An unwanted surprise

This will be brief, and picture-free as we forgot the camera today.

For those with an adoption in process, please note that to the best of my knowledge, the following only applies to Kostonai, and may not occur in every case. Yesterday afternoon our facilitator told us she had good news & bad news. The good news - all 3 families were assigned the same judge, and we got a judge with a lot of experience in internatioal adoptions. The bad news - someone has decided there should be a 30-day waiting period between the end of our visitation, and our court date, instead of the usual 10-14 day wait. This would have put our final court date at Dec. 16th, but this is the beginning of a week-long national holiday, so our final court date has now been scheduled for December 24th. Our preliminary hearing, however, has to be scheduled within 10 days of the end of our visitation, so it will occur on Nov. 27th. Our facilitator announced that we should plan to go home on Nov 28th, then come back for the December 24th hearing (4.5 days of travel time & $4000 in additional expense, for what is typically a 20-30 minute event). As you can tell from the previous sentence, I’m frustrated. We’re all frustrated, and scrambling to change our travel arrangements, while being told that flight availability is minimal so close to the Christmas holiday.

After the hearing on the 24th, we return back home, without Aliya. There is a15-day waiting period after the trial, in case the prosecutor wants to appeal (which has happened, but is apparently very rare). After the 15-day wait is up, our coordinator will apply for Aliya’s visa and passport, which takes 2-3 weeks. So, we will (I hope and pray) be returning a third time, end of January or early February, to bring her home.

That’s the update. A lot of details are currently up in the air, and morale is pretty low amongst the “troops.” I’ll keep everyone up to date as things get worked out. Love to all at home -t

Hurry up and wait

Our 15-day visitation period has passed, and so today our facilitator submitted our petition to adopt Aliya, and hopefully we will know tomorrow what our court date will be. Though trying not to get our hopes up, we are simultaneously keeping fingers and toes crossed that it will fall on or before Nov 30th, so we can keep our current schedule for departure on the 2nd (only one international flight per week from Kostonai). We are down to about 8.5 hours of daylight each day, and I for one am starting to feel a little stir-crazy.

Kohladna – cold. We awoke this morning to temperatures of -13C, though this afternoon it has warmed to -9C. The bitter winds & icy sidewalks have made afternoon strolls through the market less palatable, so there’s been a substantial increase in the amount of time spent reading, playing cards, and watching videos. The mood of the group is such that we’ve tried to avoid watching any movie that doesn’t feature either Jack Black, Will Ferrell, or a supernatural monster. A flu is going around the group as well, and thankfully so far Sal & I have been only mildly affected. We are taking our vitamins and drinking the special herbal tea recommended by our facilitator, which features a drawing of a 3-fold compound leaf inside a red cross, and is called “Zerde” – not sure of the translation.

And the little Aliya – she is doing well. She is starting to really like being snuggled, and for the first time today she cried after being put down (I know some day this phenomenon will be a frustration, but for now it's a triumph). I'm putting up a new video at video.yahoo.com - search for "baby Aliya ipod" I am so eager to try so many things with her, and show her so much stuff, that sometimes I feel impatient with the short, confined visits. Yet she is utterly content to sit on the floor of her little playroom with us and the other babies, and play with the same 4 toys we’ve brought her, and try to tear off my opal necklace and whack Sal’s nose and leave tooth-marks on the camera. For now at least, this is all the novelty she needs.

Thaw

Yesterday, Aliya had her first grumpy day with us (see photo exhibits a, b & c, above), likely due to some obvious and fragrant GI distress. Sal took it especially hard, because he was barely able to get a chuckle out of her, when normally he has her guffawing. She also refused to be rocked to sleep, preferring to comfort herself with fingers and blanket in her bed. We both left feeling a little down & helpless that we could not soothe her and relieve her distress.

Today she was back to her old self, greeting us both with a giant smile, laughing when she was tickled and tossed about, and falling quickly asleep in my arms at naptime, as I sang to her. Please, Powers Above, let this baby continue to be an easy sleeper, at least for another couple of years – two consecutive bedtime battles each night may take more energy than I have.

Overall, Aliya is becoming merrier and merrier, possibly because the caretakers have recently started making Sal wear a kerchief at meal times – initially, as a man, he was spared, but no longer. Aliya is not the only one giggling at the sight, the caretakers are highly amused (perhaps that’s why they started making him wear it).

