think that is it for now. Thank you to all of the other adoptive families who have sent us information or answered emails. It has been great to have the support of people that you don't really know well but with who you have a bond with because of adopting from Kazakhstan. We hope that we get to come to Kazapalooza in 2009 and hopefully meet some of the people who have opened up their lives to us through their blogs.

I-171H Approval

This morning I told Dusty that we were going to get our I-171H. We have been waiting for a few weeks and I was starting to get nervous. We went about our day and after getting home from running errands Dusty went and got the mail and what do you know.....WE GOT OUR APPROVAL!!!

The paper looks so unoffical that we were wondering if it was really what we had been waiting on all this time. Kinda funny it is just a sheet of paper that says you have been granted approval to bring home an orphan. Anyway, I am going to call our coordinator to make sure that I have the right steps down for what I need to do next. I think I need to get it notarized, certified and apostilled and taken to the agency.

Anyway, this is very exciting. Without this approval the other paperwork does not matter!

We continue to talk about baby names and what items we need to get next. We are actually starting to think that this will really happen. It all seems so far away when you start the process but now it seems closer then ever. I wonder what our little boy is doing right now? He is somewhere in Kazakhstan...waiting for us.