Journey to Kazakhstan
All about my international adoption from KazakhstanAmy’s Timeline for Kazakhstan Adoption
This is my timeline up until now.
TIMELINE FROM MAY 1ST UNTIL FEBRUARY 13TH
May 1st – Made the decision to pursue an international adoption.
May 1st-May11th – Spent at least 20 hours on the internet (can you say late night surfing?) investigating countries and agencies.
May 11th – Made the decision to use Adoption Ark. Emailed their representative regarding a little girl written about on their website.
May 14th – Received preliminary information about LG from Adoption Ark and was told she resided in the country of Kazakhstan.
May 14th – May 21st – Scoured the Internet for information about Adoption Ark and talked to four different families who have recently used Adoption Ark for referrals.
May 22nd – Dropped off signed contract at Adoption Ark’s offices.
May 29th – Received list of requirements for Kazakhstan Dossier – The Paperchase Begins.
May 31st – Mailed off for original copies of my birth certificates from Vital Statistics Office in DC.
June 6th – Fingerprints #1 and #2
June 19th – LG turns six years old today – Started blog
June 27th – Fingerprinting #3
July 5th – Homestudy meeting #1 at my house
July 12th – Birth Certificate arrives – FINALLY!!!!!
July 12th- Passport applied for.
July 12th – I-600A sent in to the Chicago office of USCIS.
July 12th – FBI Clearance arrives in mail
July 14th – Homestudy Meeting #1 (Take Two)
July 15th – Kaz picnic in Huntley, Illinois
July 17th – Receipt date for I-600A
July 18th – All items submitted for US requirements to adopt.
July 20th – Homestudy finished and sent in to USCIS for I-600A.
August 8th – USCIS Fingerprint appointment – Fingerprinting #4
August 14 – Passport arrives
September 11 – Sent Dossier to Adoption Ark (minus the 171-H, which is the approval of the form I-600A)
September 13th – Adoption Ark receives my Dossier
September 20 – 171-H arrives and is overnighted to Adoption Ark.
September 13th – September 30th – Dossier in translation and then back to my agency for compiling.
October 5th – Dossier sent to Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington DC.
October 15th - Dossier sent to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Astana, Kazakhstan
Sometime in November (can’t remember the date) – Alla tells me that my dossier should be being processed at the ministries.
December 17th – Alla tells me that we are waiting for my dossier to be directed to the region – because of the holidays things are slow and it is hard to get information now too – I expected this, so no surprise.
January 2nd, 2008 – Alla confirms that my dossier is at the MOE and they are in fact waiting for it to be directed to the region.
January 24th, 2008 – Alla tells me that she thinks it is going to happen soon. Feel free to comment on what you think soon means.
January 29th, 2008 – My coordinator tells me that my dossier has been released to Ust-Kamenogorsk region and that I could travel in as short as 2-3 weeks.
February 5th, 2008 - Get email copy of my LOI but with no confirmation number.
February 6th, 2008 – Overnight Visa Application to Assistant Stork courier service to hand deliver it to the Kaz Embassy get hotel reservations and make courtesy hold reservations for plane through Eldo at Golden Rule travel.
February 11th, 2008 – Get confirmation # for LOI.
February 12th, 2008 - Kaz Embassy begins processing my visa.
TIMELINE FROM FEBRUARY 14TH AND ON – AS BEST AS I CAN TELL
February 15th – Leave from O’Hare airport to travel to Kazakhstan.
February 17th – Arrive in Almaty then take flight later that day to Ust – check in at the Shiny River Hotel and collapse!
February 18th – Visit the baby houses.
February 18th to March 3rd – Two week bonding.
March 7th, 2008 – Court date
March 12th, 2008 – Fly back to USA
April 9th, 2008 – Go back for 2nd Trip
April 16th, 2008 – Back Home for Good
PASS OUT!!!!
So, with the date today being February 13th and if I travel by February 15th then that will mean it was 8 months and 3 1/2 weeks from start to first travel – and most likely 10 months and 3 3/4 weeks until I am back in the States and finished with the whole process.
That means at this point I am roughly 99.99% of the way through the process till first travel and 82% of the way through the entire process. Can you tell I am obviously obsessing about my timeframe? Can I compute something for you? You will know the true depths of my obsession if you check back here in another two weeks and I have updated the percentages.
15 Comments»
Amy wrote @
Hi Kathy! Yes, thank you, I am feeling much brighter. But it might just be all the post Halloween candy I’ve been eating. Just kidding, I finished that off weeks ago. LOL.
Yeah, I do like to compare notes as far as the timelines go – that way I am able to make a best and worst case timeline for myself – which leaves a pretty broad range – and stops me from calling and bothering my caseworker.
The thing is that I really trust her to keep me informed and I know that she would call me if there was any news no matter how small. The downside to that much trust is of course it is that much harder to rationalize calling and quizzing her on how it is going, when you know if you haven’t heard anything it is because she hasn’t heard anything.
Mountains huh? Now you are making me blush. Maybe a small hill, that sounds about right, cause I really don’t have that much arm muscle and I’m not too good with a shovel – so I would think a small hill would be about my ability level. ; ) Thanks for the encouragement!! Don’t mind me being silly. Silly is my best look.