The days continue to shrink exponentially, and it is now just barely daybreak when we arrive at the baby house at 9AM. Temperatures have climbed to above freezing today, and everything is damp and muddy from the thaw. Sadly, we both are recovering from a restless night’s sleep, so we may miss out on cavorting in the balmy 36F temps, due to intense nap-o-philia. Then again, the forecast for Thanksgiving has a high temp of -12C, so we should probably do our best to enjoy the thaw while it lasts.

November seems to be wedding season in Kazakhstan – on the weekends, we see a car decorated for a wedding drive by every 10 – 15 minuets, no exaggeration. Our hotel has hosted a wedding each weekend, and they are protracted 2-day affairs, with dancing, music and eating late into the night each day. I would love to put on my only dress and sneak inside, ala Wedding Crashers, but while my round face, blue eyes & Russian name fit in well here, my frumpy & sensible Earth Shoes would give me away in a heartbeat.

Well, Sal is napping away as I type, and the bed is beckoning to me as well. So much for frolicking in the thaw. Love to all back home -t

Happy Tenge Day!

Today is Tenge Day, the day in which we celebrate the adoption of the new Kazakh national currency in 1993. Since we feel compelled to go downstairs and celebrate, here are pix of the beautiful baby, free of rambling text. She let me rock/sing her to sleep in my arms today. I melted into a giant heap afterward. She is truly the sweetest tiny creature I have ever been blessed to cuddle.

Selected Commentary

Well, having fallen into a routine, there seems to be less to report on a daily basis. So, in the spirit of the David Sedaris & Stephen Colbert that I’ve been reading in the evenings, here are some random observations:

Comments on Aliya: We were asked to give a definitive spelling of her name, and our translator felt that Aliya was most consistent with the Russian spelling, so that’s what we chose. So, she can now be formally unveiled as: Aliya Lucia. Our baby house visits have been extended to 2.5 hours each morning. She has really loosened up with us, and greets us with a smile each morning. Overall she’s a serious, quiet, contemplative kid (like her mom), but prone to abrupt bursts of cackling (also like her mom). She’s ticklish. She smells like baby and sweetened gruel. She loves music, and cannot listen without kicking her feet in excitement - a dancing fool in the making. She loves books, and tries to grab the pictures out of them. She looks, (and at times acts), like a sumo wrestler. She feels that I need a nose-ectomy, and I have the scratches to prove it. She needs her nails trimmed.

Comments on the weather:

When we headed out to the market this morning, it was about 30F, overcast, with a light flurry. We all got excited and exclaimed, “Wow it’s so nice out today. I can’t believe how warm it is!” That pretty much says it all. I have learned the hard way to not go outside without tights under my jeans. Never again do I want to experience the feeling of walking on numb stumps. Tangentially – the sun begins to rise ~ 8:15AM, and sets ~ 5:45PM. Which gives us an extra disadvantage in the fight against jet-lag.

Comments on the food: We are eating well. Breakfast is Daily Cereal and Bread with Cheeses at the hotel restaurant (if we win the daily battle against jet lag) or instant oatmeal in our room (if we lose). Lunch is typically an epic affair with the entire group. All the restaurants (or at least the ones that will have us) are equipped with a hidden parlor style room, in which the group of awkward and unfashionable Americans can be sequestered. There is always a coat room, necessitated by the fact that while it is always frigid outside, the city steam plant makes sure it is always ~ 80F inside. There is one menu, always 6-10 pages long, which is typically read to us in its entirety by the translator. That, and the fact that we are neatly tucked away out of sight, means that we don’t even order our meal til ~30 minutes after our arrival. Meals always start with a salad (yesterday I tried “vitamin parade”, which was shredded cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes, + kernels of corn, with oil). For Sal & I, the salad is typically followed by a “garnish” (fried potates, mashed potatoes or rice pilaf) or soup (borscht, salmon soup, mushroom soup). Occasionally, we get a salmon kebab, which is incredibly tasty. For the rest of the group, salad is followed by garnish, soup, and large chunks of mutton, horse, or beef, either stewed, dumpling-ed or kebab-ed. And then dessert – either ice cream (served in neat cubes) or a pastry, often cake drizzled in condensed milk. So far our clothes still fit, probably because much of what we is unfamiliar that it goes shooting through our systems in record time. Most of the restaurants have MTV playing in a corner, and at least once per meal we’re able to enjoy the site of Britney Spears doing her pole dance. Due to the enormity of lunch, dinner usually consists of in-room snacking. We’ve amassed a large pantry of munchies from the open market – dried apricots, apricot cookies, apricot tea, apricot yougurt, cherry juice, olives, ramen noodles, black-bread crackers, fancy chocolates, pickled cauliflower, pickled cabbage, pickles, mushroom chips, cottage cheese bars, cans of tuna. And lots of chechel (the smoked, salted string cheese that we will be importing on our return, to fund our early retirement). Alas, the 16 oz jar of peanut butter brought from home will not last the trip.

