We're expecting...

So, the big news--the main story--is this: Brent and I are expecting a baby girl. Yes, you heard it, we're going to be parents! And there's an exciting twist...she's coming to us from Kazakhstan. Actually, we're going to her. But more on that later.

Now, some of you (i.e. family members) have known about this for awhile. But others of you are probably still pulling your jaw off the floor. I know, I know, all the years of us insisting we were on the 'no children' plan. Well, we were on that plan. But then the plan changed (obviously).

The adoption process itself has been going on behind the scenes for some time--a little over a year now. We began researching countries and agencies in January 2007, but the very idea of having kids and the possibility of adoption has been under discussion/negotiation for even longer. Actually, I could name the occasion (date and exact location) where we got together and conceived our child-idea. But let's not go there--it's pretty technical, philosophically speaking.

Instead, let me sketch what the process has involved to this point. (Sorry to those of you who've heard me detail this process a gazillion times over the last months.) As I said, we spent the first months of 2007 reading books, attending information seminars, reading blogs, researching on the web, and much more. By March, we'd settled on a country and an adoption agency. Here's the how things went from there:

• Sent Application to World Partners Adoption (March 23, 2007)
• Home Study (April 7th-April 24th, 2007)
• Assembled dossier (May-August, 2007)
• Requested/Received Apostille (state seal) for all documents (August 10-17th, 2007)
• Sent complete dossier to World Partners (August 25th, 2007)
• Dossier sent to Kazakhstan for translation (August 29th, 2007)
• Translation complete (November 5th, 2007)
• Dossier sent to Kazakhstan Embassy in New York for registration (mid-November)
• Dossier sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Kazakhstan (early December)

Here's the dossier (in quintuplicate) just before we put it in the mail (yay!) with our "WPA bible". A three-ring binder containing all essential info and instructions.

We're not at all sure about the timing of things from here on out. What we can say, however, is this. At some point in the near future (i.e. next few months) we will receive an invitation to travel to Kazakhstan to meet our daughter. We will spend 6-8 weeks in country. In Kazakhstan, the adoption process begins with a mandatory 15 day visitation period, a period designed to allow for bonding between prospective parents and children. If all goes well at this stage, we will apply for a court date, which usually comes about week later. After the adoption itself is finalized, it can then take another 3-4 weeks for the paperwork, visas, etc. to be processed. Prospective parents have the option to leave after the court date (i.e. at the end of week 3) and come back again 3-4 weeks later to pick up the baby, but we're thinking we'll just stay the whole time. We'll take work with us. (Well, that and we're planning on playing A LOT of Ages of Empire.)

Anyhow, that brings us to the purpose of this blog. According our adoption coordinator, we will "very probably" be traveling to Kazakhstan "before April". (How's that for living in limbo?) Since we're going to be out of the country for something like 2 months we've decided to set up a blog as a way of keeping family and friends up to date on the "B-T baby news" while we're away. (Much cheaper and more convenient than phone calls or mass emails.)

Who knows, though, maybe we'll keep it going when we get back...