Appointment

We have an appointment scheduled tomorrow morning with our angency to look at what other options they have for us. We will also be researching other agencies and programs that still service Kazakhstan.

Round 2 of the infomation gathering and fact finding mission is about to start...

Hard News

Family & Friends,

We were informed yesterday by our agency that they are going to shut down the adoption program in Kazakhstan. We are beyond heartbroken and in disbelief. Next month will be three years since we started this journey. We were very close to going and our agency anticipated us traveling to Kaz this spring. Our agency has been experiencing some problems with recent adoptions and don’t want to send over any more families until they are able to work out the issues with the government and adoption authorities over there.
We are now uncertain what the future holds for us and what path we should start pursuing next. We have many options in front of us and many other programs to choose from. We could switch over to another International program or start looking into our Domestic options. We will meet with our agency in the next few days to go over all the options. As always, we will keep you posted as we know more.

-D&C

I am absolutely devastated. Dustin and I have worked so hard and sacrificed so much in the last 3 years. We have amazed each other with our patience and perseverance and although it is unclear why we’ve had to go through this, I hope that someday I am able to understand. Going through the adoption process isn’t for the weak of heart...it’s tough. It’s emotionally draining and the absolute hardest thing that I’ve ever had to go through. The C in Cortney stands for “Control Freak” and not being in control of all the emotions and things that are going on right now is beyond excruciating. My heart aches and is just broken. We're going to get through this...one step at a time...

Thank you all for your care and support, it really means so much to us.
-Cort

Slow news from Kazakhstan

Still no news...

Our case worker is telling us that things are really slow moving right now. We have received our updated medicals and the only thing that we are waiting on now is our FBI clearance (again)!

We are still crossing our fingers that it's in the cards for us to travel this Spring...

To be honest, I am amazed at how patient I am now and I KNOW that I needed to learn this before bringing our family home. ;)

We are doing great and are in good spirits about everything.

Sending love from our home to yours,
Cortney

PS - check out our new pictures @ www.dustncort.com

Happy 2010!

We just received positive feedback concerning our position in Petro and expect to see our Letter of Invitation very soon; likely travelling within the next few months!

While we have had almost 3 years of waiting, it feels now we're in a mad rush to prepare for our trip - frantic yet exciting!

CIS Approval

We got it, we got it!! Yesterday in our mailbox, among Christmas cards, was a letter from the CIS saying that we are approved (again)!

"It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan(s) as defined in Section 101 (B)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act."

Tomorrow we will get it notarized and get it sent to our agency to be translated! We are so pumped that we got this before Christmas - the last of our paperwork...for hopefully the last time!!

Update!!

Happy Birthday Dustin! What a great day to finally hear something about our adoption!!

What we heard today is that all of our updated paperwork was sent to the translator yesterday. Once all the documents have been translated, our updated dossier will be ready to send to Kaz! As of now, we are working towards having our dossier hand-delivered (in-country) in early January 2010. The only hitch right now is that we are still waiting on our updated CIS Approval (Immigration form needed to bring our child home to the US). We really need to get that approval back ASAP so that it can be sent to translation and not hold the process up! We are hounding our local CIS office and hope to hear something back from them soon! We are crossing our fingers and hoping to receive travel dates in early 2010!

--Cortney

Still Waiting

What's the saying, "no news is good news"??

Our changes of intent have been received in Kaz and we continue to wait patiently for our invitation to visit. We're just under 28 months from the start of our journey and hope to round the last bend any day now.

Family and friends have been the cornerstone of our sanity over this long wait and will be that much more important in months to come. For the lack of a better expression, we simply can't wait to share our experience in Kaz and this new chapter in our lives.

Cortney & Dustin