No, Not Yet, But Hopefully Soon...

Just a quick note to give you all a bit of an update of where we are in our adoption process. At the very end of April we learned that our dossier was in the matching stage which means we are now waiting for our Letter of Invitation (LOI). No, we don't know exactly when we will get this invitation, but as always, we've got our fingers crossed that it will be soon. The LOI is an official invitation to travel to Kazakhstan to meet the child that has been chosen for us. This letter should also include travel dates, which of course, are all somewhat tentative as they are dependent upon even more paperwork, namely travel visas and arranging flights. What we do know is that we need to be prepared to travel within approximately 2 weeks after the LOI arrives. That doesn't mean that we will definately be travelling within those 2 weeks, but on the other hand, it might.

For those of you who don't know or who weren't sure, we have requested "a child of either gender, between 6 and 18 months of age with minor correctable needs". So, when we refer to matching, that means that a facilitator/coordinator in Kazakhstan is in the process of looking through the profiles of children currently in the baby houses (ophanages) that are available for international adoption who fit into this category.

I know this is all a little, or maybe even a lot confusing. Some day I will sit down and put together an entry (or 2 or maybe even 10) that does a better job of outlining the journey we, and a whole forest of documents, have taken that has brought us to where we are today. Believe us, it's a little, and sometimes a lot confusing for us too.

But for now, we wait, make lists, and obsess about reading our email as often as humanly possible....