OK - When we first decided to adopt, we looked into both domestic and international. One of our first meetings was with Adoption Associates based here in Michigan. We looked at domestic first then international. Once we decided on international we attended some meetings at AA(not THAT AA - the other one I'm talking about here). We soon found out that many of the international programs were closed or soon to be closed. Guatemala and Vietnam were two of the big ones. However, our first choice was China. China is a very popular country for adoption because of the amount of available children and the well organized system the Chinese government has to oversee the process. However, because of it's popularity, it takes FOREVER to get through that process. And since growing our family is something Jolynn and I wanted to start sooner than later we continued to do more research. At this point Russia was looked at briefly but I think there were some technical issues between the Russian government and various agencies here in the states.
Kazakhstan and Beyond
Jolynn found an agency that had a solid program in Kazakhstan (or Kaz ). We contacted an agency based in Pennsylvania and started talking to them. We went to some orientation meetings they sponsored here in Michigan and eventually signed with them in the summer of 2007. Kaz is a very interesting country. Formally part of the U.S.S.R. it's located between Russia and China.
Kaz also became famous when the Borat movie came out. Because of it's location, the people of Kaz share both Russian and Chinese cultures as well as other Central-Asian cultures. But this isn't a 7th grade social studies lesson so let me get back on track. At the time, a Kaz adoption required 8 weeks of in country legal stuff. What? 8 weeks? Two months? Yep. Wow. Ok, well if we have to, we have to. It looked like a really cool country to visit. I have to admit, I thought it would be awesome if we traveled there in the winter that I would have a chance to ski. I wanted to check on a couple of things with my employer to make sure being gone for that long would be ok. So I had a meeting with the bigbossman and I told him what we had planned to do. "Oh, that's great", he said. "As long as the company is here, you'll have a job to come back to." I'm paraphrasing but you get the point. They even checked into the family leave act to see if adoptive fathers qualified - they do. We forged on and started preparing ourselves to put our lives here in the states on hold for two months.
The Home Study
The home study is the cornerstone of any adoption dossier. Simply put, it's a report about your life and why you would make a good parent. An easy way to describe it is an authorized invasion of privacy. They look at EVERYTHING - family history, medical history, finances etc. We decided to use Child and Parent Services. Our first meeting was in their office. We met with our social worker and she asked us a few question together. Then she asked Jolynn some questions, then she asked me some questions. Nothing too bad, mostly family history stuff and employment. For our next meeting, the social worker came out the house. It wasn't a white glove inspection but she did tour the house then we had another round of interviews. The home study also required three letters of reference from non family members. Both Jolynn and I will always be thankful for the kind words our friends said on our behalf.
The Power of the Internet
While we were preparing our paperwork we also followed the adventures of other parents already over in Kaz thanks to the world wide web. I followed a couple of families but Jolynn really watched the blogs and messages boards like a hawk. Thank God she did too. One of the biggest risks in an international adoption is the unknown element of that countries government. Kaz was changing the rules in the middle of the game so to speak. They were really making things difficult for any adoption to take place. Eventually the travel requirement went from 8 weeks to 3 separate one month trips. That along with the growing and ever changing in-country legal hurdles made us re-evaluate our situation. We felt uneasy about the way things were going so we ended our relationship with that Pennsylvania agency. Recently, we found out that agency has gone out of business. I can't imagine what those parents are going through now.
In Part 3 we have a fresh start - almost.
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