Welcome to the first entry of my new blog about my international adoption journey.  Today is a perfect day to start since it is, in fact, the sixth birthday of the little girl I hope to adopt from Kazakhstan.  I want to thank my friend Lundie for pointing me in the direction of this website and encouraging me to set one up.  I hope that it will beneficial for those who read it that are at the beginning of their own adoption process or are considering adoption.  I know that it will be beneficial for me as a form of release when I am in country and am at the mercy of the whims of fate. 

 A little bit of information about me.  My name is Amy.  I am a 37 year old single woman that lives in Illinois.  At the end of last month I made the decision to pursue international adoption.  I did the research, decided on an agency, filled out the contract, and sent in the first check….ouch!  Since that time I have been buried under a mountain of paperwork that must be filled out to meet the requirements for not only the US government but also the government of the foreign country where I will be adopting ,which in this case is Kazakhstan.  I will be periodically posting my progress with the paperwork and the funny things that will most certainly happen along the way.  I say funny because I am determined to keep my sense of humor through this whole process and just laugh at every stressful thing that comes my way.  So, I imagine I will be laughing a lot in the next coming year.  Now a little bit about the ray of sunshine waiting for me on the other side of world. 

 Like I said earlier, today she turned six years old.  I have tried to not think too much about it since if I allowed myself I would most certainly get very upset that A) I could not be there with her and B) she might not be having any kind of birthday celebration at all.  I hope when she is older she will get to read this blog and see that before I ever met her I cared about her very much.  Happy Birthday Sweetheart!