Lundie wrote @
You are a serious inspiration, girl. I can’t wait to celebrate the (distant) memory of this time with you with much wine and dancing!!
Amy wrote @
Is there much wine and dancing as a parent?
Let’s elaborate- you are going to wish I didn’t. Considering as a pre parent I imbibe about a glass of wine (or mixed cocktail) every 3 to 4 months – with a grand total of a maximum of 4 drinks a year, I would be flabbergasted to find out that in fact my best drinking days are ahead of me. So, I was a non drinker in high school (unless you count the beer I would walk around parties with all night – I never drank more than the neck of the beer and hated even that), in college I can count on one hand the number of times I drank, and in my 20′s I was as much fun as a wet blanket, in my 30′s which are coming to an end in a few more years I have the average 3 to 4 aforementioned drinks a year – even though I constantly joke at work that I should drink in the morning just to take the edge off. But hey, who knew becoming a parent would let loose the wild woman in me!
LOL…..okay Lundie probably thinks I need a drink now! But seriously, I can’t wait to look back too!!! That is the best you know…being able to look back and go…remember when? And laugh about all the things that are causing me stess and consternation. I can’t wait either Lund!
Suzanne wrote @
Hey Amy- I’ve been putting together an xcel sheet of timelines of other AA families. Then I figured you’d already done one! Did you? If not I’ll share with you when I’m done. Is your dossier at the MoE yet?
Amy wrote @
You know I considered putting together an excel spreadsheet…..i love excel spreadsheets….what can I say….but since I wasn’t sure how I would be able to post it I kind of nixed the idea. Yup I would love to get a copy of the one that you have done when it is finished! I did a bunch of impromptu ones as I would read through another person’s blog….I would calculate their timeline in country against my current timeline….that is why I feel comfortable saying that it seems to take 2 months to go from the MFA to the MOE and then 2 months to go from the MOE to the region and then you get your LOI a month after that and travel. Although that is an average…there are plenty of people (Muriel) included that seem to have traveled sooner and then if you take a look at Kim’s timeline you see it is taking her longer than that…If I was organizing the spreadsheet I would put the most recent clients at the top of the list and work backwards since timelines can be significantly different now vs six months ago. Things change and that influences the timelines – like China and Guatemala issues so there was a wave of adopters flooding into other programs like Kaz that increased the overall amount of dossiers in play. If I were trying to compare my timeline with other people’s I would want to look at other timelines that were within six months but preferably three monhts of mine.
Amy wrote @
I have not heard if my dossier is at the MOE yet…Kim found out when hers moved forward. I think that whoever has access to this information for AA probably has sporadic access. In other words, I think occasionally she can find out where files are at in the process, and sometimes she cannot. Just think how many files must move through those offices. And I doubt they keep all of one agencies files together so it must be difficult to get info on separate files. So that is why I think Kim found out her file was at the MOE and I have not. I do assume that it has definitely gotten to the MOE at this point! But of course I do not know for certain…I do know that as soon as Alla knows something or your Maeven (did I spell that correctly?) we will be told so that makes me feel better about the whole not knowing thing. But I am hoping to hear good news after the holidays are over. I have been waiting rather patiently (as far as my caseworker is aware) since October 15th – which was the last time I got any concrete information. By the second week of January it will have been nearly 12 weeks and I am hoping to hear that it has been at the MOE for a while at that point. I have been pretty patient I think but it is funny just today – earlier in the day – I had a very strong feeling of …. okay, I am done with the waiting and the adventure of this situation….I need to go get her and be done with this part. I am trying to mellow myself out so I can enjoy the holidays. But I am not sure how much longer I can maintain my composure. I am just getting to the point where my gut is telling me that I am reaching my tolerance max.
Suzanne wrote @
if you send me the timeline files that you gathered I’ll put them into excel. I’m the queen of excell myself. I bet your dossiers at the MoE. I read the paperwork from AA about travel and expectations and it seems like they don’t know where the dossier is until it hits the region. CHI had an excel file with info that they used to tell me where we were, but we all know how that turned out!
Amy wrote @
I hate to say it but when I would write down the timeline info it was just jotted down on bits of paper. I would do one and get an idea and then the next day I would do another one (usually before I left work) and get an idea of the wait….so I never collected them together – it was my intent to do that at some point but it never happened. Sorry. Yes I got that too about AA not knowing where the dossier is until it hits the region so I am not too worried about it but it would be nice to hear something soon.
karen wrote @
I find it odd that adoption agencies don’t know where dossiers are until they hit the region. What if a dossier gets stuck somewhere and no one knows it. That’s crazy.
Amy wrote @
Yeah, I agree Karen. I don’t know exactly how it works as far as being able to garner information. Anyone out there have an idea how it all works? Feel free to clue us in.
Tasha wrote @
I’m curious.. during all this time, were you given updates about LG? ((I don’t expect you to email for a while because as I type this.. you are on the big bird to Kaz land!!))
Ziara Bierig wrote @
Amy hope all is going great with you, contact me about some links to add on recent Kazakhstan activities and how your readers can find the best agencies for their future children.
hmmm…maybe we should adopt something like your timelines for our clients…maybe it would stop the phone calls!!!!
Glad to hear you sounding chipper again…remember you have moved mountains in this process…….
ttyl!