Comments on drink: Vada with gas, vada nyet gas. Depending on the mood. Baltika 0-9. Any given establishment will likely only have a few different numbers at a time – but the grocery store has the full assortment. I can’t even drink more than half a glass of the 7 without getting a little loopy. Sal on the other hand, can hold his Baltika 9. The grocery store also has an entire aisle for vodka. We have been using it to clean dishes & toothbrushes, as it’s cheaper than bottled water. We also indulged in a few shots, (well, only a half-shot for me) at one of the fancier dinners, and it was icy smooth.

Comments on the Sal Phenomenon: (Poor Sal does not want me to include this – he’s bashful about his Phenomenon & speculates that it may not exist at all – but I can’t help but include it, because it’s too adorable). It appears that the Sal Phenomenon transcends cultural and language barriers. For those unfamiliar with it, the Phenomenon refers to Sal's unique ability to make women in general (and especially me) gush, giggle and babble when in his presence. Here, the phenomenon means that he gets extra attention from the bellydancers at dinner; he and he alone is predictably able to get a zerberty belly laugh out of Aliya with each visit; and he has accrued a fan club of Kazakh women at the open market, who eagerly rush out to see him when one of them notes our approach. The first time we met them, one of the older women rushed behind her booth and dragged out her young daughter, for Sal’s approval, then forced her to speak the 3-4 words of English she knew (poor thing). I am fairly certain I know the source of his transcendant Phenomenon, but can’t prove it because our Russian dictionary has omitted the word for “dimple.”

Well, there it is, an extra-long entry to make up for the days of blogging I missed. At this point, we are waiting to be assigned our court date, most likely in early December, though we’d admittedly be thrilled if it was sooner. After court, we are legally Aliya’s parents, but have to come home without her and await the processing of all the paperwork and the obtaining of her paperwork.

Thanks again to everyone for the comments. I’d like to send individual emails, but the dial up internet (31.2 kb/sec) is so frustrating that I end up giving up each time I log in. So let me say here that we love and miss all of you back home, and are so grateful for all the love and support you’ve been sending us during our adventure. We are so blessed in so many ways!!!! Best wishes to all -t

The Laugh

The Buddha Baby has finally elected to bless us with her belly laugh. Man, it may be the greatest sound I've ever heard. I'm going to try to upload it here, but if you don't find it, it means I gave up and loaded it to the yahoo site (video.yahoo.com) - search for "Alea laugh".

By the way, some of you have astutely noticed that I'm experimenting with spellings of Ahlea Alia Ahlia Alea Alya Ahlya. Anyone wanting to cast a vote on this in the comments section, please feel free. The goal is to find a spelling that most makes you want to pronounce the name AH-lee-ah. The current spelling is in cyrillic alphabet, so the letters don't translate, leaving us free to experiment with wreckless abandon.

At some point I need to write a post about daily life as an American in Kostonai, but today is not that day. Suffice to say that I had a new experience today, after an hour or two of wandering around the open market (our afternoon activity of choice - think of the Moroccan casbah, but with all the merchandise imported from Chess King & Ladybug stores). But back to the experience - I lost feeling in my feet, which I had foolishly clad in only socks and shoes, instead of my wool-lined boots. I could feel the pressure on my leg with each step, but could not actually feel my feet. Fortunately, no permanent damage done - but can you imagine this is only autumn here? How do all the homeless cats & dogs survive the winter?

Delphin Baby House

The Baby House is remarkable. One of our fellow travelers took a video during the tour our first day, which is the only way to really do it justice. But I’ll do the best I can with words.

Delphin Baby House is the home for orphans ages 0-3 years, for Kostonai and the surrounding region. The entire staff is female, including the director (Dr. Irinia, a physician), the pediatrician, a nursing staff, a massage therapist, and a music teacher. Not only is the staff responsible for both the daily and medical care of the babies, but they shop for and prepare all the meals, do all the laundry, do all of the interior decorating following the frequent expansions, (including painting and wallpapering the rooms in cheerful colors), and even make hand-made pillows to give to adoptive parents as gifts.

Babies are grouped together by age, and each age group has a bedroom, a playroom, and a bathroom, suitable to their age. Ahlia’s room, for babies aged 6-12 months, is equipped for 12

children, but currently houses only 6, with 2 caretakers present at any given time, plus visits from the various nursing staff. They each sleep in their own small crib, but share space in one of 2 playpens in the play room. The most coveted “hang out” spot is the bouncy chair, which is suspended by a rotating hook, and allows the babies not only to bounce, but to become airborne and fly about the corner. Since there is only one bouncy chair, the babies must take turns, and while they do so they are either in a little walker chair (most of them being too little to reach the floor, so the chair remains stationary), or in a play pen. At any given time, at least one or two are being changed, fed, held, walked outside (in a snowsuit that rival’s Maggie Simpson’s and deprives the baby of all mobility) or massaged. While there are many toys available, they mostly remain on the shelves. We’re not sure why, perhaps because the caretakers attention is always absorbed by the baby they are currently tending, and they don’t want to risk the unwatched babies choking or destroying something. This is our best guess. At any rate, when we arrive each day to put Ahlia on the blanket, surrounded by a smorgasbord of toys, she cannot stop playing, handling, squeaking, biting, throwing them. When it is time for our visit to end, the babies go down for a nap, and each gets a freshly autoclaved binky.

We only had a brief look at the older children’s rooms, but they do more structured activities, and are often walking through the halls in groups, holding hands, most seem like they can’t be more than 18-24 months old. When they pass us, they will begin to say “Mamas y Papas, Mamas y Papas”, (sometimes prompted by the caregivers, sometimes spontanesouly on their own) and will get very excited. I inevitably get all teary eyed as I return their smiles and waves. I am tearing up now as I type about it. It is almost unbearable.

Before entering the living quarters, all new children spend their first 3 weeks at the baby house. They are kept in quarantine while awaiting test results for HIV, Hep B, salmonella, dysentery, typhus, and a few other ailments, and watched for signs of disease. In quarantine, the care is provided solely by nurses, no caregivers. There is room for 4 children at once, each space sealed. Dr. Irina told us that new children come every Monday, but for the last 2 Monday’s, no children have arrived. She is hoping that perhaps this is a sign of real change, as the country’s economic status continues to improve. Another sign of this change is the “hope room”, an initiative started by the current “first lady” of Kazakhstan. This program allows babies to come to the baby house from ages 0-3, without being placed up for adoption. Their biological mothers can visit anytime, and spend as much time as they like with the babies. Once the mothers are ready, the babies can go back home. The program is only open to young, single mothers with first time pregnancies, and about 50% of the children in the program actually return home eventually.

The Baby House also has a music room, a ballroom (where we had our initial meeting with the babies), a newly renovated kitchen where all meals are prepared (but no cafeteria – all the children are fed in their living areas), an infirmary with a collection of medical equipment that was wholly unfamiliar to me, a “salt room” where children at risk for respiratory infections spend time as a preventative measure, a sauna (really) and an indoor pool (yes, really). All the children visit the sauna and pool once weekly and we’re told that as a result, the toddlers can swim at a rudimentary level. Outside there is no real playground, but there are a series of brightly colored “cages” (for lack of a better word) where children can sleep during the summer when it is too hot inside, and a large play yard.

Every room of the baby house is decorated with fancy linoleum, wallpaper and curtains (handmade by the caretakers, of course), and is filled with toys (mostly gifts from adoptive parents), and the walls are covered with photos of children from their post-placement reports (the reports that adoptive parents must file annually until their child reaches age 18, to help assure the powers that be that international adoption is a positive thing for these kids). The décor is modest, but it is cheerful and extremely child friendly. The caretakers are kind, and the babies in Ahlia’s room light up when the caretakers speak their names. All in all, it is a remarkable thing to behold.